50 Bags of Plastic

Time for some S&M.

Sandwich bags and math.

Ah, lunchtime. One of my favorite times of day. Closely followed by dinner. And then dessert.

Nothing makes me happier than opening my lunch bag, and digging into my neatly packaged plastic sandwich and snack bags.

But then I started thinking...about math.

Math doesn't make me happy. Math makes me sad...and a lot of the times confused.

Let's do some math together.

In my cupboard I have three types of Ziplock bags. (Technically they're not Ziplock. They're generic. Because if I'm going to destroy the environment, I don't want to spend an arm and a leg to do so.)

I have a box of:
-40 gallon bags
-50 quart bags
-50 sandwich bags

The one I use the most of is sandwich bags.

Let's say I use at least one sandwich bag every day for lunch, five days a week.

That means I go through 20 sandwich bags in a month.

In one year, I use 240 sandwich bags.

That doesn't seem like TOO many. But it doesn't account for days I use sandwich bags for other things, like snacks, leftovers, etc.

I live in a four-story apartment. Now let's pretend these numbers are the same for everyone else that live on my floor. I believe that's 8 other apartments. And for the sake of my argument, there's one person living in each apartment. (Sorry, Brian. I still love you!)

Collectively we use 1,920 sandwich bags a year.

Oh, but wait. There are 3 other floors in my building.

That's 7,680 sandwich bags. In one year. Just ONE type of bag. In just ONE building. In ONE apartment complex. In ONE city. In ONE county. In ONE  state. In ONE country.

(Whoops. Wrong Anastasia...but a far superior one.)

That's insane.

Now can you see why I hate math?

The obvious solution is to just stop eating.

Lolz.

Don't worry. I found a better solution!

But first, time to stop with the 50 Shades pictures. I want to encourage readers to pack an eco-friendly lunch...not lose their lunch.

Okay, I lied, one more.

NOW I'm done.

Seriously. Onto reusable sandwich bags!

If you're crafty, they're easy enough to make. (Well, according to this DIY video)

Or if you're not crafty, like me, you can simply buy them.

I purchased mine from the following company:

https://www.amazon.com/Bumkins/b/ref=bl_dp_s_web_2586521011?ie=UTF8&node=2586521011&field-lbr_brands_browse-bin=Bumkins

But you can also find "homemade" ones on Etsy.

The ones I ordered from Amazon came quickly, and I was super excited to start using them.

However, as I kind of suspected, they came packaged in a plastic bag. Sigh. I seriously can't win.

I guess that is one drawback of online shopping. But there sure are a lot of pros...

As you can see, I only picked out the most...um...mature...patterns.

And also, I like how they have a picture of a kid on them to remind you you're getting old, so you should probably start popping out babies, like, yesterday.

Okay, fine. These reusable sandwich bags are generally geared towards kids. But that doesn't mean adults can't use and enjoy them, too!

The size of these bags were really good. The sandwich bag is bigger than a plastic sandwich bag, which was nice. The snack size also held a good amount of chips, but not enough to make me feel like I'm not going to fit into my wedding dress in June.

Some of the Amazon reviews stated they didn't keep food fresh long-term, but I didn't have that problem. Sometimes I pack my lunch in the morning, sometimes I pack it in the evening. It all depends on my level of laziness.

The first morning I used them, I packed my lunch around 7 a.m. When I got to work I put it in the fridge and ate at 1 p.m.. I didn't have any problems with my food getting stale. My sandwich was fine and my chips were still crisp.

I prefer packing my lunch the night before because I enjoy sleeping in until the last possible second. When I did that, I didn't notice my sandwich or chips being any staler (is that a word?) than usual. Maybe the key is keeping in it the fridge until lunchtime...

I even put the snack bags to the ultimate test when I used one to store cinnamon twists from Taco Bell for a few hours. They retained their crunch, which made me happy. I'm pretty easy to please.

I wanted to see how waterproof they were, just in case I one day put something in that could leak or held some moisture. So, I decided to conduct a little experiment. (Okay, as I'm writing this, I for the life of me can't remember what I was thinking when I conducted this experiment but whatever. Just go with it.) Anywho, I filled the bag with water and, surprisingly, none of the water leaked through the fabric. But as you can see below, when turned on its side, water did leak out of the zipper. I guess what I'm saying is you can probably put something like fruit in it, but you shouldn't use it as an alternative to a water bottle.

They were also really easy to clean. I just used a sponge and rinsed it inside and out. You can also put them in a washing machine if you want to clean them thoroughly.

**After I started writing this post, I did run into one issue. I'm already down 1 of my 4 reusable bags. While it was drying in the dish rack at work, the kitchen was cleaned. Unfortunately, my Minnie Mouse bag is now MIA. I am little disappointed, because it was $8, which isn't exactly cheap. Hopefully it'll turn up, but I'm not holding my breath.

Do these bags completely eliminate my need for plastic sandwich bags? No. But it's a good start. And you have to start somewhere.

You're welcome.