Plastic pollution is a serious problem. With ocean gyres of plastic, growing concerns about microplastics and a single-use plastic ban theoretically on its way, it?s a great time to be more mindful of how much plastic you use (and throw away) every day.
And, while many people are investing in reusable products with an eye to becoming zero-waste, cutting back on how much new plastic you buy is a great first step to reducing your plastic dependency. Here are a few thrifty ways to re-use the plastic you already have.

How to reduce some of the waste that comes with having kids It?s pretty common to use larger plastic grocery bags to take out garbage. Hopefully you?ve made the switch to reusable grocery bags already, but even then, there are still so many other unavoidable plastic bags that inevitably pop up. For example, in eastern Canada, the litre-sized bags used for milk aren?t recyclable everywhere, and most of them will inevitably end up in a landfill. Don?t overlook those?use plastic bread bags, milk bags, or those flimsy produce bags (which are also sometimes difficult to recycle) for anything from scooping up dog poo to lining compost bins. Photo: iStockphoto
As colanders and work-lunch containers
Unless you have the means to shell out for local berries in paper baskets, you?ll probably wind up with lots of plastic clamshells. Give them a second job by washing your fruit in it or using them to carry easily bruised fruit like peaches for work lunches or picnics. Or, if ...