The large freezer style of ziplock bags are extremely useful. They are not however that cheap and if you are like me, you use a lot of them. To avoid putting more plastic into the landfill and to save costs I try to find a use for as many of the bags as possible.
One thing I do is to wash out the ones still in great condition and then fill them with water. I then put the bags in the empty spots of my freezer. It takes more energy and therefore more money to keep a partially full freezer cold than it does a full freezer. By putting in bags of water, they take up space and keep your energy bill for it lower. If I need the space in my freezer, I just transfer the frozen bags of water to the fridge. This cools down the temperature of the fridge, reducing energy costs there.
In the summer it gets even better though, because in stead of buying bags of ice, we have nice blocks of ice in the freezer ready to go that didn’t really cost us anything. We use these bags of ice in the cooler we keep by the pool, bring on the boat or bring to a friends house, sports game etc. When we are done, we just take the bags out of the cooler and transfer them back to the freezer.
Don’t be hesitant to reuse items like ziplock bags. Just because they were designed for one use purposes, as long as they are clean and in good condition there is no reason you can’t use them over and over again until their usefulness has expired.