Kitchens offer many opportunities for upcycling and repurposing and today I hope to inspire you with some ideas that can save you money too.

Brown paper bags, although they are reusable, recyclable and compostable, can also be a help in the kitchen. Cut a clean paper bag to lay flat, inside up, on a large cooling rack. Place freshly baked cookies on paper to cool; the paper will absorb excess grease and the used paper bag will remain compostable.

Both plastic bags and aluminum foil can be reused multiple times before being recycled; hand wash, dry and store until needed. Once they have been in contact with the meat, discard them; recycling centers don’t want them either. Once a large plastic bag leaks or the zipper fails or something like that, they can be cut to form a sheet. This can be used as a sheet for craft and kitchen projects or as a temporary cover for starting garden seeds. Alternatively, if the sheet is very clean, you can use it instead of wax paper for freezing purposes, such as separating meat or vegetable patties. And did you know that wax paper is compostable?

Speaking of wax paper, consider washing the liners on wax paper cereal, cookie, or cracker boxes. Once the wax paper ‘bag’ is completely dry, use a sharp pair of scissors and cut off the seam and ragged edges so you have a clean sheet. At this point, you may want to go ahead and cut the sheet into 3″ square pieces. They don’t have to be perfect squares. You may have other uses that call for 4″ squares or you may want to store a few full sheets. also. Store it in a self-sealing zipper plastic bag in the cupboard where you have muffin tins and rolls of foil or plastic wrap. Store clean aluminum foil the same way.

Having the squares or sheets on hand, ready to go when you need them, stretches your budget a bit more because you’ll have to buy fewer boxes of foil, plastic wrap, and wax paper. Picture in your mind all the boxes, little metal strips to tear the sheets off the roll, the cardboard roll itself, and all the time shopping to get these various rolls of items in your closet. Reusing them means much less packaging, less stuff to buy, less waste, and less time spent at the grocery store. Reusing really pays us back for the effort we put in.