I'm sure in your home, just like in ours, you keep reusable food containers that were supposed to be disposable after their first use, butter dishes, cool whip containers, plastic ice cream containers, peanut butter jars, and take out dishes. We often use them inside until the lids are broken or misplaced and then they find their way out to the animals for feed scoops, water dishes, and slop containers.
In my mind the best thing about these containers is that if they contain something nasty or that goes bad, we can just toss the whole container, knowing it "paid for itself" through the extra uses. (Ok, I'm sure some of you are upset that I said toss it and not recycle it. We'll get to my philosophy on recycling another time.)
Did you know you can get disposable containers that are sturdy enough to use over and over again, but cheap enough to not feel bad about discarding them when their usefulness has come to an end? The best way we've found is to buy plastic quart and pint containers from Chinese food take out restaurants. They sell the whole case at wholesale price to you, $40/500 containers (I believe that was what we paid for the last bunch). 500 containers is a lot, but if you split the case amongst friends, that's pretty cheap, $0.08 each . Be sure to talk to the restaurant owner/manager and make arrangements in advance so they have enough on hand. I'm not guaranteeing you'll find every restaurant willing to sell you containers, but ask around and you might find one that will.
**There is no recycling in the county in which I live, so we do what we can, but re-use is the most environmentally friendly thing to do anyway.
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