In my endless quest to declutter, I've been slowly and stealthily been overtaken by that dastardly fiend...plastic ware. I have a huge cabinet that has been named, "The Plastic Place," but not even that cabinet can contain the "Plastic Lids." Oh no!  Those have been delegated to a deep drawer.

In the last couple of weeks, I have become increasingly aware of the Tupperware Takeover. People will leave butter tubs that they had brought over, full of snacks for Bible study. I have melted a few lids. A couple of pieces of plasticware have become so old and pitted that they will never be clear and clean again. I couldnt' open the lid drawer anymore. When I opened the Plastic Place, bowls and dishes would tumble out and roll to the end of the kitchen. Then end of my rope came when I attempted to find the lid to Darren's coffee cup, so he could sip hot coffee on a cold and icky drive to work. It took me half an hour to find that lid in the drawer. It was crazy.

I had to do something.

The problem was, Mom had given us a lot of that plastic ware, and Darren and I were both kind of emotionally attached to it. I had to get over that. So did he. Once we came to the conclusion that it was just abandoned plastic, that made the job emotionally acceptable.

Yesterday was the big day. I wish I had taken pictures.  First, I took out all of the bowls, and divided them into categories. Butter tubs, round bowls, and square containers.  Next, I emptied the lid drawer. I found lids from restaurant cups, old plastic kids and krazy straws from Quick Trip and Sonic. Pieces of water bottle lids. plastic I didn't recognize. Again, I divided the lids into round, square, and cups.

Next came the daunting task. I had resolved that there was NO REASON to keep plastic containers that didn't have matching lids. So one by one, I found the containers that had matching lids. I put the rest into an "ooopsie" pile. Two hours later, all containers and lids were matched. I had a decent pile of mismatched oddities. I placed the lids in the drawers. Not only do they fit, but I can actually close the door without shoving!  I am going to find a way to fashion dividers so that I can put coffee lids in one section, round in another, and square in a third. I just don't know how I'll do that yet. Frankly, I'm too sick of plastic to figure it out right now.

At the end, I stacked the plasticware. I have three large round containers, that have lids that don't fit into the drawer.  I nested them into each other, with the lids on them, in the back bottom shelf. Next, I nested my mixing bowls, collandars and steamers. I stacked the small rounds, small rectangulars, large rounds and large rectangulars together, and placed them how it makes sense to me. On the top shelf, I have my butter bowls and a plastic tray to hold the lids. I also have my plastic party bowls that I use for informal entertaining. It works great, and there are no longer avalanches when I open the cabinet! 

We have a week until recycling day, so if we should happen to need to rescue any of the bowls to hold things like nails, screws, etc, that can happen.

Does anybody know if you can recycle plastic bowls?