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Everyday swaps

Silicone or glass instead of zip-lock bags

A reusable silicone bag replaces hundreds of zip bags, but silicone itself is not recyclable or biodegradable, so buy few and keep them.

Swap out
Single-use zip-lock bags
Swap in
Reusable silicone bags or glass containers
Impact
3 / 5
Cost
2 / 3
Effort
1 / 3
Grams of plastic avoided per person per year
500
Break-even
A A$20 silicone bag replaces about 100 zip bags
Watch out for
Silicone is not plastic-free, not biodegradable and not recyclable for consumers; it ends in landfill, so buy only what you will use for years.

Replace single-use zip bags with a couple of reusable silicone bags or glass containers for freezing and packing snacks. Wash and reuse them for years.

A zip bag weighs about 5 g; two a week is roughly 500 g a year. Silicone is a silicon-oxygen polymer, not a carbon-chain plastic, and does not fragment into microplastics as readily.

The catch: silicone does not biodegrade and consumer recycling is effectively unavailable, so it only makes sense as a durability swap that displaces many single-use items. Glass containers are the fully recyclable option.

Page updated 22 September 2026. How we check sources