28 Day Cleaning/Organizing Challenge (Day 17 - Plasticware)

If you are anything like me, there's a drawer/cabinet in your kitchen that looks like this:
 

If you had seen this drawer over the years, there would have been every make and model of plasticware known to man in here.  Didn't matter, if we'd used the product (like margarine) or received it as a to-go (fast food), our house kept that plasticware for future reuse.  Thankfully, those days are long gone.  No more trying to match-up the pieces here - na uh!  Over.  A few years back I nipped that in the bud, only store purchase containers of the same brand.  Made that decision and have stuck to it, thankfully.

Having only one brand, however, doesn't keep the plasticware wrangled.  It winds up all over the place, half the time it's falling out of the drawer onto the floor.  Drives.me.crazy.  Thankfully, another housewife brought this issue to my attention which validated my thought that it happens to most everybody.  So here we are...looking at each other's plasticware.  How to fix the dilemma?
Well, as always I started out by removing all the items from the drawer so an assessment could be made of what there was to work with.  I took this opportunity to go through the items looking for anything that needed to be purged.

If you have plasticware that has white bubbling or is discolored, it's time to recycle it.  The item is starting to break down and will begin to leach into whatever is being stored in it - no matter what, toss!  Not worth the health hazard.

Then, I made sure there weren't any orphans.  If we had too many bottoms or tops they got recycled too.  In the long run, I feel its better to only have in here what can be used, not what could possibly be used in the future (maybe).

It was time to start loading the items back in and before today I would have thought to do this...

Which, is what picture #1 from the blog started out as.  No dice.

Yesterday, while at the coffee machine I had a moment of serendipity.  At last, an idea that is worth repeating and sharing with my fellow housewives.  Best part the fix, is quite possibly something you already have in your house!  I took a K-cup box and deconstructed it, then folded it back inside out and cut off the lid.  Wallah!

 

It's just the right size to keep all the lids together!!! 
(Now, I did think about all of you who may not use K-cups and I believe
the same can be done by cutting a large box of cereal down.)

 

...but when I put it all back together and loaded up the drawer it looked like this:

 

May even try wrapping the boxes in some pretty designed duct tape to make them last longer.  I think it's the perfect remedy!