These cute and useful snack bags from pioneer ChicoBag are handy and are no sweat to clean and reuse.

The richer a citizenry becomes, the more stuff it throws away for the sake of convenience. One plastic baggie may not be a big deal, but multiply it times a year of lunches, then times a hundred kids, then times a hundred schools, and suddenly you’re looking at a mountain of garbage that will be around for a thousand years or more.

One small step for mankind is to switch to something reusable. Most of us already use Tupperware and the like for taking food to work or on a flight, but packing snacks or sandwiches isn’t as easy. I’m digging these Snack Time bags though because they don’t require much in the way of sacrifice. Made from recycled PET plastic, they already come with some environmental credibility from the start. They’re also free of lead, PVC, and BPA. When you go to buy them in the store, the packaging they hang on is recycled paper.

None of that is going to get someone to buy them if they don’t work though. Fortunately these do, and quite well. The first objection from most is going to be about having to clean them. That’s not as hard as I expected. You can simply turn them inside out and wipe them clean with a wet sponge or rag, or if they’re really smudged on the outside too, you can just toss them in the washing machine. We’ve been sending my daughter to school with these and making her wash them when she gets home and there hasn’t been any whining—a sure sign it doesn’t require much effort.

The real kicker with these though, especially for travelers, is the double-duty design. At full size the bags are 6.5 inches wide and extend to 9.5 inches (24 cm) on one side. So you can fit in a sub sandwich pretty easily and close the top. Or you can fold down the flap and it’s 5.5 inches (14 cm) high, the perfect size for a sandwich or a bunch of pretzels. Either way they close with one of several Velcro fasteners and in the smaller folded-down mode there’s a relatively tight seal. I wouldn’t put anything that could leak badly in there, but for grapes or strawberries that won’t get crushed they’ll work. Obviously they’re fine for any dry snacks and nothing gets out.

They come in packs of three or five, so you can mix and match your food with the right setup. Whether you’re grabbing food to go for a road trip or flight, or need something for that budget self-catering backpack trip through Europe, these handy Snack Time bags are compact and light enough to easily find room for.

I admire this company for turning trash into treasure and trying their best to wean people off of single-use plastic bags with their products. This isn’t always easy, especially when the plastic bag manufacturers sued the company last year for making them look like their products create lots of garbage. (Which reminds me of when Muslim organizations successfully pushed Hollywood to stop making the terrorist characters in movies and TV shows be from from Afghanistan or the Middle East. No fair!)

These reusable sandwich and snack bags are new and are just getting out into stores. You can order a set of three direct from ChicoBag for $16 or get a five-pack with free shipping for around $25 from Amazon.

See our other ChicoBag product reviews.