I’m not a fan of having to buy replacements when I know I can reuse something. I love those new reusable silicone plastic bags for food storage. They have zippers on them and you can wash them out after you’re done using them. Instead of buying little plastic baggies from the grocery store and throwing them in the landfill, you can use these reusable silicone bags instead. I hate putting things in the landfill, especially plastic. There are a lot of items that we use in our day-to-day lives that are single use and end up in the garbage after just one round. That’s something that used to frustrate me about HVAC filters. They cost around $15 for quality allergen-rated filters, and then you have to throw them in the garbage after 4 to 6 weeks of use. While most of them have only a little bit of plastic in them, it’s still a wasteful endeavor. That’s why I switched to using washable light track filters for a while. I loved the idea of having an reusable HVAC filter that I could wash whenever I got dirty. However, the people who sold it to me didn’t tell me the ugly truth about these washable HVAC filters. They’re nearly impossible to get completely dry after rinsing them, which leads to mold growth in the air conditioner. On top of that, they’re not very good at filtering the air in the first place. Sometimes dust particles will go straight through the washable HVAC filter medium and then that dust will get stuck on your evaporator coil. In these situations, you end up with an evaporator coil that’s just coated in dust particles, leading to potential long term damage.