10 Genius Hacks That Make Organizing Plastic Storage Container Lids A Breeze

Are you tired of never being able to find the right lid for the plastic container you're grabbing to store food? Do your lids end up in a jumbled pile or fall out of your cabinet every time you open the door? If so, you're not alone. Keeping a kitchen perfectly organized is no small feat. And, those pesky storage container lids have a way of standing right in the way of any sense of tidiness you might attempt.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to be like this. There are a few genius hacks that will help you contain the lids and make sure it's easy to find precisely what you're looking for. Some of these ideas allow you to create solutions for cabinets and drawers that feature convenient slots, where you can place container lids upright for easy organization and access. Others allow you to take advantage of dead space. We have included a few ultra-affordable ideas that use dollar store products and will get your lids organized for just a few bucks — as well as one or two slightly pricier products which you might want to consider for their space-saving potential and overall practicality. But before you pick one of these hacks to try in your kitchen, take a minute to go through all of your storage containers and lids. Get rid of any that are damaged or don't have a match. This will prevent future frustration and make your organizing attempts all the more successful. If you hate throwing things out, there are various ways to repurpose plastic container lids around your home, and you can use food storage containers without lids to organize your pantry. 

If you're looking for a clever way to organize all the plastic container lids in your kitchen drawers or cabinets, an adjustable storage box may be ideal. These innovative products let you stand the lids upright, keeping them from getting jumbled. With adjustable dividers, you can customize the width of each section to best accommodate the lids you need to store. The Umilife Kitchen Cabinet Organizer comes with five adjustable dividers that you can position in any of the 11 slots to hold the lids for your containers. This storage box also features anti-skid silicone feet to keep it from sliding around in a kitchen drawer or cabinet.

The days of listening to CDs may be behind us, but that doesn't mean that you can't repurpose some of the gear you invested in to hold your massive music collection back in the day. From upcycling a CD shelving unit into a small space storage solution to converting a CD holder rack into a lid organizer, there are more options than you might think. Simply place the holder on its side in a cabinet or deep drawer. Place one lid in each rack, just where the CDs used to go. Be careful not to push smaller lids too far back so you can easily remove them.

Don't let the space on the inside of your cabinet or pantry doors go to waste. Instead, leverage it to help you keep the lids for your various storage containers neat, tidy, and easy to access by mounting bins to this vertical space. This set of three cabinet organizers from YIGII can be mounted right inside your doors. You can choose to drill holes for a more permanent mounting job, or you can use the included double-adhesive pads for a removable, renter-friendly solution.

Having a built-in lazy Susan for organizing pots and pans can be a game-changer in awkward corner cabinets. But you can also use this hidden gem to help corral lids for your plastic containers. With a few lazy Susan cabinet organizer bins, such as these ones from Jeisslia store on Amazon, you can neatly store both lids and containers. The angled bins fit inside a rotating lazy Susan, looking just like the cut pieces of a pizza. Attach the included non-slip pads on the corners, place the bins inside the cabinet, stand the lids up on their sides, and voilà, storage problem solved.

If you thought a cooling rack was just for baking cookies, think again. There are many ways you can repurpose a cooling rack to organize your home, including creating a solution to hold all those lids. You'll need a cooling rack with wide enough slots (not a grid design) to hold your lids — the ones you can pick up at a dollar store should work perfectly. Then, just put the rack inside a basket with similar dimensions, and your organizer is ready to use. Stand the lids up on their sides and the wires on the rack will help keep them from slipping or sliding all around.

Under shelf baskets can come in handy when you're trying to keep plastic lids from cluttering your cabinets or getting misplaced. Simply slide the basket onto the shelf above where you store your containers, and use it to hold the corresponding lids. You can opt for a regular-sized basket, like the Tebery Under Shelf Wire Baskets, or a shallower, extendable version like the Keruyunla Hanging Under Shelf Storage Basket.

Another idea is to use a shelf riser, like the Songmics Cabinet Organizer Shelf, to split a standard cabinet shelf into two sections. With this design, you can put all the lids on the top of the riser, and keep the plastic containers that go with them beneath it on the main cabinet shelf. If you have tall cabinet compartments, you can also opt to stack the containers on top and store the lids under the riser.

Finding the best over-the-door solutions for different areas of your home can add a significant amount of storage to what was previously dead space. With over-the-cabinet organizers, such as this one from Spectrum Diversified store on Amazon, you can keep plastic container lids easy to find without them taking up precious space on your cabinet shelves. Sort your lids by container type or size and place them in one of the three sections of the organizer. Simply open the cabinet and grab what you need; no more reaching or digging around.

If you're looking for a clever hack to keep your plastic food container lids organized, you might want to buy a few tension rods, such as these Aizes Spring Tension Rods. You can use them to create a custom drawer organizer. Simply place one rod across the length (or width) of the drawer to divide it into two sections. Stand up your lids on one side of the rod and stack the containers on the other side. If you store your containers in a deep drawer, you might want to consider spacing two rods out at different heights to prevent shorter lids from crossing over to the other side.

An Essentials White Wire Cabinet Shelf and Locker Bin from Dollar Tree could help you keep your lids from getting out of control for precisely $2.50. To try this hack, all you need to do is angle the legs of the shelf riser inwards and put it in the locker bin (or any container with similar dimensions). You'll instantly have a nifty little rack with individual slots to hold all of your plastic lids. Place the lids in the rack from smallest to biggest so that it will be easy to quickly lay your hands on the one you need.