Plastic is all around us, but there are ways to avoid some of it. We’ve got 3 easy ideas to help you do the grocery shopping with less plastic! That will mean less plastic in our landfills and oceans and less in our homes and bodies, wins all around. Right now ocean plastic is projected to triple within the next seven years. We have to make a change and grocery shopping with less plastic is a great place to start.
Pick products in glass, metal, and paper rather then plastic
Not all packaging is created equal. Materials, such as glass and metal, can be recycled infinitely. There is no quality loss each time the go through the recycling process, so they are great choices. Paper can be recycled 5 – 7 times before it becomes unusable. Plastic can only be recycled once or twice, at best because it is downgraded during the recycling process. However, this is still better than materials like styrofoam -which can’t ever be recycled. Take a look at the egg section in the grocery store. With eggs you have paper versus plastic versus styrofoam, no question which is better. In spaghetti sauce, glass versus plastic is a better option, and you can reuse the glass bottles.
Skip unnecessary packaging
Skip unnecessary packagingA great example of this is the fruit and veggie section of the grocery store. A great way to do grocery shopping with less plastic is to skip the plastic produce bags all together. If you do like to use bags to keep the apples from rolling around the cart there are reusable bags you can purchase. As you are picking out other items, skip ones that have extra packaging. Oranges and avocados have natural packaging so they don’t need to be wrapped in plastic or placed on styrofoam.
Bring your own bags
I keep bags in the car and over time have gotten better at remembering to bring them into the store with me. Most checkers are great about seeing them in the cart and asking for them to get the groceries packed up. However, when I am just picking up a few items I often use the self check out to ensure nothing gets put in a plastic bag before I can stop them!
