Have you been thinking about ways that you can make your shopping trip more sustainable? Our choices make an impact on our environment. What small steps you can take to easily reduce your impact?
Step 1: Be Aware of Packaging
Shopping for bulk foods is a great first step. Did you know that containers and packaging generated 77.9 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2018? Shopping bulk foods allows you to ditch the packaging. You can then take the next step and shop bulk using your own reusable containers.
Step 2: Switch to Reusable Water Bottles
Americans buy 29 billion water bottles a year. To produce all these bottles, it takes 17 million barrels of crude oil—enough to power more than one million cars for 12 months. Replace these plastic water bottles with a reusable bottle and fill with tap water.
Step 3: Reuse Your Bag
Reuse is the key. The eco-footprint of any type of bag is different due to many impacting factors. Reusing a bag over and over again lowers that eco-footprint.
The Takeaway
Start simple and reduce your impact by reusing bags, bottles, and containers as many times as possible. Then recycle them! This lengthens the life cycle of a product and reduces the eco-footprint. Once you’ve made these simple steps a habit, it’s that much easier to work on other sustainable shopping goals.
Emily Rogers
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