Zero Waste grocery shopping and purchases? Here are some suggestions on how to do it, straight from our Zero Waste guide, with all the suggestions and solution to cut on single-use trash and waste.
The majority of single-use waste is produced by big brands, the so-called corporations that distribute their products on a global and mass scale. They not only produce an alarming amount of single-use packaging but also heavily affect the local producers’ and family-run-businesses’ possibility to work and earn, regardless of the product we are talking about.
To buy local products reduces mass production, emissions due to transportation of goods, supports the local economy, allows us to enter in direct contact with an artisan and supports package-free shopping. If it’s food we’re talking about, this can also mean buying seasonal products, grown in a more sustainable way.
To choose our local market, the small neighborhood store, artisanal production, or that of our direct neighbor – if not our own – helps to reduce consumption, costs and waste, live a healthier life, and strengthen the local community through teaming up.
Ethical Purchasing Groups are a great way to reduce waste, transportation costs, time costs and save money. But what’s an Ethical Purchasing Group? It’s a group of people who choose to purchase something together in bulk, instead of each buying their own portion. These purchases are often made directly with local manufacturers, who apply a healthier production not only in terms of the quality of the product but also the quality of the work itself.
If an Ethical Purchasing Group doesn’t exist near us, we could start one. And if we don’t want to collaborate with people we don’t know, we can consider creating one with our friends. For instance, a group of 3 or 4 friends, colleagues, or people with whom we share hobbies and sports can already be an Ethical Purchasing Group, especially if we have a place to meet regularly where we can have our purchase delivered and shared.
There are plenty of shops and supermarkets where we can find package-free products. The most common ones are definitely those selling home detergents, but shops selling all kinds of on-tap products are constantly increasing, including those selling food.
This will allow us to buy the product without its accompanying packaging, reducing not only waste but cost as well.
Small practical tip: once we’ve found the shops that interest you (check out our map map…and tell us about the ones we don’t know yet!), instead of buying new containers for new purchases, let’s reuse the packaging of the last product you bought. Things like detergent bottles, glass jars, egg cartons, paper bags for bread, pasta and cereals, Tupperware. And then we can unleash our imagination!
For what concerns water, we invite you to read the chapter about zero waste and sustainable food.
When we’re buying food and we want to do a Zero Waste a sustainable grocery shopping, another very important thing to be mindful about is to buy seasonal products, besides them being local. This means we’re buying short supply chain products, that didn’t emit countless tons of CO2 to be transported all the way to our tables. Moreover, if we know where the food we’re buying comes from, probably these products are grown sustainably, without using pesticides, herbicidals, greenhouse gasses or intensive irrigation.
Fair-trade is a certification that assures us that what we’re buying is produced without exploiting people or the environment.
For example, some food that we should make sure has this certification is exotic fruits (bananas, avocados, mangoes, etc), chocolate, coffee, the ingredients of our cosmetics and any other ingredient and/or component we may think of. As for the rest, let’s avoid buying products that don’t have this certification and that, probably, were made unsustainably.
Even if, best-case scenario, the fruit and vegetable bag provided to us by the supermarket is compostable, it can still be replaced by a Zero Waste kind of solution: reusable cotton net bags for groceries.
The same goes for bread. However, in this case, instead of a net bag, we suggest a pillowcase or a bag made of cloth, so that it can be kept better. If we don’t have that kind of bag, we can make our own with old sheets, pieces of clothing or shirts.
To replace grocery plastic bags, or any-other-kind-of-purchase bags (even if compostable, because they’d still be single-use!), using a reusable bag is a Zero Waste solution that is very well established and can have a big impact. Moreover, we’re talking about bags that, thanks to their resistance, can be used to carry many different kinds of things and not just our groceries.
Generally speaking, where we don’t need one (and regardless of its material), we invite everyone to refuse single-use bags when purchasing something, using our own back or backpack, carrying with us a foldable reusable bag wherever we go, or simply carrying the product in our hands without necessarily putting it in a bag.
We often buy products (whether it’s food or else) that we don’t really need just to satisfy a whim and that can even go wasted. So one of the most Zero Waste solutions we have is to ask ourselves if we really need what we’re about to buy, whatever that is. If we realize the answer is no, then let’s do without it. We’ll find we can do without a lot of things, which is going to make our life surprisingly better…and will make us save a lot more money! 😉
Do you have some more Zero Waste suggestions and solutions? Write us! We’ll be happy to add it to our list and inspire always more people.
Keep on exploring our guide to how to live Zero Waste, visit all the sections:
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