Welcome to month two of our zero-waste year! If you’ve read last month’s blog (and who wouldn’t, as it’s such fabulous writing☺), you know we’re doing a full year of zero-waste challenges, working toward creating less trash to help save our planet.
This month, our challenge is to reduce the amount of waste generated by shopping.
We’re referring to pages 43-67 in the book Zero Waste, by Shia Su. Read on to learn how to shop smarter!
Food packaging and how to use less
Our trash cans are mostly filled with one thing–food packaging. Here are some simple ways to bring less food packaging into your home and reduce the carbon footprint of our food supply:
- Use reusable tote bags for groceries
- Use washable mesh bags for loose produce
- Use cloth bags or Mason jars for nuts/grains/dried fruits/candies
- Avoid plastic-wrapped produce
- Buy local products instead of imported ones
- Don’t over-shop or impulse buy: make a list and stick to it!
- Buy items in recyclable glass or cardboard packaging instead of plastic
- Take your own travel mug to your local coffee shop
- Learn where you can (and can’t) use your own containers. Click here to read about Oregon’s new law.
- Buy less meat
- Buy in bulk
Speaking of bulk…
Many grocery stores have bulk sections, where you can portion out exactly how much you want into your own containers. Smaller and natural grocery stores are more likely to let you use your own containers.
Several zero-waste stores in Portland sell nothing but bulk items. They sell everything from food to cleaning products to health and beauty products—you bring your own containers and leave with only what you need. Some even have free recycled jars in case you forget yours. Below are some shops to explore (by the way, it’s a lot of fun to shop this way).
Local Zero-Waste Shops
Way of Being sells a wide range of self-care essentials in plastic-free packaging, from Black, Latinx, indigenous, LGBTQ+, and/or woman-owned and veteran-owned businesses. They’re located at 3418 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland.
The Realm Refillery carries dried fruits, baking products, pasta, legumes, bread, grains, superfoods, cleaning supplies, and more. Visit them at 2310 NE Broadway, Portland.
Mama & Hapa’s Zero Waste Shop features a variety of products, including coffee and tea, dry goods, hygiene, makeup, pet care, skin care, and loads more. Two suburban locations: 12695 SW Crescent Street in Beaverton, and 11122 SE Main Street in Milwaukee.
Null Refillery (No physical location) offers refill delivery to your doorstep. Specializing in eco-friendly cleaning and bath/body products, they deliver in 32-oz reclaimed jars. You can order online.
Simpson’s Refillery specializes in refillable soaps, suds, and scents. Find them at 9041 NE Sandy Boulevard in Portland.
New Seasons Market may seem like just another bougie grocery chain, but it’s strongly committed to reducing waste. You can bring your own bags for produce and bulk items. They’ve also partnered with Ridwell to offer free recycling of plastic wrap and #1 plastic clamshell food containers. There are locations throughout the Portland metro area.
Lush is a national company that offers cruelty-free, vegan beauty products with minimal and/or recyclable packaging. Located at 708 NW 23rd Street in Portland. Also at Bridgeport, Washington Square, and Clackamas Town Center.
Food co-ops: communities of caring
Food co-ops are grocery stores that are owned and governed by members of the community, who collectively make decisions about how the store is run. Some are open to all, others require membership. Most welcome people using their own containers. There are several in the Portland area:
Peoples Coop: Responsibly sourced produce, grocery, and bulk items, much of it grown locally. A lifetime membership is $180. Located at 3029 SE 29th Avenue, Portland.
Alberta Coop: Grocery essentials at affordable prices, along with grab-and-go, beer and wine, and wellness products. $180 lifetime membership. 1500 NE Alberta Street, Portland.
Montavilla Food Co-op offers sustainable groceries at good prices. Online orders are placed on the second Tuesday of every month for pickup the following weekend. The co-op is currently searching for a physical store site. $150 lifetime membership.
The food co-op landscape is ever-changing, so if there’s no co-op near you yet, keep looking—there might be one on the way.
Other sustainable food shopping sources
According to the Zero Waste guide (which is making my zero waste research much easier), other sustainable shopping destinations include the following:
- Ethnic markets, which often have bulk items
- Local farms and farmers’ markets, which cut the impact of packaging and food transportation
- CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) that connect people directly with farmers’ products
- Small shops that are more likely to let you bring your own containers, such as bakeries, tea shops, coffee roasters, butchers, and cheese shops
Other shopping tips
- Keep tote bags and mesh produce bags in your car
- Bring containers to restaurants for leftovers
- Ask if you can use your own container; be nice if they say no, but try again next time
- Buy fewer clothes (here’s our blog on how to create a capsule wardrobe)
- Don’t buy fast fashion (we’ll talk more about this in October)
- Buy locally
- Shop sustainable brands
- Look for products with sustainable/less packaging
- Buy organic
- Group your shopping needs into one trip
- Buy quality, not quantity
- Shop at thrift stores
- Shop mindfully by giving yourself time to pause. Try a 24-hour rule for everyday purchases, and for larger items, wait a week or more before deciding.
- Shop less
- Don’t shop at all!
How to shop online more sustainably
When I started looking into how to shop online with less waste, I discovered something surprising. Packaging isn’t the biggest environmental problem with ordering online (though it is still an issue). It’s the transportation of the stuff that causes the most environmental damage. Here are some ways to mitigate both problems:
- Don’t buy every shiny thing that catches your eye online. It’s all too easy to impulse-click on things we don’t need. (Like my six black/brown eyeliners.) Think before you click.
- Group your items into one delivery
- Choose the slower delivery option; this allows e-retailers to be more efficient in their deliveries. And it’s usually not so slow.
- Try not to order items that ship from overseas (retailers are often sneaky about this). International freight (especially air freight) has a much higher carbon footprint per item than domestic ground shipping.
- Avoid the one or two-hour delivery option that some retailers offer. Fast delivery options like one- or two-hour shipping often reduce the ability of carriers to consolidate orders on the same vehicle, which can lead to vehicles leaving warehouses with fewer packages and higher per-package emissions compared with slower, more consolidated delivery windows.
- Use online shopping only for items you can’t buy locally.
- Search for online stores that use more sustainable packaging.
- Recycle every scrap of packaging that you can with the help of Ridwell!
Good luck on your zero-waste journey this month!
📺“Ask The Organizer” Zero Waste Series
Watch the replay of our “How & Where to Shop” workshop here!
If you’d like to organize your kitchen/pantry/wardrobe/closets/garage/life to give you less waste and more breathing room, Big Rocks Organizing would be honored to help.
Contact us to schedule a free exploratory call.
About Andrea Thompson
Andrea was an advertising copywriter/creative director for 40 years before retiring, then unretiring to start a new career in organizing, then retiring again to travel the world with her husband, John. She fully admits her home is not 100% organized.