I Want To Shop At A Zero Waste Grocery Store

If you’re like me, you feel proud that you recycle your mayonnaise jars and juice bottles. Right? But lately I’ve noticed how many plastic containers fill our recycle bins each week.  Trying to reduce my plastic waste, I purchased large glass containers to store bulk flours, nuts, and dried fruit.  I was happy to see that my pantry was filled with glass jars that contain our organic staples. 

But the problem is that buying bulk foods at Costco or local grocery stores only slightly reduces my plastic intake because they sell everything in large plastic containers. Sure, it’s better to buy one large container than four smaller ones, but I wanted to stop buying food in plastic containers altogether.  

Health Food stores like Whole Foods, Staff of Life, and NewLeaf offer a bulk section where you can either bring your own container or use plastic bags to purchase large quantities of ingredients like nuts, seeds, and flours.  Then, at home, you simply pour the ingredients into your large glass jars. The only problem with that is that you’re still using plastic bags, and they don’t have bulk purchasing options for other things like cheeses, meats, drinks, and other packaged goods. 

I want to shop at a store that has no packaging at all –where everything is sold in bulk and you bring your own reuseable storage containers so there is no plastic usage at all. Sadly, there are no stores like that anywhere near where I live.

Leave it to the rest of the world to do the right thing:

Good news: Earth.Food.Love that sells groceries with no packaging at all.  They sell organic, ethical food in bulk. It is truly a zero waste store.  Not only do they ban all packaging, but allof the products they sell can be composted or recycled. Wow!

Bad news: It’s only in England

Good news: Germany has an anti-waste supermarket called Unperfekthaus.

More good news: Kenyans face up to 4 years in prison for using plastic bags.

Good news here in the US: Seattle plans to ban all plastic straws and utensils in restaurants by 2018

Support stores that sell bulk items and allow you to bring your own containers.  Try converting all of your food storage to glass containers – they keep foods fresher and the plastic chemicals don’t leach into your food. 

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