Going to the supermarket is a weekly occurrence for most of us, but it is important to try make your trip to the supermarket as waste free as possible. Everything you do should be carried out with a conscious effort to reduce waste. Maintaining this minimalist approach to life and hopefully achieving zero waste is a sure way to simplify your life and help save the environment. These idea’s can be employed in every day routines, such as a trip to the supermarket! With everyone talking about the worlds first waste-free supermarket, we wanted to share some tips to make sure you arrive at the supermarket prepared and ready for an 'unconventional' approach to shopping.
Here is how to do it:
For fruits and vegetables: Buy reusable cotton produce bags. Make sure you bring them along with you every time you shop! Buy enough for your shopping trip, you will know how many to have based on how much fruit and veg you usually buy
For deli products: Bring glass jars or reusable containers in order to fill them with whatever cheeses, olives, sandwich meats or other deli products. Jars with screw top lids are great for any wet products.
For bread and dry bulk items: Use a solid cloth bag, or even just a pillow case. Cloth bags can be bought online. Try this site for cloth bags and other Zero Waste shopping items .
Use large canvas bags to take all the food home: never accept plastic bags!
Pre-Packaged items: Try look for items with reusable or recyclable packaging such as glass, metal and paper.
Say ‘No’: Sometimes we must make sacrifices in order to achieve zero waste, so be prepared to say no to items that are over packaged.
Some supermarkets are better accommodating for zero waste, try search for a supermarket near you that has plenty of fresh unpackaged foods.
The first waste free supermarket is set to open in Berlin, hopefully this will be a trend that will pick up around the world and would make zero-waste shopping much easier!
Read here to find out more about Berlin’s waste-free supermarket in one of our most popular posts of the month: