FRUSTRATION FRIDAY
Every Friday I will have special posts that point out products or situations that frustrate me in my quest to go plastic-free. Many of these posts will be about products that use greenwashing–trying to look like sustainable, plastic-saving products but actually still using plastic, or trying to frame their plastic use in a misleading way.
Walk into the produce section in any grocery outlet and you won’t just see loads of fruits and vegetables. You will also also find loads of plastic. Lettuce in plastic, tomatoes in plastic, bell peppers in plastic. Even green beans, asparagus, cut up vegetables. Even if you walk in to buy something fresh, not wrapped in plastic, you may have a hard time finding it.
It used to be that you could buy a head of lettuce or a handful of green beans and avoid tons of plastic packaging. In some stores almost all of the produce is boxed or wrapped in plastic.
So, how can you eat healthy foods and still go plastic-free?
Well, sometimes it requires some work. And in this case, some sacrifices. And sometimes in means just making the right choices.
The Right Choices
- When a head of lettuce is available without plastic packaging, just make that choice
- When you need 10 oranges, don’t buy the plastic bag full of oranges, pick out 10 individual oranges and put them in a reusable produce bag
Make the choice that requires some work
- Don’t buy the cut up squash in the plastic package–do the (very) hard work of peeling it and cutting it yourself.
- Don’t buy the cut up broccoli crowns in a plastic bag–buy the broccoli heads and cut it yourself
Make the sacrifices
- I love berries. But when they are out of season, they are only available in plastic boxes from far-away places. Wait until berries are in season, go to a farmers market, and get them in the green paper box or transfer them into a paper bag before buying.
- If the store doesn’t have the vegetable you want without the plastic, choose a different vegetable. Or a different store.
This one gets to me a lot. So much plastic just so that we can get produce from places far away all year long. I wonder if what really needs to happen is that we as a population completely change the way we shop for food. Rather than go shopping once a week or even once every two weeks perhaps we should go back to shopping every few days and buy the fresh food that we need. Bring our own containers and fill them with what we need: peanut butter, nuts, raisins, soap, shampoo, whatever. Of course then the issue is that we’re using more gasoline to drive to the supermarket which reminds me that we need to change the way we think about transportation also, but that topic’s for another day.