Does the term ‘plastic free shopping’ conjure up images of a life spent eating solely dried pulses and nuts? There are lots of options if you’re looking to reduce your waste this Plastic Free July.
Give single serves a swerve - It seems like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to accidentally pick up a bag or box that’s filled with individually wrapped sweets, or single serves of miso soup. Carefully read the outer packaging if you’re unsure.
Buy big or go home - Whether you’re shopping for TP or tea bags – if it works with your budget and storage space, buy the biggest amount/largest container you can. This works best for non-perishable items you use often, like laundry liquid, body wash, cooking oil, and dry goods. There are double size and bulk versions of many ecostore products for the home and your humans.
Concentrate on reduction - Buying concentrated products is a great way to lower the packaging load. Consider switching to solid bars for your soap and haircare, for example. You could also try home care products like the new ecostore cleaner refill concentrates: one tiny recyclable glass bottle makes a whole 500ml trigger pack.
Incredible bulk - For an artful wholefood filled pantry that’s sustainable (not to mention ‘grammable’), packaging-free bulk shopping is becoming widely accessible. In Auckland we have GoodFor, Refill Nation and Bin Inn stores. Kit yourself out with cute Weck or Mason jars, or start saving good looking, uniform jars and lids of food you’ve already eaten.
Tip: You can now refill your favourite ecostore liquid products at 100 refill stations around New Zealand.
Contain yourself - Some supermarket’s deli, seafood and butchery departments now let customers bring their own containers. Next time you shop, bring clean containers with well-fitted lids, and ask at
the counter.
Nude food - In the produce aisle, look for unwrapped fruit and veges and pop multiples in mesh bags or even reuse clean plastic bags. Or shop for fresh further afield: farmer’s markets and food co-ops are a useful source of packaging free produce, which (bonus) is often spray free or organic.
Tip: Now you’re sorted to head to the shops, bring a couple of extra reusable bags you’re not attached to, so you can help a forgetful fellow shopper out. What goes around comes around.
ECOSTORE, 1 Scotland Street, Freemans Bay, T: 09 360 8477, www.ecostore.co.nz
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