Green Shopping

When I shop for groceries, I really try to look at the packaging the product comes in.  Cardboard and plastic make up WAY too much of our landfill waste.  Most waste in Hennepin County is incinerated, so think about all the plastic being burned and that smell and the toxins being released in the air over Minneapolis.

Recycling is so easy, but so is thinking ahead.  Yes, I know those cute little applesauce cups fit really well in Junior's lunchbox, but so do reusable Ziploc containers filled from the big glass jar of applesauce.  The website http://www.reusablebags.com/ has so many options it's silly to keep using sandwich bags, plastic water bottles and Saran wrap to store your lunch.  Many stores, including Whole Foods, Rainbow and some Targets, offer plastics recycling.  They will take the plastics that your home recycling company will not, mostly numbers 3 through 7, as well as plastic and paper bags.

Here are some stats I've complied over the years for my newsletter at work.  I call them Little Green Bits.

*Packaging amounts to 32% of Minnesota’s garbage.
*Americans toss out enough aluminum every 3 months to rebuild the entire commercial air fleet.
*Recycling 35% of US trash saves enough energy to fuel six million homes annually, generates $5.2 billion in raw materials each year and reduces vehicle emissions equivalent to taking 36 million cars off the road.
*In one week, the average Minnesotan throws away more than 40 pounds of garbage.
*The garbage generated in Minnesota in one year would fill four lanes of trucks, bumper-to-bumper, stretching from Albert Lea to International Falls.
*Paper and paperboard account for 40% of the garbage in the US.
*If 10,000 people pack their sandwiches in reusable bags every day for a month, we'll keep the weight of one giant panda in sandwich bags from reaching landfills.
*US volunteers collected 3,661,445 pounds of trash during the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup. They found 99 birds tangled in marine debris.
*Compared against a single-use water bottle that is tossed in the garbage, drinking from a reusable water bottle filled with tap water will reduce energy consumption by 85% and greenhouse gasses by 79%.
*Next time you feel thirsty, forgo the bottle and turn on the tap. The EPA’s standards for tap water are more stringent than the FDA’s standards for bottled water.
*Americans throw away 470,000 tons of milk cartons every year.