Plastic Packaging of Food

Many of the items on my list of plastic trash that gets “thrown away” at our house are plastic-packed groceries, or food items.

Here are a couple of general tips for buying food with less plastic:

Always buy foods in large-sized packages. REFUSE the single-serving size. This is especially relevant when buying milk, yogurt, nuts, chips, and juice. Buying these food and drink items in larger sizes reduces the packaging-to-product ratio, which means you will be “throwing away” less plastic. 

• Buy the 1 ½ liter cartons of milk.

• Buy the largest size of yogurt, at least the 1 kilo container (available from Juhayna).

• Buy the 1 liter cartons of juice, not the individual juice boxes.

• Buy your snacks in the largest bags or containers possible.

If you’ll be sending the food or drink with children for school lunches, or packing them for your own picnic, you can repackage the food at home into smaller, individual size servings in reusable plastic or metal containers or small glass jars.

Yes, this means a bit more time and effort on our part, but it also means a lot less plastic packaging will end up in our dumpsters (and streets and seas and deserts).

So remember, in this case – bigger is better!

This is, of course, just the start of how we can reduce out plastic footprint when it comes to food. We’ll be exploring many other ideas so check back often.

Refuse ~ Reduce ~ Reuse ~ Recycle