How to Take Back Control of Your Packaging Waste

Image Credits (alterations made): Alex Marshall, Mixed Municipal Waste (top), Kathleen Franklin, Tupperware (bottom left), Tammy Strobel, Mason Jars (bottom right)

Packaging is everywhere. It makes up about 30% of the trash American households send to landfills each year. When you go into most grocery stores, packaging is the first thing you see. Brightly-colored boxes with colorful pictures of the food inside, plastic containers sealing in pre-cut fruits and veggies, and individually-wrapped snacks and candies line aisle after aisle. Sometimes, just to open a package of cookies, you have to tear through a sheet of plastic shrink-wrap, then a cardboard box, then another plastic wrapper, just to find the cookies held in a row by yet another piece of plastic. There has to be a better way to do this, right?

Luckily, there is. Although excessive packaging is everywhere, there are plenty of ways to use less of it, even if you can't avoid it completely. Everyone has the opportunity to use non-disposable containers and reusable shopping bags, to buy products that use less packaging, or even forego pre-packaged products for homemade versions instead. Whether you just want to cut down on your waste a little or avoid disposable packaging at all costs, there are simple things you can do every day to make a difference.

Here are some ideas to help you reduce the amount of packaging you consume throughout your daily life. Most of these tips are simple and many of them can save you money, too. There's something that everyone can try, and every little bit makes a difference. Sustainable habits start with small steps and little victories, and it's never too late to start!

How to Reduce Your Packaging Waste

 

Buy in Bulk 

If you use a lot of something, it makes sense to buy the biggest container of it that you can. Not only is that way almost always cheaper, but it means using less packaging, too. For example, a family-sized bag of chips or crackers has less packaging (and often more product!) than a box of a dozen individually-wrapped snack packs.Remember, anything you buy in bulk you can transfer to reusable containers at home. If you keep a variety of small tupperware containers in your kitchen you can fill them up with individual portions for convenient, on-the-go snacks.

• Many stores have bulk aisles with a myriad of products people commonly use a lot of, including rice, pasta, beans, cereal, nuts, grains, legumes, granola, and more.
• Pro Tip: some stores allow you to bring in your own reusable bags, jars, or plastic containers to fill from the bulk bins. That way you don't even have to waste the disposable plastic bags provided in the store. (The store will need to weigh your empty containers before you fill them to subtract from the total weight.)
• You can buy products like dog food, toilet paper, napkins, and other paper products in bulk bags or bundles. You can always transfer them to smaller non-disposable containers at home if needed.
• For cleaning products like soap, Windex, dish & laundry detergent, and other cleaning products, you can reduce waste by reusing the individual spray bottles and dispensers. Buy refill-sized bulk container to refill the bottles instead of throwing them away every time they're emptied.
• Shop at farmers' markets where you can buy fresh foods with minimal packaging. You can bring your own reusable produce bags, containers, and shopping bags to eliminate the need for disposable bags and boxes to carry your food home. Often you can buy items in bulk at farmers markets that aren't available in bulk at the grocery store, and you have the added bonus of eating local food that hasn't been transported across the country using fossil fuels.
• Above all, avoid single-use and individually-packaged items, including water bottles. Beware of common individually-packaged products like juice boxes, snack packs, boxes of chicken stock and individually-wrapped boullion cubes, individual yogurt containers, and more. It pays off to buy the larger versions and re-pack them into reusable containers yourself.

Cook From Scratch

It takes much more packaging to store processed foods than it takes to store the ingredients they're made from. You can make a batch of cookies from bulk ingredients like sugar, flour, and stored at home in reusable containers, but a package of cookies from the store usually comes in multiple layers of plastic and a cardboard box to boot. There are many foods people habitually buy pre-made from stores that are surprisingly easy to make at home with little or no waste. Here are some ideas:

• Breads: Making your own biscuits, baguettes, and other breads is both fun and rewarding, and lets you avoid the double-plastic-wrapped loaves on store shelves. Pita bread and tortillas are also simple to make from scratch, and they are perfect for making in large batches to freeze for later use.
• Pasta sauce and soups: Why keep buying jars of pasta sauce over and over when you can use your own glass containers to store fresh, homemade batches? You can use fresh tomatoes and spices to make huge batches of sauce, then can them and store them away. When you go to cook you'll have delicious, homemade sauce ready to go.
• Beans and Rice: More and more people seem to be switching to instant microwave rice and canned beans without realizing how effortless, and how much cheaper, they are to make at home.
• How to make rice at home: LINK
• How to cook dry beans at home: LINK
• Tap water! This is by far the most effortless home-sourced ingredient. If you need cold water to-go, you can always fill your own reusable water bottles and keep them in the fridge until you need them. If it's taste you're after, home water filters are inexpensive and easy to use, and can give you the taste of bottled water by filtering out minerals and other substances.

Reuse packaging

One way to reduce the environmental impact of packaging is to re-purpose it rather than throw it away. Lots of foods, especially refrigerated foods and sauces like dressings and mustard often come in glass or plastic containers that could be re-used instead of sending them immediately to a landfill.

•  If you don't bring a reusable bag to the grocery store, have your items bagged in paper and reuse the bags as “recycling bins” for your paper products.
• Select items with packaging you can reuse around your home. Avoid flimsy plastics that won't last and aerosol bottles, which cannot be reused like regular spray bottles.
• Reuse food containers as tupperware for leftovers or homemade foods and sauces. Try to re-purpose glass jars from foods like pasta sauce and jelly, and plastic containers from things like yogurt and sour cream. (Hint: recycled food containers are a great way to send leftovers home with dinner guests without worrying about losing a piece of your matching tupperware set!)
• Get creative! You could reuse plastic yogurt cups to organize crayons and craft supplies or save tall jars and bottles to use as flower vases. You can even reuse cardboard egg cartons to sprout seeds for your garden!

Use Reusable Containers for Storage at Home

Reducing or eliminating your use of disposable packaging, like plastic bags and paper products, is probably the easiest way to reduce your packaging waste. Making the switch to only using reusable containers like reusable plastic containers, glass jars, etc. is surprisingly easy to do, yet many people still over-rely on plastic and paper products, packing their lunches and leftovers in plastic baggies and saran wrap rather than tupperware.

You can make your kitchen much more earth-friendly by substituting reusable tupperware for plastic baggies and plastic wrap, avoiding disposable pan liners and aluminum foil (which requires enormous amounts of energy to mine and produce), and using reusable cloths and kitchenware instead of paper towels and disposable plates.

Here are some ideas for reusable containers and bags:

• Produce bags: You can make DIY produce bags from mesh, cheesecloth, burlap, and other easy to find materials. Here's a tutorial that teaches you how to sew your own DIY produce bags from cotton fabric. Or, for something even simpler, check out this tutorial to learn how to re-purpose old t-shirts into breathable produce or grocery bags!
• Reusable shopping bags (e.g. canvas, burlap, etc.): You can buy cheap, reusable canvas bags online or at most grocery stores. Or, better yet, make your own for free from scrap materials. Here's an article with links to dozens of DIY tutorials for making shopping bags that range from minimal to fashionable.
• Mason jars and other glass containers
• Miscellaneous containers like wooden boxes (e.g. for a potato bin), cookie & coffee tins, wicker baskets, etc.
• Non-disposable plastic tupperware and other seal-able plastic storage containers (e.g. cereal savers)
• Remember to bring reusable containers with you to:
•  Bagging produce while shopping
• To fill with bulk bin items at the store
• To bag your groceries in the check-out aisle
• You could even bring your own tupperware to restaurants to bring home leftovers (This one seems a little unusual, but if the restaurant doesn't mind, why not? Takeout containers are usually flimsy and not even airtight anyway. You'll reduce your waste and have fresher leftovers by using your own disposable containers.)
 

More and more people are recognizing the importance of packaging waste, and we have made progress as more people recycle and manufacturers switch to lightweight packaging materials. To keep up this trend, it's important to pay attention to the products you buy and find creative ways to reduce and reuse product packaging. Luckily, you can take back control over your packaging waste by making simple changes to how you shop and stock your cabinets. There's something everyone can do to keep disposable packaging out of our landfills and ecosystems.