Sustainability Tips: Shopping

Due to recent events regarding global warming, various budding environmental movements as well as the looming presence that is the climate crisis, it is more important than ever to start implementing environmentally-conscious habits into your everyday life. I have compiled a list of tips (and tricks!) to help you go green by changing small things in your day-to-day life.

#1: When out grocery shopping, bring a tote bag! Instead of relying on the cheap, plastic bags that many stores provide customers with to hold their groceries while they drive back home, holding all of your groceries in one or two decently-sized reusable tote bags will not only save up on space but on single-use plastic as well.

#2: Speaking of single-use plastic, watch out for plastic packaging! While this may seem like a daunting task when staring down the aisles and aisles of pre-packaged everything that is sold at your local grocery store, finding plastic-free alternatives to at least some of the foods, drinks and toiletry items that you purchase on a regular basis can do wonders for the environment!

(Scary story time: right now, we are in a recycling crisis – instead of finding better, more efficient ways to actually recycle plastic, the United States and other first-world countries have been dumping their plastic waste onto the laps of other nations. Recently, China has put a ban on all plastic waste imports from the United States and now we are stuck with all of this so-called recycling and no idea what to do with it! Because of this, it is vital that people nationwide wake up and realize that recycling plastic is a lost cause and that, if we want to live more sustainable lives, we have to start at the heart of the problem – plastic!)

#3: Study up and be on the lookout for ethically-sourced products! While there are lots of companies, especially those that have been founded recently, that are focused on using ethically-sourced, vegan materials, you’d be surprised by how little of these companies can be found at your local Walmart. The first step in knowing how and where to find these companies is by identifying ones that aren’t all environmentally-friendly, so do your research! (Good on You is a great website that highlights sustainable fashion brands and informs you about not-so-sustainable ones with their easy-to-use brand directory!)