America's First Packaging-Free Grocery Store to Open in Austin, TX - TIME NewsFeed I have always noticed the excess packaging in products, but don't recall previously seeing a figure that put it at 40% of our waste stream. That is an enormous amount. Aside from the obvious landfill/incineration issues, you also have to consider all the energy spent making the packaging, transporting it around with the product, and then transporting it within the waste management system. I commend these guys for giving it a go, but one can see the mentality they're up against in the comments.
I gravitate towards products with less, or recylable, packaging. Some packaging seems solely designed to attest to a product's "virginity". How about shirts with cardboard and plastic backers, labels and about 2 thousand push pins. It is not humanly possible to try them on for fit and then reassemble into their package. Really dislike those.
Some of the comments are spot on, a large percentage people are inconsiderate unhygienic slobs. Our local supermarkets sell quite a bit of bulk cereals and some other dry foods. No way would I buy out of those bins. We do buy at farmers markets but most of that food is washable. There is a lot of room to reduce packaging.
Your local market needs better bins. The ones around here don't allow the consumers to touch the product until it is in the container (at which point they 'own' it).
In the olden days, the grocer was usually the one parceling out bulk items, not the consumer. Looks like that is missing from this model. My absolute favorite evidence of our all going straight to hell are individually wrapped prunes, in a sealed bag. Of course, Lunchables are a strong second. "Sending kids to hell one lunch at a time." Hey, nice slogan there...
This is my major peeve with costco -- the excessive plastic packaging. Thanks for the link, I'll forward it to Costco. And kudos to the Austin group!
I hit up there website to see where they are, they don't seem to have a store yet. I'll let you know what it is like after they open. They seem to be releasing the information to raise funding. Austin has single stream recycling, so most of that packaging they are talking about goes into the bin. It does take a lot to create, transport, and recycle the materials. We do pay for recycling so the less material the better, but it shouldn't go into a landfill, at least for those of us living in the city limits. This is a good test market, whole foods was created and is headquartered here.
I tend to favor stores with more bulk items available. Bringing my own containers is more of a challenge, but I do try. WinCo has a large bulk section, for those who "don't care" if what they are buying is organic or not.
Hey Rae, There are numerous stores in the area that offer bulk organic. Many areas of the country aren't so lucky. All the major super market chains and the mexican and asian specialty stores have lower priced bulk non-organic. From what I understand there are two big differences between this and our other stores is this will mainly be only locally grown food, something the other stores don't do because they want to maintain variety and for many items would have to pay many times more. It is also set up for you to fill your own containers. They also will shun packaged foods, something the major organic grocers make a lot of money on. Price and location will be key. I don't think this will make it given the competition. Hey whole foods even has a plugin car charger in the lot.
When grocery stores first started charging for bags, I thought "How cheap can you get?" After I clued in, I got in the habit of carrying a little backpack just about everywhere. Not even the broccoli gets its own wrapper. Sometimes people comment on this, and I patiently explain that it was grown in dirt and I'm going to wash it anyway. They usually get the point, and I've managed to 'convert' many fellow shoppers. If there's something I have to have that has too much packaging, I make a point of leaving it all at the store and taking only the item. I think I was born subversive.
