Eco Friendly Shopping Tips

Eco friendly shopping - we`ve gotta go for it!

Did you know that the average North American goes shopping at least twice a week? When you consider that this applies not just to a family but to each member of a family this means we all spend quite a bit of time shopping!

If you care about the environment it is important to do this frequent task the right way!

Here are some tips to follow to help:

Organize and Plan Your Shopping Trips - Save Gas!

This is one where I fall short on many occassions! If you think ahead about what items you might need and where you need to get them you are on your way to eco friendly shopping for sure!

Have you ever started making a meal and realized that you forgot to get a couple key ingredients? Back you go to the store to get them!

That extra trip not only takes extra time and effort it likely means that you are adding to air pollution and green house gases if you - like most of us -- drove your car to get there!

Some people are excellent at planning ahead.

If you plan meals in advance, identify needed ingredients, and combine several shopping trips for other needed items such as clothing, cosmetics, and personal items you can really reduce the number of times your family shops.

Use Eco Friendly Shopping Bags

From shopping bags made with recyled materials to re-usable organic fabric bags to biodegradable bags there are many eco friendly shopping bags available for the modern eco shopper!

Trek Light Gear has a variety of sizes of extremely strong shopping bags made from recycled material. When not in use they can be easily folded anfd compressed to a size small enough to attach to a key ring and put in your purse. They are really strong and vry eco-friendly. Use the coupon code 4TREKGEAR to get 5% off!

Grocery stores often offer re-useable shopping bags for a dollar or so. They can be used not only for groceries but for other types of shopping as well.

Whichever of these options you choose they are far better for the environment than traditional plastic bags.

Avoid Items With Excess Packaging

Some foods are not just overprocessed - they are also overpackaged!

This goes for clothing items as well. Some come with extra plastic, cardboard and hangers. Avoid these unless you are sure you can re-use or recycle the packaging.

Do what you can to select food and other items that are either not packaged or that have minimal packaging or packaging that can be recycled - often called "green packaging" .

Recycle

Just buying an item with packaging that can be recycled is only half the trick of course! You also need to be sure to make the effort to properly save and recycle the packaging when you get home.

Re Use

Of course sometimes you can avoid a shopping trip altogether if you look around the house and see if you already have something you could re use instead!

No Toxic Chemicals

Check the labels of personal goods, cosmetics, cleaning products, and food to be sure that whereverpossible you do not buy items with toxic or suspected toxic ingredients.

Buy Certified Organic

Yes it does cost more, but organic foods are much better for you health than food that are grown with the use of pesticides and herbicides.

Many large supermarkets now carry at least some organic produce. Organic meat fish and poultry are harder to find.

Buy Less Processed Foods

Easy, fast and overprocessed. Our lives are often so busy we resort to throwing a preprocessed meal into the microwave so that we can eat and rush off to our next event.

Processed foods are full of a wide variety of chemicals and are usually full of preservatives and artifical colouring and flavours.

Try cooking at least one meal from scratch every week, and then work up to more. You will be amazed at how much better these meals taste and how much closer your family becomes if you eat meals together. Not to mention the great sense of accomplishment on the part of the cook!

Spread the joy!

Why not have each member of your family take turns making a meal from scratch!

Walk To Shop

If you live within walking distance, get the benefit of some added exercise and walk or bicycle to the shops.

Buy Local

Eco friendly shopping is often local shopping!

I am sure you must have heard of various books, reality shows and challenges where people vow to buy items that have been grown or produced within 100 miles of their home.

While this is not always practical or realistic, the concept of buying eco friendly products from local farmers, and local businesses is a good one.

The food is fresher and does not need to be shipped around the world to get to you. Good sources are local farmers markets, and local bakeries, butchers and other local shops.

Buy Online

Sometimes the item you really want is not available in your town or city.

Sometimes local selection is really poor.

Sometimes the item you want could never ever be grown anywhere near where you live. Think tea or coffee and the MidWest!

Eco friendly shopping can sometimes mean online shopping.

Check out our top choices for online shopping for organic baby clothing, gifts, and organic coffee.

Think of all of the choices you have and the alternatives you can compare without ever leaving your chair (and starting up the car and driving everywhere!)

Choiceful online shopping can help our environment!

Buy Fair Trade

When buying imported items be sure to try to buy fair trade certified items where available. Fair Trade items are ones produced under decent working conditions and with fair pay for the workers employed in their production.

Help make the world a better place for everyone!

Check out this video for more eco friendly shopping tips!

 

 

 

 

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