Go green easier by planning out your shopping and making some very simple changes to your habits. Simple steps will make a huge impact, it just takes a little patient rethinking.
From reusable grocery bags to buying and selling at consignment stores, a little preplanning will stretch your money and your planet’s resources a long way. Take plastic bags. Do you have a pet to pick poop up after? Unless you’re in an area that recently banned plastic grocery bags, why pay extra for tossing out critter waste? These are great for the cat box clean ups or for poop scooping after the dog.
Unless you go through a lot of bags every week, opt for using totes instead of the plastic or paper bags. Some stores use mostly-to-fully post consumer recycled materials in their bags, so ask. If the paper bags aren’t using post consumer materials, don’t use them.
Trees still have to be cut down and milled to make those bags. Totes rinse out, tear less, fold up easily and a stack of them isn’t unsightly on the backseat of anyone’s car.
Go green easily by planning your shopping trips and you keep fuel costs down. By making a list of what you have to do and where you want to go prevents back tracking. If you live with others, see if you can’t run errands together or even divide and conquer your lists. One trip to the consignment shop can get your items up for sale, some new clothes in your roommate’s or partner’s closet and a new bedside novel before grabbing some zinnias for the patio.
A phone call before leaving work puts a new batch of salad on the dinner table, replacing what got eaten as someone else’s snack; one trip, no unhappy surprises and fuel saved. Just grab a tote from the car and grab those goodies on the way home. Going green is easier than most people think and you don’t have to change your political party, your zip code or even your dress code.
All it takes to keep a greener planet and wallet is a little “Stop before you shop” thinking. Need poop bags, get plastic today. Start paying bills on line; electricity for the computer is cheaper than gasoline and uses no trees; there’s no paper check.
Bulk shop with friends to save fuel and food costs. Get as many errands run in one area of town as you can. There are internet sites, magazines and local groups devoted to helping everyday people, just like you, get a little greener, a little easier.