Eco Tip of the Week

Look for dairy products sold in reusable containers. It’s simple: you pay a deposit for the container at the time of purchase and you are refunded the amount of your deposit the next time you bring back the empty jar, bottle or crock.

This may sound a little old fashioned, but think of all the containers that we can keep out of landfills or all of the resources that can be conserved if we don’t have to recycle them.

Here are a couple of Northern California companies using reusable containers. http://www.stbenoit.com
http://www.strausfamilycreamery.com

We like to know if you have found any products being packaged in reusable containers. We are always on the lookout.

Eco Tip of the Week

Once you discover waxed paper bags you’ll never go back to those landfill clogging plastic baggies. Do you really need to pack your peanut butter sandwich for a few hours in a bag that will stay in a landfill for over 1000 years, ugh, I mean FOREVER?

Natural Value Unbleached Natural Waxed Paper Bags are landfill safe, non-toxic when incinerated and will not contaminate ground water (or your food) and even better, you can toss them in the composting bin. I can often use the same bag several times- even more eco friendly and cost effective.

Look for them at your local grocery store; if you can’t find them there they are available on several on-line sites. Check them out at www.naturalvalue.com

Eco Tip of the Week

Lundberg rice taste great, but that’s not the only reason why we love it. Recently they removed the re-closable zipper from their 2 pound bags of rice. This saves about 15% of the material used to make each bag and they note that this will save 35,000.00 pounds of plastic from landfills every year! I never knew those convenient little zippers used so much additional plastic.

So in the future, opt for packaging without the zippers. Use your own containers to store unused portions.

For more information about Lundberg’s eco practices, visit their website at www.lundberg.com

The Weekday Vegetarian Eco Tip of the Week

Here it is. My favorite, super easy, super important Weekday Vegetarian Eco Tip. Bring your own grocery bags to the store. Sounds simple, but the fact is most people still don’t do it.

As the debate heats up in cities everywhere about whether or not to ban plastic bags, the more I realize what a wasteful and selfish society we have become. We expect the store to provide a disposable bag for us to tote our groceries home. For most of us our groceries sit in that bag for no more than about 30 minutes. People say that they recycle them or use them for other purposes. They still end up in a land fill within a short time, and most people don’t recycle them, especially plastic bags. If you are like most people you have piles of them stashed around the house and eventually, and maybe even with slight guilt you throw half of them in the trash.

The facts below are from www.reusablebags.com (by the way, this is a great site. I recommend checking it out.)
• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.

• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

(Some good news)
• Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.

Get in the habit of keeping several bags in your car. That way you will never forget them. Another tip is to keep a small compact bag in your purse or front seat of the car for the small purchases.

Paper or plastic? No thanks! I brought my own reusable bags.