Go Green to Save Green: buy less packaging
April is Earth Month, so Green Bay Consumer wants to give you tips and tricks that are not only good for the earth, but save money, too!
Today’s post may or may not save you money, but I couldn’t finish up Earth Month without mentioning it.
I am being slowly driven nuts by our single-serve society. Apparently it’s impossible for people to buy things and break them down into smaller portions. Many people, including many money-saving bloggers, encourage you to buy like this, but not me!
How do they promote it?
- By encouraging people to buy the smallest sized item with an available coupon. Sure, you might be able to get a bunch of trial size packages for free, but think of all that excess packaging. More often than not, I buy the larger sizes. I’m still getting a deal, I’m just not polluting the earth to get it. An argument can be made that if you travel often, those trial size items come in handy. I say, if you travel often, get some reusable containers–they’re in the same darn aisle as the trial-size stuff.
- By encouraging people to buy heavily-packaged items. For example, there are some really good deals on stuff like microwaveable dinners. Which come in a disposable tray, wrapped in plastic, inside a cardboard box. (At least I think so, I’ve never bought one!) I don’t care how little they cost with an in-store deals stacked with coupons, if I fed my family of six those dinners, the mountain of packaging I’d throw away after one meal would make me sick to my stomach.
- By encouraging the use of un-needed products. If any one of these pet peeves is going to get me in trouble, this one will. What’s an un-needed product? Now don’t hate me, but the first thing that comes to mind is a single-serve coffee maker and all those K-cups or Pods. And it’s not the non-coffee drinker in me talking. I have a coffee maker with a reusable filter. If we’re having company, I make a pot. If my husband wants coffee, he makes half a pot, or a quarter of a pot. It’s not that hard–you use this thing called a coffee scoop. One scoop equals one cup of coffee for our maker. No one needs all that extra packaging for each cup of coffee made.
- I don’t mean to just pick on K-Cups, I’ve seen it all over the place. Do we really need a kitchen appliance that only makes cupcakes? What the hell is wrong with the oven?
- Individually-wrapped cheese slices, anyone?
- Last week I picked on pudding packs and encouraged you to buy reusable containers and buy pudding mix. Well, the same thing goes for yogurt & cottage cheese, too. Why buy single serve when you can buy a tub and dole out what you need?
- Because I knew I was going to write about this some day, I bought some Pillsbury Brownie Mix that made mini-brownies. It came with the dry mix in one package, the “caramel mix” in another, then a disposable baking tray in another, each enclosed in it’s own plastic wrap. At least when you buy a regular brownie mix, you’ve only got one plastic bag to throw out, not 3-4, plus the tray. I could ask my neighbors and friends to borrow a reusable tray if I didn’t have one.
I guess the point of this final Earth Month post is to say that while I love a good deal as much as anyone, I also consider the impact my purchases make to this beautiful earth. On rare occasion, I still buy deals where packaging is excessive, but more often than not I pass them by. And generally speaking, the stuff that is inside heavily-packaged material is not something we should be putting in our bodies, anyway. But that’s a rant for another day. 
We hope you’ve enjoyed this month-long series on different ways to save while being good to the earth.
Comments
2 Comments on Go Green to Save Green: buy less packaging
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Kristin on
Mon, 30th Apr 2012 1:46 pm
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Abbey Vizelka on
Mon, 30th Apr 2012 4:54 pm
Amen! Especially on the K -cups. Those things drive me crazy. And they’re so expensive!
I think the Kcup machines are great but I wish the reusable filters that go with them actually worked!
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