Grocery Packaging Waste Analysis

One person that I admire is Lauren Singer of www.trashisfortossers.com. If you look around her website, you can see that she is very sustainability/conservation orientated. She has a page that shows how little trash she's generated over the past two years. I compared the trash she generates to how much I generate, and it made me think that I need to make a change. I've been reading her site on how to get ideas on ways I can generate less trash.

I want to generate less trash, and I'm going to start with food. Looking over my grocery bill from almost two weeks ago, and analyzing my purchases, I have opportunities to generate less trash-

• Cottage Cheese - Plastic Tubs can be recycled, plastic film can't.
• Orange Juice - Can the carton be recycled? I usually throw it away.
• Cereal/Cheez Its - Wetboard can be recycled, plastic bag can't. 
• Fruit/Vegetables - Plastic bags and twist ties
• Soup - Can tin cans be recycled? I think so, I don't remember. 
• Chips - Chip bag was thrown away
• Guacamole Mix - Packages were thrown away
• Gatorade Bottles - Bottles can be recycled
• Frozen Pizza - Plastic and cardboard were thrown away. 
• Plastic Bags - I think I had around 6 plastic bags for these groceries

I don't think this was a terrible amount of trash, but it could be better. One thing I'm going to do is order some reusable fruit/vegetable bags. I need to figure out how the weight is accounted for when checking out, and if the grocery stores will be OK with subtracting the weight of these bags. I also need to use reusable grocery bags. I have some, I'm just never good about remembering to bring them. This will just take discipline. 

I will start with the reusable produce bags and grocery bags and go from there. I don't think all packaging is bad, because this keeps food safe, but like I said, I have opportunities to improve. 

Signed,

Mitch