Green Matters™
by Crissy Trask
Welcome to my blog where I share almost anything I think will help make greener living undeniable and simple. News, tips, insight and resources served up weekly. I also share my perspectives on others' perspectives and actions. Agree or disagree, I hope you will find them thought-provoking and a starting point for conversation.
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MARCH 2, 2009 Inefficient Packaging Awards (No. 1)
This blog post marks the first in what will be a series of posts on examples of absurdly inefficient packaging and how to avoid it. Packaging makes up the largest and fastest growing segment of U.S. municipal solid waste. The uses, and misuses, of packaging are either supported, or not, based on our consumer choices. This series will hopefully help everyone become more observant of wasteful packaging while providing constructive ideas for how to avoid it.
What: Vitamins and supplements. It's not uncommon to open a bottle of vitamin tablets and find that the tablets take up about a fifth of the space inside the bottle. This is usually a disturbing discovering even for those not typically sensitive to over-packaging. To make matters worse, the bottle is almost never recyclable because most recycling centers reject the opaque plastic commonly used to shield vitamins and supplements from light, which can degrade them.
How to avoid: Ironically, those that purchase vitamins and supplements may be the very people who benefit from them least. Why? People who have the money and inclination to purchase supplements probably already eat of good diet and take care of themselves. Ask your doctor if you really need the vitamins and supplements you are taking.
What: Snack Chips. Snack chip manufacturers have been vacuum-packing their product and disguising the air to food ratio behind opaque packaging for years. The jig is up, but we look the other way because crunchy and salty--and now cheesing, spicy, sour, and sweet--snacks we can eat with our hands are, well, delicious.
How to avoid: Cut back. Snack food, for the most part, is non-nutritious calories laced with sodium and fat, and therefore best avoided on its own merits much less for its over-packaging. When you do buy snacks, check your grocery store's bulk food section for its selection of snack food, and fill up bags you bring from home.
What: Single Servings. Foods packaged in single serving pouches and containers that are then held together in multiples with more packaging are the poster foods for packaging waste.
How to avoid: Don't buy them: ever, if you can help it. First avoid buying snacks, beverages and meals from vending machines and convenience stores where singles are your only options. Buy economy sizes of the products you consume--within reason: make sure you need the volume you're about to buy and can use it up prior to its expiration-if it has one. If you need to send the kids off with single serving portions of anything, pack it up in reusable food storage containers or bottles. If you're worried that it's a bigger waste to wash reusable containers than to throw several away--don't. Throw-away packaging is a bigger problem for the environment than washing out reusable containers.
2009 BLOG INDEX
Posts by Topic
Air Quality
6/8/09, Leaf Blowers:
An Environmental Nightmare
Cleaning
4/14/09, Don’t
Be So Quick to Blame the Low-Phosphate Detergent
Energy
7/6/09, It’s Summer
Time and the Livin’ is ‘Green’!
4/7/09, Window Films Can Lower Your
Cooling Bills and Your Tax Liability
3/14/09, Bundle Your
Gadgets
Food
10/27/09, Super
Freakonomics Authors Come Down Hard on Local Food
10/22/09, Hey Foodies, What
Are You Feeding Your Pets?
Green Terms
5/26/09, A Closer Look
at the Definition of “Recycled” and Some Other “Re”
Words
Plastic, and other Trash
7/13/09, Will a
Ban on Bottled Water Lad to Bad Beverage Choices?
4/22/09, Bottled Water
Gets Reinvented
3/2/09, Inefficient Packaging
Awards (No. 1)
Perspectives
9/14/09, Gullibility
is Derailing Progress
8/24/09, Check
Your Lifestyle Before Bragging About Recycling
8/19/09, Simple
Solutions Won’t Work Alone: Comprehensive is the True Agent
of Change
2/22/09, The Unhappiest Generation
2/12/09, Inauguration
Attendees Fail to Demonstrate Change
Reduce
8/5/09, Direct
Mail Marketers Want to Force Junk Mail on Us
3/21/09, Better
Yard Sales
1/25/09, Wasting Trees:
Why I Hate Junk Mail
Reuse
10/14/09, Wrapping
with Your Butcher
5/7/09, Craigslist
Buyers are A Flakey Bunch on the Whole
Recycling
6/22/09, Not
Separating Your Recyclables from Your Trash Can Hurt
3/4/09, Recycle Your
Water Filters
Transportation
6/15/09, Avoid
Hot Car Syndrome to Reduce Emissions…and Discomfort
Water
3/27/09,
Water, Water Everywhere, but Not a
Drop…
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