Eco-Friendly Shopping

I am always trying to do my best to be environmentally conscious (yes, I am one of those people) and avoid non-recyclable materials like plastic. However, I find that supermarkets don’t necessarily make it easy to avoid these materials.

As someone who owns their own baking business, I find myself in the supermarket a lot. With this, I have managed to come up with some strategies that don’t leave you going home with eight plastic bags in hand

Tote Bags

I know you’ve heard this all before, but buy yourself a tote bag. You can buy really good sturdy ones in the supermarket, it’s no longer about flimsy string bags. It’s better to buy the bags as they last longer than the plastic bags that wear out and tear pretty easily. It also means that you aren’t encouraging the supply of plastic bags and it’s nice to avoid that 5p bag charge every supermarket visit (if you live in the UK).

Another tip if you live in the UK and get food deliveries; Sainsbury’s have a no plastic bag option. You can meet the delivery at the door with your own tote bags ready so you don’t end up with 20 plastic bags in your cupboard.

Say no to plastic wrap.

Cling film is public enemy number one to me. In the UK, they wrap a ludicrous amount of fruit in veg in cling film and plastic bags. This type of plastic is really hard to recycle, it’s a lot of effort, and most of the time it just ends up with the bin, which is depressing. My advice is to hop into those loose fruit and veg bins. The veg is great, and often times cheaper! All you have to do is wash before you use it, which you need to do anyway so it’s all just good practice.

Fruit and Veg Bags

When it comes to buying loose fruit and veg in the supermarket, you are usually provided with plastic bags. To avoid using a bag for each bit of fruit and veg, I just dump all each fruit straight onto the scale and print out the barcode and stick it on one bit of veg. If you don’t have this system, you can pour the veg onto the scale at checkout and pay for your fruit and vegetables that way. To avoid an awkward encounter at checkout you can always buy little tote bags to store your loose fruit and vegetables, although you’re probably already sick of me going on about tote bags by now!

Bulk Buy

Sometimes there is nothing you can do, something you need only come in plastic packaging. What do you do? My advice, buy in bulk, get the largest amount as possible so overall you don’t end up buying a lot of plastic. For example, I always need a lot of caster sugar. So instead of buying the 500g bag even though I may only need 200g, I will buy the 2kg container, overall it is actually cheaper per 100g so you end up saving money.

Being eco-friendly can be sometimes time-consuming and expensive but it doesn’t always have to be. Making small changes in your day to day activities can really make an impact. If you can’t manage all of these tips just pick one and try and stick to it for a month. For example, if you do a big family shop once a week and end up taking home 10 plastic bags, at the end of the month you will have accumulated 40. However, if at the beginning of the week you buy a couple of large tote bags you will be able to avoid this. That’s a big impact.

So, there you have it, my tips for eco-friendly shopping in the supermarket. I hope you enjoyed these tips and found some of them useful.

Thanks for reading!