Several of our latest #TipTuesday blogs have been about eliminating plastic waste from our lives. This is no different. As I was shopping at my local grocery store on Sunday, I saw something that upset me: a couple next to me had an entire cart full of fruits and vegetables. While I applaud their choice of food, each piece of produce was individually wrapped in its own plastic produce bag. And for what? Most of these foods you will wash prior to eating anyways or you don’t even eat the outside peel and therefore it doesn’t matter if it touches your cart.
After seeing their cart full of plastic bags I started to notice just how much unnecessary plastic packaging is used for produce. Sweet potatoes in plastic wrap for easy microwaving, potatoes in plastic bags for steaming, broccoli in plastic bags for…no particular reason. Images have been circulating the internet showing apples wrapped in plastic and styrofoam, halved avocados in cardboard and plastic and even a banana individually packed on a styrofoam tray with plastic wrap. It has to stop!
The solution, however, is easy! Just avoid purchasing items with wasteful over packaging and encourage other to do the same. Bring your own reusable produce bags to the store along with your shopping bags. Some of these products are packaged for convince, but it’s pretty easy to get the same results at home without the packaging. For example, you can still cook a sweet potato in the microwave by just poking it with a fork a few times and never even need the plastic wrap! If as consumers we don’t ask for these items, we will hopefully stop seeing them!
