Most of the products you can buy arrive in containers—bottles, jars, cans, and boxes. These containers are made durable enough to withstand handling from the manufacturer to the distributor to the retailer to you. Once you have the product out of the package, it no longer
has a useful purpose. It becomes more material for recycling—or worse, more bulk for the landfill. This chapter offers a few suggestions for reducing the amount of packaging you accumulate, or finding other uses for it.
A Packaging Paradox
Paper products, more than anything else, fill the country’s waste stream. Paper packages make up a huge proportion of landfill mass. The packaging industry itself is concerned about the waste stream, and holds source reduction as one of its principles. Using the slogan “less waste in the first place,” packagers work to minimize the material used to hold, protect, and present products to consumers.
Two problems make that goal difficult to pursue. One, consumers expect products to look perfect, and often choose one product over another because of the way it appears on the shelf. Two, packaging is often used in attempts to increase the perceived value of the contents. Clearly, the packaging industry can do better—but so can consumers.
Because almost every product available has to be conveyed somehow, no one can do away with packaging as an integral part of commerce. But you can reduce the amount of packaging included in what you buy.
Alternative Buying Tactics
While Shopping
About 20 years ago, few grocery stores offered foods in bulk; today, it’s common practice. To reduce the amount of new packaging you consume, you can either use the thin but strong plastic bags provided by the grocery store, or you can save packaging waste entirely by bringing your own containers. Just remember to have one still empty when you check out, so the cashier will know how much weight to deduct from the total.
When you shop for groceries or other goods, take your own bags. Canvas shopping totes are light and easy to carry when they’re empty, and a lot sturdier when they’re full. Buy a few, if you don’t already have some, and make a habit of using them. They will last for years.
Another kind of buying in bulk requires more coordination, but the results can be worth the effort. Warehouse-style stores offer common products in quantities that are too great for most households, but would provide generous shares for multiple households that agree to split the cost. These products still have commercial packaging, but often far less of it.
At Home
You can replace disposable paper towels and napkins with cloth dishtowels and napkins, which are sturdier—and can be washed and reused. Think of cloth for cleaning chores, too. As convenient as premoistened wipes can be, they create three kinds of waste: they combine paper, plastic, and soap in a separate package that only duplicates what you probably have in the cupboard.
Ounce for ounce, some of the most expensive common household products are salon-style shampoo and conditioner. They may not rival designer-brand perfumes, but their packages make up a large part of their retail price. Check in your area for specialty stores that will refill your hair-care product packages with more of the same, or a generic equivalent that may provide the same quality of results.
Also, with so many electronic devices in the average household, reusable batteries are more important than ever. Years ago, they helped reduce the amount of heavy metals, especially mercury, sent to landfills. Manufacturers worked to create disposable batteries with less and less mercury; they succeeded well enough that extracting the mercury fraction is economically impractical. So now, rechargeable batteries mostly help keep disposable batteries themselves out of the waste stream.
At Work
Restaurants that cater to business customers place a high priority on serving you quickly. Often, that means using disposable dishes and utensils. When you visit these restaurants, take only as much of each item as you really intend to use. Better still, find eateries that reuse dishes. You may find the experience more pleasant in other ways.
Taking your own lunch to work will give you more choices over what you eat, and help you save money at the same time. If you do take your lunch to work, it’s just as easy to use durable dishes and utensils. And bring your own mug. After all, coffee tastes better from
ceramic than from polystyrene.
Other reusable products at work include ink and toner cartridges. Many services will pick up your empty cartridges and offer a discount on refilled ones. If your current printer, fax, or copy machine is under a service contract, this option may conflict with it. Another potential
problem is that some toner cartridges include microchips to prevent the use of third-party products. While this tactic mostly serves to protect the sales of the manufacturer’s toner, the real risk may be in violating the warranty. Do some research before you adopt this approach.
By the way, even though researchers from Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft claim the paperless office is an imaginary goal, you can still pursue it. In The Myth of the Paperless Office, Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper show how electronic communication did not cause a reduction in paper use, but instead corresponded with a 40 percent increase in it. Bear in mind, though, that they described old habits. You can create new ones if you want.
