Eco-Friendly Shopping Tips

Eco-Friendly Shopping Tips

Whether for essentials or personal indulgences, we all need to shop from time to time. When shopping, just a few people put the environment into consideration, which shouldn’t be so. The use of plastic shopping bags is the order of the day, and this contributes to the plastics we see everywhere.

Plastics are lying on the road by those who do not observe street cleanliness, plastic bags are in the hands of people shopping, and all these contribute to filling up dump sites especially when the plastic is not recycled.

These products, which are non-degradable, then find a way to pollute the environment and thereby contribute to global waste problems.

To make our planet safer, here are helpful eco-friendly shopping tips for your next shopping:      

1. Buy in bulk: Buying in bulk helps greatly in reducing the amount of packaging we need for each item. It helps us in reducing our carbon footprint because the transportation of food is less. Moreover, it saves time and money. On the other hand, buy only the necessary items in your bulk shopping to avoid wastage.

 

2. Buy local and seasonal products: When we buy local products, especially fruits, it’s always best to buy those which are in season. Transporting products from faraway helps in spreading preservatives substances and CO₂ Buying local foods helps us to buy fresh food that has not gone through processing. This makes us have lesser worries over nutritional balance in meal planning because we know that our nutrients are intact.

 

3. Shop with your containers or bags: One eco-friendly way to avoid buying products with a lot of packaging and plastic waste is to use your eco bag when shopping. This helps greatly because it reduces the uses of plastic bags and promotes recycling.

 

4. Buy from second-hand stores: From that dress for an event to the replacing of a coffee table, why not check out second-hand stores. This is budget-friendly and helps in reducing the amount of CO₂ needed to ship the item from the manufacturer’s place of origin.

 

5. Buy reusable products: Plastics are non-biodegradable, so go for varieties of biodegradable products. In buying reusable products, we should choose from items that do not have a single-use, such as paper or plastic cups; this will help keep that product out of the landfill. With this in mind, we will always look out for alternatives to plastic packaging wherever possible. You could switch to bamboo products like bamboo toothbrushes and knives. Using a metal straw is better than using a plastic straw to sip drinks.

 

6. Buy farm products: Look around for the closest farm, especially for your vegetables and seafood products. This helps one in eating healthy and helps the environment too.

 

7. Read labels on every product: When you start reading labels on products, you get to know which ones are eco-friendly. When your light bulb burns out next time, search the label of the next bulb you are to buy and replace with an eco-friendly brand. This eco-friendly bulb stays longer and uses less energy.

 

When you follow these tips as an individual, you will help in avoiding large amounts of CO₂ being released into the environment. As you go out again for that shopping spree, uphold the core values of being eco-friendly. The core values of being eco-friendly are ‘reduce,’ ‘reuse,’ and ‘recycle.’ Then watch the environment smile back at you, and this will surely help you to be a more mindful consumer.