How committed are you to living a sustainable life? If your commitment is more than skin deep, you might want to consider one of the hottest trends right now: zero-waste shopping. It took Europe by storm some years ago; it is finally making its way here to the U.S.
Some would argue that genuinely zero-waste shopping is impossible simply because human beings generate waste no matter what they do. Zero-waste advocates would respond by pointing critics to low-waste shopping, instead. Both are geared toward the same goal: eliminating unnecessary waste from the retail shopping experience.
Selling in Bulk Is Key
A Believe Earth post published a few years back profiled zero-waste shops in Germany. If you look closely at the pictures that accompany the story, you might notice the key to making the zero-waste model work. That key is selling in bulk.
The majority of zero-waste shops in Europe sell mainly health and beauty products, household cleaning products, and bulk foods. Selling in bulk eliminates all the packaging that comes with individually packaged products.
Many zero-waste retail shops do not even provide containers for carrying purchases home. Customers bring their own containers. If any packaging waste is found on site, it is limited only to the containers in which bulk items were shipped. But for many shops, even that isn’t an issue. They buy their inventory locally, on a bulk basis as well.
Zero-Waste Is a Mindset
The zero-waste concept is more than a business model. It is a mindset. It’s a way of thinking that dictates how much waste a person or organization generates. Where waste can be eliminated, it is. Where it cannot be, you are left with things like low-waste shops.
There are just some things that cannot be sold in bulk and without providing some measure of packaging. But that does not mean a store has to use unsustainable packaging, like plastic. In a low-waste environment, packaging tends to be biodegradable, compostable, or endlessly recyclable.
The same mindset that fuels zero-waste thinking is leading the charge in the fight against plastic. Zero-waste proponents may never succeed in convincing society to fully eliminate all plastic, but substantially reducing the amount of plastic we produce is an achievable goal.
Most Plastic Gets Tossed
At Seraphim Plastics in Memphis, TN, recycling industrial plastic scrap is all in a day’s work. Unfortunately, Seraphim says that what they do is but a drop in the bucket. They say that the vast majority of all the world’s plastic ends up getting tossed.
That single fact is one of the primary motivations behind the zero-waste movement. Most of what is sold in zero-waste stores is also sold in grocery stores, pharmacies, and retail health food outlets. The difference is packaging. A traditional store sells products sold in cheap plastic packages. Rather than being effectively recycled, most of the plastic packaging ends up in the trash can. From there it is a short drive to the landfill or incinerator.
Don’t Generate It to Begin With
Zero-waste shopping is based on a not-so-novel idea that used to be mainstream just 50 years ago: not generating waste to begin with. If you do not generate the waste, there are no worries about sending it to a landfill or incinerator.
Eliminating plastic entirely is likely an unrealistic endeavor. However, reducing its volume substantially is very doable. Accomplishing it requires two things: a change in mindset and a willingness to actually make the lifestyle changes necessary to make it reality. The zero-waste movement is doing just that. It is encouraging people to reduce waste by shopping more mindfully.
