Consumerism LUREs

If you had asked me, I would've said that I was not a typical American consumer. Because I grew up overseas in a very different culture, I did have a few residual habits that were non-standard. But, for the most part, I had definitely moved well into the normal range on this one. And the LUREs have definitely modified that. This will be my attempt to sort out the cause/effect situation for my new shopping habits.

Garbage In
Paying attention to the household garbage was one of the early recommendations from the green blogs out there. I've seen a bit of how it is to live - quite literally - with garbage (part of the "different culture" thing that I mentioned), so this seemed like a sensible idea. Just by keeping a rough gauge on our garbage, I came to a few quick conclusions as to the sources.

• We ate a lot of convenience foods - and they all have a lot of packaging.
• Packaging! Good GRIEF! Do we really need plastic wrap around a cardboard holder around a sealed plastic package around what I actually want to buy?!?!
  

The traditional way to track garbage production is to weigh it. But that is WAY too much work for a Lighten Up mindset. Instead, I just set out to do a few things differently. And here is where the Ripples start.

Fewer convenience foods means more "home made" food. That means I need decent starting materials - like the kind of produce that hasn't been bred to withstand industrial harvesting machines and days on the road. That meant learning about local produce options - like farmer's markets!

I confess to having sporadic success on this front. While I have gotten better at this, there are weeks that it just doesn't happen. On the good weeks, I make it to at least 1 of the actual Farmer's Markets in town. On a bad week, I buy all of my produce at "natural foods" store that buys more locally - but still not from the local farmers that I see at the markets. I suspect that PL has the best approach on this. She has joined a CSA so she gets local veggies delivered to her door every week. I admit to being a wimp about this - not wanting to deal with learning to cook seasonally during all of this chaos - but I think that will be the best route now that I have a bit more time.

To address the convenience issue, I also do a bit of proactive cooking. I try to have something that even teenage boys would consider yummy in the fridge. My current favorite plan is throw some chicken into the crock pot with BBQ or teriyaki sauce on the weekend. (Which, by the way, is my next trick this morning!) I then shred it and put it in a glass container on the top shelf of the fridge. Sandwiches always ensue.

Of course, as with any double income family with kids, convenience foods will happen. I've begun using packaging as a convenience food decision factor. If my guys are equally likely to eat either thing, the one with less trash for me to deal with is the one that I buy!

Which leads me to the packaging discussion. Here is the thing. We were already pretty good about actual trash production. That is, in large part, because we have municipally supported recycling here - they pick up the recycling bin and send it off for us. (Probably to a place like this, just for the record, which is pretty cool.) But, longterm, improved recycling habits is not where I want to go. The key, in my opinion, to fixing the Garbage In, Garbage Out equation is to actually reduce Garbage In - even if that "garbage" mostly ends up in the recycling bin.

So, I had to make some decisions about what I consider to be useful packaging. This is, like almost everything else I've discussed here, based on personal values and beliefs. (I'll tell you a funny story about that when talking about "Personal Care" items tomorrow!) What I do, in other words, will probably NOT make sense for you! But here are a few things from my list.

• Buy items from the "bulk bins" at the local natural food store. Take ziplocs for items that must have a bag. For me, these include
  
• Honey Mustard Pretzels
• Rice
• Beans
• Spinach
• Mushrooms
• Granola
  
• For the first several weeks, be prepared to explain to every cashier that the store doesn't sell spinach/granola/rice pre-packaged in ziplocs - you just brought those in yourself. Repeat with staff turnover.

• Don't put your produce in those conveniently provided little plastic bags. Bring your own little bags if you like, or just let them run around loose.
  
• This one took some doing for me! But I'm going to wash it all when I get home anyway, and the checkout conveyor belt is probably no dirtier than the display. So why am I grabbing garbage that I will only use for 30 minutes? Talk about short life cycle items!

• Change a few habits to make a big difference. Again, these were personal choices for me - in some cases not even choices that I enforce with my own guys!
  
• Personal care items are notorious for packaging. We'll talk about most of this tomorrow, but just one quick one. Take a look at bar soap instead of those lovely body washes. Unless you can refill that body wash bottle, it is trash every few months.
  
• If you have the storage space, larger sized items usually improve the stuff - to - packaging ratio.
• For me, just looking at this packaging craziness was more useful than any suggestion that I read. Shopping is family specific. As they say, YMMV.

So, our family garbage production actually made me think about CSAs and have a few interesting conversations at the grocery store check out line. Do you see what I mean? The ripples are everywhere. Tomorrow, I'll try to trace how I got into personal care items research.