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Earth911 is honoring the 52 years of Earth Day with 52 Actions for the Earth. Each week by means of Earth Day 2023, we are going to share an motion you possibly can take to invest in the Earth and make your individual life extra sustainable. Sometimes an motion for the Earth takes actually no time or cash. But it’d really feel uncomfortable since you’ve been educated to do issues in a different way. This week, you possibly can put money into the Earth by skipping the produce baggage on the grocery retailer.
Action: Eliminate Produce Bags
Single-Use Plastic
Unless that is your first time visiting Earth911, you in all probability know in regards to the environmental injury attributable to plastics at each stage of their lifecycle, particularly once they break down into microplastics. It’s vital for everybody to be working in direction of a post-plastic world to interrupt freed from plastic pollution. Eliminating your private plastic utilization fully is probably not potential in a world the place practically each product incorporates some form of plastic. But eliminating single use-plastics like water bottles is an effective place to begin. And few single-use plastic gadgets have a shorter helpful life than grocery retailer produce baggage. Even plastic procuring baggage are sometimes reused to line wastebaskets or clear up the catbox. But produce baggage journey from produce aisle to your countertop, typically to be tossed earlier than the meals even goes within the fridge.
When You Need a Bag
Sometimes a bag is important. Mushrooms last more in a paper sack, which is recyclable. And some small gadgets like inexperienced beans must be bagged to maintain them collectively. For these gadgets, some co-ops and well being meals shops mean you can carry your individual reusable bag or container. But in case your grocer doesn’t mean you can carry reusable containers — and you’ve got entry to composting providers — you would possibly take into account shopping for your individual compostable bags for these things.
Going Bagless
Most of the time, produce baggage aren’t mandatory. Not for cleanliness — whether or not you bag or not, it is best to wash your produce earlier than you eat it. Not for cover — whether or not you bag or not, you possibly can’t stack heavy gadgets on prime of produce within the procuring cart or in grocery baggage. Most produce doesn’t actually must be saved collectively, both. Bagging two heads of broccoli or three apples doesn’t actually save time on the register or when placing meals away. Small gadgets like asparagus are already tied collectively, and greater ones like celery don’t even slot in produce baggage very properly.
This week, whenever you do your grocery procuring, put produce in your cart with out bagging it first. As lengthy as you don’t stack heavy issues on prime (which you wouldn’t do to bagged produce both) your produce ought to arrive house in the identical situation it all the time does. And you’ll have eradicated half a dozen or extra plastic baggage whose helpful life isn’t greater than an hour or two.
