Zero Waste Wednesday

If you’re serious about reducing your impact, you’ve probably already swapped out single-use plastic grocery bags for reusable ones–after all, you can’t even recycle single-use plastic grocery bags in normal recycling.

Making the switch to reusable grocery bags is a great first step (and if you’re yet to take it, consider finding used ones or buying bags made of renewable, compostable materials so that if they eventually break, you can dispose of them responsibly at the end of their useful life).

But there’s a second step you can take to reduce your plastic waste from the grocery store: think about your produce bags. With grocery bags, at least you can reuse them as trashbag liners. But the produce bags are always flimsy, filmy little things. Of course, there’s plenty of produce that doesn’t really HAVE to go in a bag. If you’re buying one zucchini, for example, that doesn’t really need to be wrapped up at all. But if you’re buying mushrooms or tomatoes or anything loose, it’s reasonable to want to corral your produce into a bag.

Luckily, there are reusable versions of produce bags too!

It’s easy to find reusable produce bags online; they’re typically made of mesh and come with a drawstring so you don’t even need to get a twist tie. While there are lots of great options out there, we really like these ones in particular. Made of organic cotton, these produce bags include a tare weight label–that way, the cashier can subtract the weight of the bag from the price of the produce (not that the bags weigh much at all, but if it weighs on your mind, there’s no need to worry).

Best of all, they ship plastic-free–because there’s nothing more frustrating than ending up with a pile of plastic waste when you’re buying a single-use product intended to help you reduce your plastic trash.

By Jamie Simpher