{"id":592,"date":"2017-09-07T10:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T17:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/?p=592"},"modified":"2017-09-07T14:19:46","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T21:19:46","slug":"stuff-buy-packaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/07\/stuff-buy-packaging\/","title":{"rendered":"All the stuff we buy in packaging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Someone new(er) to living low waste asked what types of packaging I still buy. I&#8217;m pretty sure the asker just meant categories, like cans, glass jars, milk jugs, etc. However, I found it an interesting exercise and tried to enumerate\u00a0<em>all<\/em> the things we regularly buy that come in packaging. I&#8217;m not counting durable goods that need some research before purchase, like clothing, shoes, cookware. These types of items can often be found at thrift stores anyway.<\/p>\n<p>To find all the packaging we buy, I walked around the apartment looking in cupboards. I could have looked in the trash, but packages that we go through slowly wouldn&#8217;t have been included. But I&#8217;m sure I forgot something&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Here is everything that my household <strong>routinely<\/strong> purchases in packaging:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>flour in a paper bag<\/li>\n<li>rice in a plastic bag (we get the largest size medium-grain rice comes in, so there&#8217;s no point buying from a bulk store)<\/li>\n<li>butter in a cardboard box and wax paper<\/li>\n<li>mayo in a glass jar<\/li>\n<li>CSA produce that comes in cardboard box and occasionally wrapped individually in plastic or paper bags (I don&#8217;t have control over the CSA&#8217;s packaging, although I&#8217;ve been meaning to contact them about it. We buy from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imperfectproduce.com\/register.php?referral=44863\">Imperfect Produce<\/a>, \u00a0and I value their food waste efforts too much to switch to a lower-waste delivery service or to buy everything at the farmer&#8217;s market.)<\/li>\n<li>some pasta in cardboard or plastic bags<\/li>\n<li>special Asian goods (weird noodles, uncommon spices, seaweed, etc) in plastic bags<\/li>\n<li>Asian sauces (soy sauce, sake, fish sauce, rice vinegar, etc) in glass bottles (I&#8217;m interested in making these, but many require long periods of fermentation- on the order of years)<\/li>\n<li>various cooking oils in either glass bottles or metal tins<\/li>\n<li>canned tomatoes<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.66;\">soymilk in aseptic packaging (we go through a\u00a0<em>lot<\/em>)<\/span><\/li>\n<li>occasionally cheese and meat which are almost always in plastic wrap<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.66;\">toothpaste in plastic tube<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Dr. Bronner&#8217;s soap in 1-gallon plastic bottle (have only bought this once ever, so who knows when it&#8217;ll run out)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.66;\">dishwashing detergent in cardboard box (planning to get it in bulk next time)<\/span><\/li>\n<li>rinse aid in plastic bottle (have only bought this once ever also)<\/li>\n<li>laundry detergent in plastic bottle or cardboard bottle with plastic liner<\/li>\n<li>toilet paper in plastic wrap (switching to wrapped in paper, higher post-consumer recycled content, and cheaper!)<\/li>\n<li>condoms in cardboard box and\u00a0foil wrappers<\/li>\n<li>J buys shampoo in a plastic bottle<\/li>\n<li>J buys Dr. Bronner&#8217;s bar soap in paper<\/li>\n<li>J buys mouthwash in a plastic bottle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can see that these items fall almost entirely into two categories: food and cleaning. We cook a lot of Asian food, and those ingredients aren&#8217;t available in bulk in the US because they&#8217;re not common enough. Cooking more standard Western food would reduce our food-related waste by a lot.<\/p>\n<p>I think that&#8217;s an exhaustive list. I got carried away once I realized that it was even possible for me to make a complete list. But I hope it&#8217;s not off-putting! I&#8217;ve been de-wastifying my life for a long time, and it&#8217;s taken several years for me to get to this point. And you discover that there&#8217;s some stuff you just have to buy, like mayonnaise for me.<\/p>\n<p>I buy non-consumables, like cookware and clothes, at thrift stores, which have no packaging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone new(er) to living low waste asked what types of packaging I still buy. I&#8217;m pretty sure the asker just meant categories, like cans, glass jars, milk jugs, etc. However, I found it an interesting exercise and tried to enumerate\u00a0all the things we regularly buy that come in packaging. I&#8217;m not counting durable goods that &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/07\/stuff-buy-packaging\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;All the stuff we buy in packaging&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}