A trip to the grocery store

At the risk of infuriating my audience, here’s what a typical grocery shopping trip looks like for me today.  I realize that this is not ideal. That’s why I have this blog and am trying to change, so try to withhold judgment a bit, yeah?

1.  Hop in my 18mpg SUV to drive four blocks up the street to my local supermarket.
2.  Park and walk in empty handed. Grab a grocery cart.
3.  Zoom gracefully through the center aisles, picking up lots of pre-packaged and single-packaged food.  I’m eternally on a diet, so things like those 100 calorie snack packs are awesome for helping with portion control. 
4.  Ignore completely where the food was made or shipped from.  I’m optimizing for my diet, and for yumminess, and a third factor just seems like a little too much to think about. Besides, most of the time it’s impossible to tell where things are from.
5.  Go to the produce aisle and grab about 5 plastic bags to store my produce in. Ignore the twist-ties (they aren’t always there anyway), and tie a knot in the top of each bag to keep the food inside.
6.  Check out. When asked about paper vs. plastic, go with paper because it’s a little bit easier to carry up to my apartment.
7.  Load my SUV, drive four blocks back home.
8.  Load a grocery cart at my condominium complex full of the bags again and take the elevator up five floors to my unit.
9.  Put away the groceries. Fold all of the paper bags and put them under the sink to be used whenever they may prove useful: next Halloween, Armageddon, whatever. Suffice it to say I have a LOT of paper bags under the sink.
10. Make lots and lots of garbage. Plastic bags from the produce, packaging from the food, etc.

I think this is a pretty typical American jaunt to the grocery store. However, even naïve me can look at this and figure out that it probably isn’t the most eco-friendly set of things that I could be doing. How do we make this better?

Alternatives to driving to the grocery store
I don’t really care for grocery shopping, so I do it infrequently, buying large quantities of items at one time.  While I only live .46 miles away from the grocery store, I drive so that I can haul the 10 resulting bags around. Seems there are a few different ways to optimize this:

1. I could walk or bike. But if I do, how on earth would I get all of the groceries back to my apartment? I’d have to own a grocery cart and take it back and forth with me, right? I’m not sure I could get past the resultant homeless bag woman imagery.

True, there are emerging solutions for this: 'green' updates to the granny wheelie-carts we're used to seeing. I gotta say though, lugging a cart uphill through the Seattle rain does not sound like fun, no matter how cute it looks. Is it worth it?

Driving saves me a lot of headache, and only generates 75 pounds of co2 a year. That's only .22% of the CO2 that I generate per year. Sure, it adds up, but this isn't the straw that's breaking the camel's back. So that takes me to my next solution:

2. I could drive a different car. I don’t need the full space of the SUV, and I could definitely get something more fuel-efficient. This is the likely solution for me. An economy car with 40mpg would take these trips down to 28 pounds of co2 a year: a 62% reduction. This is what I'll pursue.

Come armed and ready
Rather than walking in empty-handed to the store, I want to bring the bags that I'm going to use when I leave. Durable grocery bags and produce bags are everywhere now. They are cheap and easy to get a hold of.

I'm picking up the "As-Seen-On-Oprah" EcoBags for produce. You can also get them in pretty colors, but colors are more expensive. For groceries themselves, the most eco-friendly bag options are made from recycled cotton, but they are more expensive. I'm going for a 12-pack of canvas bags with long straps for $39.99.

If reusable bags aren't available for some reason, I'll continue to get paper bags. These are easily recyclable. I've read that bringing them back to the supermarket as a recycling option is much better than recycling them along with your standard garbage, because they will go right back into making more bags, which is more efficient.

I pledge to never choose plastic bags at the grocery store! It's an easy choice to make.

Stop purchasing single-packaged food
100 calorie packs, and other single-packaged food, are everywhere now. Why? One word: convenience.

But here are two other words: cost, and waste.

Fact: 100 calorie packs are stupidly more expensive than buying the same item in normal packaging. As an example, let's look at goldfish crackers. Safeway.com lists the 5 snackpacks at 3.75oz as $2.50. That's $10.67/pound. A standard 6.6oz bag of goldfish crackers? $1.00, or $2.42/pound. Are you really willing to pay 5x more for the same product with the added convenience of little bags?

No! You shouldn't be. Especially when those little bags are creating tons and tons of landfill waste that sucks energy and produces emissions. And they don't even work for dieting purposes! You just end up eating six of them at a time. Well, at least I do.

100 calorie packs are a huge scam. I'm going to stop buying them, and just use portion control with normal snacks instead.

Purchase more products made from recycled materials
Rather than mindlessly reaching for the Charmin, I'm going to look for recycled paper products. Seventh Generation has a great line, but there are lots of others coming to the market as well. Purchasing recycled paper saves energy, water, emissions, landfill space, etc. And the latest 'studies' show recycled TP to be just as soft on your bum as regular toilet paper.

Aluminum foil is another great item to purchase in recycled form.

Consider the food that I'm buying
Figuring out how the food that I buy impacts my environmental footprint is on my to-do list for 2008. I don't have all of the answers around this, but here is what I understand so far:

1. Buy local food when you can. The saved transportation costs save emissions. Produce (especially fruit) frequently advertises its origin, so these are good items to pick up. Farmer's markets in the summer are a great way to get local items. Even things like cheese and meat have potential local connections you can ask about.

2. Just because food is organic doesn't mean it is environmentally sound. Put in another way, shopping at Whole Foods does not automatically make your food green. Organic has an entirely different meaning. While some state that organic farms might use less energy than conventional farms, the data is still inconclusive.

Have tips for how you make your grocery shopping more green? Post them in the comments!

Comments

[Green Bean]

I enjoy your blog - and your candidness. Found you through great green blogs and was attracted by the very clever blog name.

I have the produce bags and they are awesome. It just feels so much lighter and elegant to put your produce in one of those than the awful plastic bags from the grocery store. I always use my canvas totes. I have green ones that I bought at Whole Foods a year ago. I just noticed yesterday that they now offer ones that are made from recycled water bottles - pretty cool.

Buying in bulk (re-use your plastic bags or a container) is a great way to reduce waste and cheaper too.

I also buy milk in the glass bottle that I return for reuse. Also, making things instead of buying can be reduce waste and your food miles. For instance, I canned my own jam last year and dehydrated or froze seasonal fruit so I don't need to go out and buy a plastic bag full of frozen blueberries now. :)

Finally, farmer's markets are awesome. Check around to see if you have one that is open year round - I thought there were a few in the Seattle area.

Check out my recent post about shopping a Northern California farmer's market in January.

http://greenbeandreams.blogspot.com/2008/01/you-can-never-go-back.html

Go gradually! Don't overwhelm yourself with changes because it takes time to develop a new habit but it feels so much greater once your living smarter.

[Juli]

Shop like a New Yorker! Instead of infrequent trips involving the SUV or the dreaded granny cart, go more often on foot and only buy what you can carry. Do that and you won't have to worry about those silly 100 calorie packs.

Juli in NYC

[Sunny]

Everything they said above. Things I have done as well is to join a CSA or Community supported agriculture farm and get a box of produce each week during the summer. Fresh as can be, local and good for those of us trying to eat better. Way better for you than the snack foods (but we want them!). Also, why does so much of our produce need to be in bags. Quite honestly you're not keeping it clean. We all (especially me) would benefit from thinking outside our boxes. I am amazed as some of the stuff people put in bags in the produce section. Just throw it in your cart and get on with life. Perhaps you live close enough that you could stop on your way home from somewhere else on your bike to purchase perishables more often. Buy the non-perishables in bulk and in large quantities (using your car) and then you don't need the car as often. Just thoughts you've probably already had.

[a f]

Does anybody know about this site ( http://www.earthlab.com ) ? I have seen other environmental sites with carbon calculators like yahoo and tree huggers, but I am wondering what the deal with earthlab.com is? I saw they also published a list last month of the top ten greenest cities ( http://www.efficientenergy.org/Top-Ten-Green-Cities-in-the-United-States ). Does anyone know if this site is better than the others? Fill me in!

I took their carbon foot print test and it was pretty interesting, they said that I put out 4.5 tons of carbon, does anyone know about any other tests?

[a f]

Does anybody know about this site ( http://www.earthlab.com ) ? I have seen other environmental sites with carbon calculators like yahoo and tree huggers, but I am wondering what the deal with earthlab.com is? I saw they also published a list last month of the top ten greenest cities ( http://www.efficientenergy.org/Top-Ten-Green-Cities-in-the-United-States ). Does anyone know if this site is better than the others? Fill me in!

I took their carbon foot print test and it was pretty interesting, they said that I put out 4.5 tons of carbon, does anyone know about any other tests?

[David]

Hi ... whatever your name is.

** How about providing a name ... even a nickname?**

Anyway, Juli from NYC is right on. Imagine that, a west coaster taking lifestyle advice from a NewYorker? Heh, heh.

A variant on the theme is to cycle with the panniers. I can get a weeks worth of groceries in the bags ... sometimes wearing a backpack as well ... also, a large, bulky item bungeed to the rack. The beauty is that you bring the panniers into the store in the cart, and load 'em directly at the checkout ... then clip 'em on the bike and you are on your way! Once home, just unclip and carry 'em in.

It's easier than loading bags into the car, and unloading later. Also, the bike is right by the door, so no need to walk back with the cart.

Try it, you'll see.

Maybe you have some major hills in your neck o' the woods. Otherwise, give it a go.

While you've been advised to 'go slow' with the changes, I'd like to weigh in with the suggestion to 'combine/integrate' in such a way as to deal with several/numerous issues at once.

Biking allows you to burn some calories and possibly do away with the 'eternal diet'. Indeed, as you cycle more you'll realize the need for healthier food as fuel ... compounding the benefits.

And cycling allows you to truly see your neighbourhood (and neighbours) ... to see sights on a common route that you've never noticed whizzing by in a motor vehicle. And the wonderful smells of flowers in bloom ... dinners being cooked. Smiling; saying hello to the passers-by.

As for 'time', it's not the speed of the vehicle but the duration of time in transit. The fast motor vehicles get stopped at red lights, all the while you keep pedaling. You'll be surprised at how efficient (mechanically) and effective cycling is as a mode of utilitarian transport.

[Fix]

Mary-Jane:

Funny thing, TP has been made out of post- and pre-consumer content for a while now...the cheapo pedestrian brand Marcal is a leader on this. They kept it under wraps until now because people are so squeamish about putting something "recycled" on their bum. Now that it's hot to be green, it's the first thing that comes up on their site! No need to get something so expensive as Seventh Gen, though I have a feeling their bleaching and packaging practices are more earth-friendly. Something else I've learned this year is that paper towels are almost completely unnecessary. That's what old dish towels and t-shirts are for!

I love your blog - I featured it a few weeks ago on Fix. Carry on!

Megan

[N. & J.]

A couple other suggestions I have is shopping with friends so you only take one vehicle and you can help each other carry groceries. The other is go to the grocery store once and just look at your options without an agenda. It's best to do this when it's less crowded. It isn't always ease to find out where something is made or how recyclable it is or to compare two different eco-friendly products when you are in a crowded grocery store just trying to get in and get out. That way the next time around you know what your choices are and where in the store to find them.