GreenYour.com

Cut costs and keep your recycle bin emptier by buying in larger quantities. An added benefit: reducing the number of trips you have to make to the store.

How to buy products in bulk

Before going shopping, make a list of the items you'll need in the next few weeks or months. This will allow you to determine the quantities you'll require in the near future so that you can maximize your bulk purchases.

Then, knowing the things you use frequently and in abundance, you can buy certain items in larger sizes, as long as you can use it up before its shelf-life is over. Many everyday products come in a super-sized containers—shampoo, cleaning supplies, auto supplies, underwear, giftwrap, and toilet paper are all examples of products that come in bulk.

Just be sure to watch out for multiple small items packaged together that masquerade as 'bulk' options (three small bottles of shampoo shrink-wrapped together or flats of tiny, one-meal cans of pet food, for instance). These don't actually reduce the total packaging you're taking home.

And remember, some companies allow you to bring clean, used containers in for re-filling, so check out these options the next time you're in your local retailer.

Buying products in bulk helps you go green because…

• It reduces the amount of waste created.
• It prevents resources from being used for unnecessary packaging.

Packaging of all sorts makes up about one-half of all solid waste in the municipal waste stream. Although at least 28 countries currently have laws designed to encourage reduced packaging, the US is not one of them, which leaves package waste in the hands of the consumer. Much of the waste associated with packaging can be recycled, but despite the increased access to curbside recycling programs in the US, recycling rates have actually gone down.[1]

In 2006, over 41 million tons of paper products were taken to landfills. In total (before recycling), paper products constituted 34 percent of the total waste stream. That same year, 27.5 million tons of plastic products, 2.6 million tons of aluminum items, and over 10.3 million tons of glass bottles, jars, and other containers were not recycled, ending up in landfills.[2]

Consider, too, that most purchases add additional package-waste by being bagged in plastic as they leave the store. A plastic bag, which takes only one second to manufacture, is used for about 20 minutes on average and then takes 100-400 years to degrade naturally. About 16,000 of these bags are distributed worldwide every second.[3]

External links

• Container Recycling Institute
• Grist - Ounce For Ounce
• Ideal Bite - Is your household "waste-line" out of control?
• US Environmental Protection Agency - Product Stewardship: Packaging