Shopping

Waste less by buying less: 

Your simplest and best strategy, but you need to resist advertisers trying to get you to buy more, whether you need it or not.

  • Give yourself a compulsory “cooling off period” so you don’t impulse buy. In that time make sure you really want it, need it, can afford it and don’t already have something you could use or fix up.
  • Avoid the buyer’s regret of impulse buys, especially online where it is too easy to act on impulse.
  • Challenge yourself to spend as much time in nature - or the closest thing to it like a walk in the fresh air - as you do in shops, including online ones.

Waste less by buying as much as you can second hand:

This is the next best thing you can do. It saves the environment as well as your money. Often it helps a charity too. Buying less or secondhand means less is made and distributed, with all the environmental costs those processes entail. Your secondhand purchase stays in use instead of becoming rubbish. Windowshop in opshops to avoid the temptation of more wasteful stores.

Waste less by choosing better products:

These products: don’t “cost the earth” to produce

  • They are made to last and fix
  • Their design is timeless
  • Local products save transportation costs.
  • Minimal packaging saves waste.
  • Natural materials such as linen, hemp, cotton, flax, silk, wool, wood, stone create fewer disposal problems.
  • Buying and giving better products rewards and promotes their producers.

Waste less by carrying reuseable bags: 

  • Supermarket bags, tote bags, back packs, paper bags, baskets, kete and produce bags. Baskets and kete are biodegradable choices. Keep them in your car, by the door, in coat pockets or anywhere else that helps you remember them.
  • They can be easy to make or re-purpose. For example run up produce bags out of re-used net curtain or similar light fabrics.
  • If your bag is plastic re-use it as long as you can.
  • Choose and request less packaging, or more environmentally friendly packaging, where you can.

Waste less by carrying reuseable serviceware and containers:

More and more shops are happy to refill clean containers (eg. Market stalls, Sushi shops, Takeaways, supermarket deli and fresh food counters…) Nelson's Kimchi & Wasabi goes further providing re-useable serviceware for dine-in customers and encourages its use. Ginger, wasabi and  soy sauce in bottles are provided for takeaways instead of plastic sachets.

  • Keep a “kit” of all the re-useable things you need:  container, coffee cup, water bottle, cutlery, straw, napkin.
  • Always have your kit handy by keeping it in your car, desk or bag.
  • Having a couple, saves you moving your kit from one place to another. 

Waste less by shopping with a list.

Shoppers who do, consistently waste less food and money.

  • Keep a list in your pantry or store cupboard to add to as things get low or run out.
  • There are list-sharing phone apps, so other shoppers in the household know what to buy.
  • Too busy to write a list? Try a photo of your fridge or pantry as you dash out.
  • You can depart from the list when you see things on special you should stock up on.

Waste less by buying in bulk rather than individually packaged. 

Easy now that you have your collection of fabric bags, containers, refillable bottles and have equipped your kitchen and laundry shelves with glass jars and containers!