After doing endless research about the appalling use of un-necessary plastic that humankind as a whole is using, I took a trip to my local grocery store, which quickly turned into a horrific experience for me. Almost everywhere I looked, things were packaged in plastic that did not need to be. With things like fruits and vegetables I understand that it can be more difficult to not use plastic because it keeps them fresh, but there were loads of other items filling up the isles that had plastic in some form on their packaging.

If you are unfamiliar with Whole Foods, they have a few sections in their store that are isles filled with bulk bins. These bins have products like nuts and trail mix inside, and a customer can take (an unfortunately, plastic) container and fill their container with their desired amount of product from the bulk bins. Then, the customer will weigh their container and put a sticker on it that tells the cashier how much it weighs, since typically each bulk item will be charged by the pound (pounds for U.S.).

My proposal is to simply implement the use of bulk bins for more items that could easily be put into bulk bins in every grocery store. One would bring reusable jars or containers to their usual grocery store, and fill those containers with however much they want of a certain item. Items I am thinking of are things like rice, quinoa, pasta, chia seeds, granola, cereal, dried fruits, oats, snacks like cheese puffs, small cookies like oreos, pretzels, chex mix, sunflower seeds, gummy snacks, goldfish, cheez-it’s, candies like hershey’s kisses, and so many more. And just think if there was a freezer section for bulk bins- you could get things like pizza bites, ravaoli, frozen fruit, frozen vegetables, etc., without the unnecessary packaging. 

A bonus to this concept (besides saving the planet from our Climate Crisis) is that if you as a consumer do not want as much, or wants more, of the food that you would usually buy, you would have the ability to control it and bring home the exact amount that you want. For example: if I only want to buy a weeks worth of cashews from the grocery store, but my favorite brand of cashews gives me more than I wanted in their regular packaging, I would now have the ability to only get a weeks worth of cashews.

The reason this change will lead to a more eco-friendly lifestyle led by everybody, even if this is just implemented in one grocery store, is easy to see. I recommend that after your next grocery trip, every time you put something away that comes in packaging with some sort of plastic as a part of it, make a tally mark. When you are done putting everything away, you will be able to literally see how much unnecessary plastic you are using, even if you are buying healthy foods. I would like to enforce that this is not your fault- but you should still do something about it and help change this issue by signing this petition! I know that it’s a weird concept to imagine going to a grocery store with your own reusable jars and buying nearly everything in bulk- but if the cavemen thought about having a singular place to find all the food they need, it would be even more or just as foreign. My point being: change is perfectly okay, and if it’s what you’re used to then you notice it less, so let’s make buying more food from bulk bins what we are used to!