Family First - Green Grocery Shopping

Most of us go to supermarket at least once a week, so at least once a week we have the opportunity to do something good for the environment. One recent afternoon, we watched shoppers at the Schnucks store on Washington avenue. The overwhelming majority of them chose the supermarkets "paper or plastic" for bagging their groceries. But a few, like Diana Sanner, brought her bags with her. She actually bought the bags for a dollar a piece at Schnucks. Its an environmentally smart choice. Of the more than 380 billion plastic bags discarded in the U.S. every year, only one percent of them are recycled. "We had so many extra plastic bags at home and bringing them back to be recycled all the time was a hassle. These bags are nice. They hold a lot. I can come in and get my weeks worth in the 2 bags and dont have to worry about extra plastic." Of course, you dont have to buy the supermarkets bags. You can bring your own. We can also avoid other disposables. Use cloth napkins and towels instead of paper and the earth will thank you. Cut down on meat. Raising livestock is a resource intensive process. And buy things with little or no packaging like produce. Of course, its impossible to eliminate all packaging, but we can reduce packaging. Instead of buying six or 12 little boxes of raisins, we can buy one big one. Buy organic products. The Schucks manger says organics account for about 15 percent of sales today, but he expects that figure to grow to 40 percent in the next five years. "Demand is definitely there. We has carried organic foods for the last 10 years, but the demand the last two to three years has really risen." Take it from Diana Sanner. Going green at the grocery is easy. Just make the decision and do it. One more thing. Not all of us can do this, but if you can walk or bike to the grocery, thats green too.