Celebrate Earth Day!: 5 reasons Food Co-ops are Good For the Earth

earth-and-nature

  1. Co-ops promote and offer local options

When farmers, producers, and artisans are able to sell their goods locally there is not much of a carbon footprint to be left behind.

Food co-ops work with local growers and business to provide a place to sell their goods. This keeps transportation and fuel use down, and provides the freshest possible produce to customers. It also keeps dollars local.

Imagine getting you’re fresh tomatoes from a few miles away rather than flown, trucked, railed, and or shipped all the way from Mexico!

The best part is things taste better when they’re not shipped half way around the world.

Buy local!

  1. Co-ops use less plastic bags

The United States alone uses over 1 billion plastic shopping bags annually, and an estimated 12 million barrels of oil to make them. These bags can take over 1,000 years to degrade not to mention they are very toxic to the environment and to us.

Most food co-ops promote the use of Re-usable bags, and customers are often more eager to adapt to using them regularly than at conventional grocery stores.

Some co-ops offer or sell re-usable produce bags too! If you’re crafty, you can try making some for yourself!

Do what you can to save our environment one bag at a time!

 

  1. Co-ops recycle

Food co-ops build recycling into their business plan; it’s not an afterthought.

In communities, this often times has a ripple effect and the system can easily be copied and implemented into other businesses.

Many times you will find several recycling bins, even one for food scraps in a co-op.

Strongertogether.coop states that co-ops recycle 96 percent of cardboard, 74 percent of food waste and 81 percent of plastics compared to 91 percent, 36 percent and 29 percent, respectively, recycled by conventional grocers.

The best approach to lowering waste is to not use as much! When possible, always try to recycle.

 

  1. Co-ops promote and sell organic for a reason

Not only are non-contaminated foods and products better for us, when crops are grown organically, we are saving the environment too!

The use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers is detrimental to our soil and pollutes water.

One of the most imminent threats to wildlife is the loss of pollinators due to pesticides. Bees and butterfly numbers have decreased so rapidly that scientists are worried we could see a future without them. Without these lovely creatures we will not be able to pollinate or grow most foods in the world.

Whenever possible, choose organic!

 

  1. Co-ops offer bulk options

Most of the non-degradable waste that exists today comes from packaging. Wrappers, plastic, cellophane, cardboard, tin, and glass are some of the materials that encompass the trillions of pounds of packaging materials that fill our landfills each year.

Co-ops offer many bulk buying options. This does not mean buying a 30 pack of chips rather than one. At food co-ops, there are many bins of grains, dried fruits, spices and more that are not only beautiful and fresh, but also more economical.

Co-ops not only offer food in bulk but many times offer items like bars of soap that you can cut off yourself with no packaging at all, or large vats of soaps that you can bring your own container in to fill leaving out all of the packaging costs.

Make an impact and consider using your own containers and produce zero waste each time you fill them when you shop!

 

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