Protect The Earth By Reducing Plastic Dependency
In an effort to reduce the number of greenhouse gases emitted into the environment, grocery stores should educate and encourage their staff and customers to recycle and reuse materials.
To understand why this is important, picture this: when you enter your local grocery store, you grab a basket and travel from the produce to the snack aisle. After paying, you bag your items and leave the store. On that trip, you interacted with more than seven different kinds of plastic.
Plastic dependency is so deeply rooted in society that grocery stores have integrated it into their inventory by containing and selling products that are plastic packaged—a substantial part of plastic waste.
Although cheap and durable, plastic takes hundreds of years to degrade causing long-lasting damage to the environment by spreading toxins that threaten wildlife.
Those toxic chemicals may increase disease probabilities and affect animal reproduction. After ingesting it, many animals suffer for months before dying.
For humans, plastic has been linked to causing a range of negative health outcomes, which may vary from cancer to strokes.
Whenever a new set of plastic is produced, another set is incinerated, causing more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to be emitted into the environment—a contributing factor of climate change.
Change and improvement are contagious, therefore, grocery stores should be the example by becoming more eco-friendly and less dependent on plastic materials.
Becoming the example can be achieved by not purchasing or promoting plastic-based items. For those that depend on grocery stores to buy their necessities, it would lead them to become environmentally conscious and learn more about the store’s decision and its purpose.
Another option is to place recycled bins outside of grocery stores to facilitate the disposal of waste products and provide customers with an opportunity to reflect and decide what to do with their trash.
Grocery stores are also advised to take part in sustainability services—like TerraCycle and Bring It to the Bin. Programs like these provide stores the opportunity for cost-saving solutions, recycling, and repurposing old products.
The use of reusable bags is also recommended because it helps reduce plastic waste and is easily repurposed.
As a community, we have the responsibility of mitigating the effects of climate change. If we don’t encourage grocery stores to offer other options to substitute plastic, then it’ll never happen.
The Earth is our home and we need to protect it, so start making a change in your community today.
