Food
COMPOST: Composting food scraps converts something harmful into something useful!
WHY: Throwing food in the trash expands landfills & produces methane, a greenhouse gas much worse than CO2. Composting food turns it into soil / plants nourishment!
"Food waste is the second largest category of municipal solid waste (MSW) sent to landfills in the United States, accounting for approximately 18% of the waste stream." by Naturbag
TRY: Instead of throwing food scraps into the trash, let them decompose naturally into rich soil to keep landfills smaller, greenhouse gas emissions lower, and gardens and farms healthier. Compost nearby in a tumbler (i.e. FCMP) worm bin (i.e. Brothers Worm Farm) or food digestor (i.e. Green Cone), or through community/municipal composting.
INFO: See if there are existing compost programs near you: Litterless.com. Learn about what can be composted and methods and bins for home composting.
TIP: Keep compost in the freezer for convenient, temporary storage!
LESS MEAT & DAIRY: Even 1 meatless day/week can save TONS of water & emissions!
WHY: Less greenhouse gas emissions! Less water consumption!"
If everyone went vegetarian for just one day, the U.S would save 100 billion gallons of water, and we would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide" by HealthTap
TRY: Find a few vegetarian meals you like to regularly replace a meat / diary based one. Try substituting with beans, leafy greens, quinoa, tofu, or tempeh and when buying meat and eggs, look for locally grown products on smaller farms. These have more humane conditions for animals, and travel less far to get to market.
INFO: Breakdown of foods carbon foot print, inspiration for alternatives food sources Vegan Meat Substitutes: The Ultimate Guide
EAT LOCAL: Finding local options for things you eat the most helps reduce shipping & supports local economies.
WHY: Buying local will help reduce carbon emissions & support local economies. "Shipping produces 1 billion metric tons of C02 a year." by Funderna by nerdwallet
TRY: Visit your local markets and check your supermarket for locations or farm names. Choose these if possible.
INFO: Visit the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition to find Farms links to resources in your state
Buy Bulk: Finding bulk options, especially for things you eat the most frequently, helps!
WHY: "Buying in bulk mitigates the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills and streamlines the transportation needed to deliver goods to market, helping to reduce CO2 emissions." By Treehugger
TRY: Buy as many of your groceries as you can from "bulk" bins in reusable or paper containers, such as paper bags that you can recycle or compost or glass jars that you can reuse.
INFO: Where to bulk shop in the United States
Packaging: Buying food with less packaging/plastic packaging reduces waste materials & is better for your health.
WHY: Single-use plastic is less recyclable than glass, paper, and most metals, so it creates more waste. Also, research shows that having so much plastic in our lives has negative health consequences. By not buying / using plastic, you are discouraging production systems related to oil, coal and natural gas, since that is what synthetic plastic is made from.
TRY: Avoid plastic, including cans coated in plastic. Buy metal and glass containers whenever possible. Use glass and metal that is not lined with plastic; these materials are more or less infinitely recyclable. Leaving the lid partially attached on your cans ensures it will also be recycled.
INFO: Plastic is bad for our health and is in more things than you know for example soup cans