I have had the good fortune to start blogging with the highly excellent site Green Options. Every Wednesday I will be contributing an article about a variety of topics, but most often “how to” and DIY green living. I will be posting my articles here as well but on a week delay, so here is my first article submitted last week, be sure to visit Green Options to see the newest article every Wednesday.

So often we are bombarded with messaged relating to our purchasing choices. Billions of dollars are spent each year trying to get us to buy the latest this, and the newest that. Lately a new and promising trend has emerged. Driven by customer demand, big companies are now promoting green and sustainable products. We hear a lot about organic, free range, hormone free, etc. So much of what we read and hear is about what products to buy, it this bamboo night stand better than this recycled plastic one. This article is not going to talk about what items you should buy to make your life greener, but rather about the actual act of shopping itself.

There are several green options for making your shopping experience more sustainable, regardless of what you are shopping for.

Lose The Bag:

A lot has been written lately about reusable grocery bags. Canvas or recycled plastic bags that you can use over and over at the grocery store instead of wasting another plastic bag. These are a great idea, and everyone should be using them. Some stores even offer a discount for shoppers who buy their food in them. But why stop there?

In the produce isle you will often find people taking one apple, placing it in a small plastic bag, then grapping a pear and putting it in a different small plastic bag, and then grapping a peach and putting it in a third plastic bag… Honestly I have no idea why we ever started doing this. It’s not to keep the food clean, that apple you are wrapping in plastic has been handled by a bunch of humans and machines before it got to your cart (and even organic food should be washed thoroughly before you eat it). Maybe it is to keep them separated for easier checkout? I don’t know. If you can bring a reusable bag for your groceries why not get one for your produce as well?

In fact why stop at grocery shopping; why not bring reusable bags with you to the mall, to the electronics store, etc. Every time you don’t use a plastic bag you will be reducing your oil consumption just a little. The stores won’t mind, you are saving them money. If enough people catch on to this trend hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil would be saved every year.

Lose The Car:

The modern automobile is a marvel of construction. Thousands of pounds of steal, glass and plastic that will go from 0 to 60 in just a couple of seconds. There is however an even more marvelous construction that lives attached to your hips, human legs. Let’s see a car climb a mountain, or pole vault, or for that matter stand on one wheel. The human form has evolved over millions of years to be very good at getting us where we want to go. If you live within a couple miles of a store, why not walk, or bike down to the store instead of driving. This has the added benefit of keeping you in good shape, reducing oil use, lowers your carbon footprint, and promotes community (never know who you might meet on your walk/ride).

Buy Less Stuff:

The billions of dollars spent each year on advertising have one goal. They hope you will like what you see and buy it. They hope you do this a lot. They have been practicing for years, and are getting very good at what they do. The truth however is that most of what we buy, we don’t need, and many times don’t even want. The next time you are contemplating a purchase ask yourself “will this be in a box in my basement in a couple of years?” or “How long will we use this before it breaks?” or “Do I really even need this?” Some things you need, other things you want, and still other things are so called impulse buys, that later leave you puzzled as to why you paid good money for a product you don’t use or want.

Buying less stuff saves you money, reduces the amount of junk in your closest, and also helps to reduce waste going into landfills.

Buy The Good Stuff:

So you have your reusable bag, you biked to the store, you are only going to buy stuff you really want or need, so finally you get to the point where you have to pick between that bamboo night stand and the recycled plastic one. Honestly it is hard to tell which one is the better product. It’s hard to get information about the energy costs of things, about the lifecycle impacts, about the company labor practices. Imagine if you had to do all that research for every item you purchased? It would be a nightmare. There is however a couple of things you can look for.

Packaging: The less packaging a product has the better. Why wrap something in ten layers of plastic that are 3 times as big as the product itself? Every scrap of packaging is something you paid for but can’t use, and most likely will either wind up in a landfill, or take energy to recycle.

Distance: How far away did that product have to travel to get to you? Organic potatoes from 2000 miles away are not good for the planet. Buy local as much as you can. Try farm stands, and farmers markets. You will be helping keep money in the local economy, and the food tastes better. Frequent local stores that feature local products. More money in the local economy means more people will have the extra cash to visit your business. You will also be reducing the amount of gas it took to ship all of these items thousands of miles to your area.

Recyclable/Reusable: What are you going to do with this product when you are finished with it? Is this something that you can get years and year of happy use out of? Or is this something that gets used once and thrown away? Strive to purchase things that will stand the test of time. Use them till they can’t be used anymore. But inevitably most of our modern devices wear out quickly. Will you be able to recycle this object? Can it be reused later for something else? Buying durable products will save you money in the long run, and thinking about the end of life for products will help you make better choices.

These are but a few things you can do to make your shopping less about consumerism, and more about sustainable living. Start slow with one change at a time. Can’t wait to see you on the bike path!