I’m Lucy Biggers, and this is One Small Step.
I’m heading to Precycle it's a zero-waste and bulk grocery store in Brooklyn.
And it was founded by Katerina Bogatireva and she's been passionate about
this low waste, zero-waste lifestyle since she moved to the U.S. from Latvia.
Zero-waste grocery stores are better for the environment than regular grocery stores because
there are no prepackaged or premade foods.
So you're saving on packaging and specifically plastic packaging.
So I’ve asked Katerina to help me with a recipe that I can buy all the ingredients
in her store.
So basically the key to buying in bulk and
not creating waste is you bring your own containers.
Okay, I know that’s a plastic container, but it’s reusable and I’m a firm believer
that you don’t need beautiful mason jars to go use the bulk bins bring whatever containers
you have at home and you can do this.
Back to the video.
I actually brought this tupperware from home
that I already had and we’re going to put rice inside of this.
The first step is you want to know how much your container weighs.
So I just put my container on there.
I’m just gonna write “.066” on my container so now I always know.
And they’ll always know how much it is.
And when I’m checking out I’ll show you how this weight comes back into play.
So I’m just gonna do Jasmine rice.
Now for some pine nuts.
Lime
Those little stickers are called PLU stickers, which stands for
The number on the code is standardized to make shipping & checkout easier.
If you really want to avoid PLU stickers.
One option is buying directly from a farmer at a farmer’s market.
Some sticker-free garlic,
three sweet potatoes.
This is chard?
And we’re gonna have this situation again where we have a little sticker but that's
kind of the nature of the beast.
So the recipe calls for some spices, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and olive oil.
But I already have those things at home so I’m not gonna buy them new right now.
But if I wanted to.
Katerina does have all these spices in bulk.
I could get one of these little jars, or could bring a jar from home and I could fill it up
with these spices and I could buy spice in bulk.
My rice.
The weight of my rice and container was .51 pounds and she subtracted the weight of the
container .066 pounds, so I got charged for .444 pounds worth of rice.
According to the Food Marketing Institute, 8% of the price of our food comes from
the price of packaging.
Ok now it’s time for me cook.
I’m definitely not a good cook.
But Katerina’s giving me some good instructions and hopefully I won’t mess it up.
Rice is in.
Because I’m trying to make this zero-waste.
These are my little scraps from the meal that I’m going to be composting at the end.
The only waste I made was this little fruit sticker and this little wrapper from the chard.
And I used tinfoil which I recycled.
I need to do things like this a lot more
because it feels great eating this meal right now.
I feel very accomplished.
And I was able to pack lunch for tomorrow so I’m really getting my money’s worth.
So I know that not everyone's gonna have access to a store like Precycle, so I'm going to take
what I learned from Katerina, and I’m going to apply it to a regular grocery store.
These are apples cut up in little tiny plastic packaging, inside another piece of plastic
If you want to put your produce in bags, bring reusable ones, there’s a lot of options online
that make this really easy.
A lot of grocery store chains have bulk sections
Whole Foods is one example.
Bring your own containers and take advantage of it.
Even if you cut down on your waste by just one or two items, that is a win in my book!
Listen, I’m not saying all plastic or packaging is bad.
I understand that it's convenient and for people with limited mobility, packaging
can provide greater access to certain foods.
The food packaging industry argues that food packaging prevents food waste.
But, Americans lead the world with the most plastic packaging waste per person,
and we lead the world with the most food waste per person.
So all that packaging doesn’t seem to be helping.
Obviously something is going seriously wrong for Americans at the grocery store.
I think a lot of us just aren’t conscious of the waste we create and we gravitate toward
the most convenient option, which is usually the most packaged option.
From making this video, I’ve realized that as consumers we have the power to vote with our dollar and
support businesses that are creating less waste.
If enough of us buy unpackaged food then companies will create items with less packaging.
So next time you’re at the grocery store use your power and take that one small step
to create less waste.
Thank you so much for watching this episode of One Small Step.
I hope it inspired you to create less waste.
And if you enjoyed it, please share it and we'll see you next time.