January workshop: Grocery shopping for less waste
Learn how to modify your shopping habits to create less waste. Join us as we help you plan and make decisions about packaging while going through different departments of a grocery store.
- Saturday, January 9 from 10 to 11 a.m.
- Friday, January 15 from noon to 1 p.m.
Please RSVP on the Facebook events for January 9 or January 15 or by emailing your liaison. You can find the full schedule of workshops on the participant web page.
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You made it through the holidays, and certainly the newness and excitement of the challenge has worn off by now. Since it’s "resolution season," let’s revisit tips for setting goals and keeping resolutions that may come in handy for your waste reduction actions. We recommend the following steps: be realistic, be specific, measure your progress, and don’t give up.
Be realistic
Don’t expect to change your lifestyle on a dime! The more realistic you are in your expectations, the better the outcome.
For example, it’s not realistic to start cooking every meal from scratch if you have relied on takeout for years. But, don’t sell yourself short by assuming you can’t change something just because it seems difficult!
Start by making a meal that has leftovers to maximize your time or prep a few freezer meals when things aren’t quite so crazy. Take baby steps to make things easier — it’s best to start small and build on your successes.
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Be specific
Think back to your original goals. Did you give yourself a specific action to take? It’s hard to stick to general descriptions like “use less” or “reduce.”
For example, you might have a goal to reduce your food packaging, but you need to dig deeper into defining what you must do to achieve that goal.
Maybe you notice that you have a lot of single-serving granola bar packaging or frozen pizza boxes, so you make modifications to your snack food choices and expand your options for quick meals.
You may also need to add a disincentive for skipping your actions. One past Zero Waste Challenge family set a goal to reduce plastic by using reusable bags for groceries — if they forgot, they had to carry everything in their arms. This helped them quickly remember to bring their own bags!
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Measure your progress
In addition to being realistic and specific, think about how you can measure the goals that you set.
Consider a goal to reduce paper towel usage. If you currently buy a roll of paper towels every week, set a goal to buy one every other week or less. Then you will easily know if you are achieving your goal or if you have work to do.
Don’t forget to regularly check in and ask yourself how you are doing! If you’re curious, get out your scale, camera, or journal and see how your trash compares to your baseline.
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Don’t give up
Take time to re-establish your habits when you mess up rather than giving up entirely. Mistakes happen!
If you’ve repeatedly tried and just can’t make a habit stick, maybe it was unrealistic for your household and you need to evaluate what you can do instead.
For example, one of our staff members wanted to make her own shampoo, but she kept putting it off when she found the DIY recipes too time consuming or complicated. Realizing the DIY route just wasn’t going to work, she decided to reduce in a different way by buying shampoo in bulk at her co-op grocery store using a reused bottle.
So, remember that if you run into challenges along the way, get creative about how to prompt your action or modify it to accomplish a similar goal. Check out the setting goals section of the Zero Waste Guide if you need help revisiting or setting new goals.
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