Blog Action Day 2009--Buy more to consume less!!

On this Blog Action Day 2009, with the subject being 'Climate Change', I am going to say something that sounds completely paradoxical, yet makes sense!

When we purchase anything from the market for instance, to lessen our carbon footprint, reduce the amount of packaging used and actually pay less for the total amount of the item; is better for our wallets and more important, the issue of Climate Change; or Global Warming, try to buy in bulk.

Less overall packaging is used when bulk items are packaged. Think of that box of 6 granola bars. It takes six plastic wrappers, and a large amount of cardboard just to hold those six little bars; with way too much room to spare.......


If we purchase those same granola bars in bulk size, the overall amount of packaging materials is less! We can pay less per ounce for the same food item, and the packaging it takes to produce a bulk item, will be much less than the packaging for the one box of those same granola bars.

I know that for many, especially in these tough economic times; it is hard to put out the money all at one time for an item in bulk, that we could buy for less if we just purchased the small package. Yet overall, it will cost less to buy the bulk, and that will save us money on items that we use regularly.

More important, to buy in bulk reduces the amount of packaging needed to obtain the very same item. Anything that we can do to help the earth is the one most important issues we face today. The outcome of even the seemingly smallest of actions that we can take, can, and will make a difference.

It has always bothered me that so much packaging is used to hold a relatively small amount of the product we are buying. We all know the potato chip issue. Supposedly that huge amount of nothing at the top of the bag is to give the chips some 'room'. It seems to be a race within the companies that manufacture chips, to see who can have the biggest bag, to try and make us think we are getting 'more'!

Many times, when the groceries are being put away in my home, I take them out of their outer packaging simply because I don't have a lot of room in which to store the larger-than-necessary boxes, bags, or cartons which hold the products. I then put the freed smaller inner items into a tupperware or other stackable container. It is truly amazing how much can fit in cupboards once out of the original containers! Waste, waste waste!

What is sad though, is to see the stack of the outer packaging after that is done, especially if done all at once after a large grocery trip. The saddest of this all to me is knowing that I alone can not change how companies package their products! Yet I can change the amount of outer packaging they use, and in turn I consume, by purchasing a larger amount of that product at one time.

If we ALL do just one or two things that are realistic for each of our individual lives, we can change the rate at which excess is consumed. This, in turn, will make a difference in the Climate Change of our planet.

Just an idea....What do you think can be done to help??

Now if ice cream could just be bought in the same way-- and FIT into the freezer!!

For more information on helping out the planet that sustains our lives, go to http://blogactionday.cmail2.com/t/y/l/ulirtd/tthlilod/b to see a list of all the bloggers that participated in today's subject, and there is bound to be something there that you find fits in with your life, and many ways to help the Climate Change slow down. There have been 150 COUNTRIES that have written about this in their blogs today!! Global Warming and the resulting Climate Change, is the most important of issues facing all of us today.


Gentle Hugs... <3