Conscious Shopping: How To Solve the Waste and Recycling Riddle?

Conscious - having knowledge of something; being aware.

Conscientious - wishing to do what is right.

Our current shopping experience starts off with conscientious shoppers but lacks, perhaps obscures, the information needed for a conscious purchase about the environment impact.

Many of us aim to be smart shoppers and purchase products that are sustainable. A lot more information is needed so that our good intentions aren’t undone when it’s time to ‘add to cart.’ Wouldn’t it be great to have the freedom to choose green products and recyclable packaging material?

An Ocean and Mountain of Waste

Americans produce three times the global waste average per year. That includes 42 million metric tons of plastic that doesn’t biodegrade. The U.S. produces the largest amount of plastic waste per-capita. According to the EPA, more than 60% of US household waste is burned or buried in landfills.

An Oceana report estimated that in 2020 alone, Amazon generated 599 million pounds of plastic packaging waste like bubble wrap and plastic air pillows. This type of plastic is not easily recyclable, and a vast amount ends up polluting our ocean waters. While the company disputes the report, over 700,000 signed a petition for Amazon to offer biodegradable packaging options.

If there is a demand for better packaging, how can we make it easier for stores to offer recyclable packaging and products?

We Need a Comprehensive Approach to Waste Reduction

While we work on recycling more, we also need to focus on getting less material into our households in the first place. We need a data driven, cross-functional and multi-stakeholder approach to:

- encourage data-sharing among consumers,

- embed environmental data in purchasing flows,

- rewards vendors who offer greener alternatives,

- create standards to help make recycling easier,

- produce more biodegradable products, and

- advocate for universal recycling labeling standards on consumer products.

Informed consumers can incentivize vendors to switch to cleaner packaging alternatives. This can be of immense help in battling the tsunami of waste generated each year.