Reducing Amount of Solid Waste and Eating More Sustainably

For my SBC, I am choosing to try and reduce the amount of solid waste I create as well as eating more sustainably.  Currently, when I go to the store or get food from lower, I do not consider how much waste I am creating through the packaging that I buy along with my food.  I also do not take into account how sustainable the food I am buying is.

I want to change this behavior because I come from a part of the country which is very health conscious (San Francisco), and, as of now, I haven’t really been taking part.  My parents buy organic whenever they get the chance because it is healthier for you as well as healthier for the environment given the ways the food is produced.  By buying more sustainably (organic), I will not only be healthier myself, but also help reinforce sustainable production of food products.  Along with buying sustainably, I want to buy foods that have less packaging so I produce less waste.  There is always the possibility that what I buy does not end up in the landfill and I don’t want to be responsible for polluting the environment more than it already is.

Challenges that I can foresee are that a lot of times, you can not control the type of packaging that is on food, so you may have to end up with a lot of waste even if you don’t want to.  There may be types of food that are similar to what I want, but not exactly it that have less packaging so I would have to be willing to compromise.  Another challenge that may occur is that it may be harder to find sustainable food here in the Lehigh Valley where there isn’t such a push for going organic.