it seems that the problem is you

The mascot has been up at the lake for one week and already I've noticed a massive reduction in the amount of garbage/recyclables leaving the house. Mostly, I think, because everything that comes into his possession is wrapped in 9875 layers of plastic, cardboard, paper, and more plastic. Take Nintendo DS games, for example. The actual cartridge is roughly and inch squared, but it comes in a 6x6" shrink-wrapped box containing an inner tray and 8 or 9 instruction/warning booklets in various languages.

And don't get me started on food. The mascot's favourite guilty-pleasure lunch, the Swanson Dinner, has more packaging than actual food. (Not to mention the fact that the box probably has just as many nutrients as the dinner itself...but that's another story.) Last year I stopped buying the individually packaged snacks and cookies. You know the ones. 100 tempting calories in a shiny little bag, packed into a box with 5 other shiny little bags. The amount of packaging for 600 empty calories just simply isn't worth it. When was the last time you ate 9 mini crackers and felt completely satisfied?

Our answer to the food situation has been relatively simple. I started buying larger sizes of our favourite things and invested in some small, reuasable containers to decant them into. Replacing the tiny single-serving yogurt pots alone has made a huge difference in the recycling bin AND on my wallet. Those teeny servings are handy, but way more expensive gram-for-gram! And, as a side benefit, buying the large-size yogurt has set me up with a constant supply of "free" lidded containers - perfect for the dry goods (rice, couscous, quinoa, etc) that I pick up on my increasingly frequent visits to Bulk Barn.

The answer to the "other stuff" (toys, cosmetics, craft supplies, etc) is not so simple. It's going to come down to manufacturers reducing their packaging, which doesn't seem all that likely. Products are placed in packages for marketing, branding, safety (Bag o' broken glass, anyone?), and security/loss prevention perposes. Consumers are also guilty of encouraging the practise of overpackaging because in addition to our addiction to shiny/pretty things, most people perceve wrapped goods to be "cleaner". (God forbid we should buy something that human hands have touched.)

The simple answer is just to not buy anything, although that's unrealistic. BUT, we can try to convince manufacturers to reduce their packaging through letter-writing and speaking to the retailers. Believe it or not, most are on our side. I have heard that in the UK, there are retailers who provide bins for customers to dispose of their packaging after purchase. The bins are "audited" on a weekly basis and the highest-offending manufacturers are contacted and asked to reduce the amount of packaging, or face the possibility of being ousted from the store shelves! Since I haven't come across a program like that here, the next time I get something that is really excessively packaged, I think am going to take all of the plastic and cardboard and twist-ties and "bits" and mail them back to the manufacturer (in a reused envelope, natch). That might get someone's attention...