The Eco Friendly Shopper and Consumer

These days it seems you cannot open a magazine or listen to a radio program or watch television without hearing about ‘green’ products and how to be a smart consumer while at the same time doing your bit to reduce waste and encourage recycling.

Europeans consumers are ahead of Americans in many ways in this area, for cost reasons, and other reasons. For example supermarkets in Europe have long charged customers extra for plastic grocery bags. And trash bags too. Because streets in the cities are narrower, and fewer people in big metropolitan areas drive, the use of supermarket ‘caddies’ is also quite common.

collapsible trolley by Reisenthel

These make perfect sense for navigating smaller narrower stores and streets but they are also catching on in the United States , especially since they store flat and take no room at all!

Another type of shopping bag consumers in Europe rely on increasingly are the Carry Bags, such as the one pictures below

Carrybag by Reisenthel

These come in a variety of sizes, for adults and children, making shopping less of a chore, and more shared fun!

Family shopping fun…

Along the same lines, consumers are looking for recyclable items, or re-usable items. For example, rather than paper towels, using regular dish towels, even for mop-ups and spills.

Or Melamine, sturdy dinnerware, instead of paper and plastic disposable plates and dishes, such as those made by Le Cadeaux

Entertaining with Melamine dishes, pretty enough for any occasion!

These are just a few ideas of what we can do to create less trash, and re-use the items we own….