Supermarkets: A crucial battleground
End-user retail consumer products account for the overwhelming majority of plastic trash. Bright and glittering plastic packaging that is thrown away after a single use is inseparable from today’s consumption-driven capitalist societies. How can we get people to change their behavior?
At the “Unpackaged.U” shop, located in the densely populated Sanchong District of New Taipei City, Rex Huang is trying a different approach.
When you step into this shop of some 180 square meters floor area, selling more than 500 product categories, you find that it offers all the daily necessities of life: rice and other grains, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, nuts, dried fruits, tea, and snacks.
At five in the afternoon, as evening approaches, people begin to flood into the quiet shop, with many young mothers showing up with their children. They have been familiar with this store’s purchasing system for a long time. They first take the containers which they have brought with them to the counter to be weighed, so that the weight can be deducted from their purchases. Then they begin shopping.
Whether or not suppliers provide large-sized packaging is an important factor for Rex Huang in making his purchasing decisions. Products that he buys frequently start at five kilograms, and they are placed into different types of containers for storage, depending on the nature of the individual foods. They are not repackaged, and consumers bring their own containers, buying as much or as little as they like.
But what if you forget to bring a container, or you just decide to go buy something on the spur of the moment? Don’t worry, the store also sells glass storage jars. No matter what, the goal is to reduce the amount of plastic used to the minimum.
The HUF, which has always been at the forefront of green lifestyles, is another example. Having developed early on, as early as 1993 they began collective purchasing activities. Starting with only a couple of hundred people, as of today they have built up a consumer cooperative with more than 50 sales outlets and over 70,000 members, showing their determination to use consumer power to change the world for the better.
It is difficult to avoid using packaging materials for fresh foods. The co-op outlets tried out all kinds of experiments, from using paper to wrap vegetables in the early days to reusing returned packaging materials. However, as the volume of supplied products grew ever larger with the growth in membership, and because reuse of plastic bags and egg cartons raised concerns about cross-contamination, after operating for a while the system was brought to a halt.
“We all know that daily life inevitably involves using some plastics,” says Lin Kuei-yin. But despite this fact, they are still doing all they can.
They advocate choosing more costly paper boxes and trays instead of plastic ones. And they dispense with the plastic trays that are used just for aesthetic purposes for things like hot-pot meat slices and frozen dumplings. They also encourage co-op members to reuse the net bags used for carrying root vegetables, melons, and fruit. Finally, if there is really no choice but to use plastic, in principle they try to select the thinnest type that is practical.
Greenpeace uses PET bottles gathered in beach cleanups to make installation art, warning us how urgent the problem of marine plastics pollution has become.