Your weekly trip to the supermarket can be a strategic part of a green lifestyle if you plan ahead. Here are a few ideas for green grocery shopping.

Avoid single serving packages: If you’re trying to shop green and reduce waste, avoid food and drinks in single serving sizes. These items cost more and require more packaging materials. When grocery shopping, purchase the largest package of the item you need, and then divide it up into reusable containers when you get home.

Choose items you can recycle: A big part of any green home is recycling. However, all of us at one time or another have been stuck with a package or box that isn’t recyclable. Before leaving for a day of green shopping, make a list of the types of materials you know you can recycle, and look for food in packages made from those materials. By planning ahead, you’ll avoid being stuck with an empty package that cannot be recycled.

Skip the bottled water: Plastic water bottles are a growing environmental problem. Producing and transporting them requires serious fuel consumption, and they’re filling up our landfills. Instead of buying bottled water, invest in a water filtration pitcher and stainless steel water bottles to avoid the waste and expense of plastic.

The impact of plastic water bottles on the environment has recently been covered at length in the news and on daytime talk shows including Oprah. According to Earth 911, a website dedicated to green living, Americans purchase 28 billion plastic water bottles each and every year, and only a mere 13 percent of them are recycled. These stainless steel water bottles made by New Wave Enviro are a classy alternative to plastic. They’re available in 3 colors, hold a ½ liter of water each, and include a carabineer for attaching to your belt or backpack. You’ll find them at Nubius Organics. A few more words on the woes of plastic water bottles: In addition to the mounting piles of plastic water bottles in landfills everywhere, the use of plastic water bottles is criticized for the amount of petroleum it takes to produce them—a whopping 17 million barrels of oil per year! And, plastic water bottles have recently been suspected of leeching chemical residue into their contents. Stainless steel water bottles work great in conjunction with your own water filtration pitcher…see tomorrow’s post for a suggestion!