No matter how much we talk about the environment, no matter how many times we're told to decrease our waste, we're inundated with food products. They are practically suffocating with extra or unrecyclable packaging. I write this as someone who not only finds it ridiculous to buy products that result in tons of hard-to-reuse waste the minute you get it home and unpackage it, but also as someone who has a cap on the amount of garbage that's picked up free of charge.

This isn't just an argument for the environment -- the space available to dump garbage continues to be a problem, so why fill it with needless waste? Save it for the garbage that's much harder to prevent. It's a matter of common sense. Do you want to waste space on fleeting convenience, or the garbage that you can't avoid?

The biggest culprit is styrofoam. My god, it's everywhere, and in most cases, highly unnecessary. The saran+styrofoam combo is rampant in grocery stores -- with meats, vegetables, sliced cheeses, mushrooms. Since much of the food doesn't last long in that packaging, like mushrooms and meats, it must be unwrapped and used immediately, or repackaged in something else to maintain freshness or freeze. The styrofoam is left behind -- useless, unrecyclable. And cheese slices -- my god, I've seen four slices of cheese wrapped this way before -- which is particularly infuriating when it's right next to the same cheese on a deli counter that can be sliced on request and slipped inside one small plastic bag.





While I wish that more foods were served in bulk, where we can use our own containers, or get something packaged in the precise amount we need, I realize that it's not entirely feasible right now -- especially when businesses are struggling to stay afloat.

However, we have to get over this sense of entitlement -- this notion that we deserve absolute convenience and speed at any cost. We don't -- especially when there are great alternatives that don't require mountain loads of effort. The stores must stop throwing overpackaged and unnecessary goods at us, but we also must stop buying it. If you just don't have that extra minute, don't buy the overpackaged alternative!

Buy a block of cheese you can slice yourself, or get it sliced at the store rather than purchase those small packages with only a few slices. Ignore the stacks of styrofoam and plastic-covered meat and grab something straight from the butcher. Choose the unpackaged tomatoes, rather than the hard-plastic offerings. Ignore those teeny tiny packages of herbs that require you to buy a bunch of sealed bags for one meal. If you tend to get the same takeout food, wash and save the containers for next time. If you're going home with your takeout, request that your order not include plastic cutlery and one-serving condiment packages. Get that coffee in an insulated cup.

"It's the little things that count."

"Little things add up."

There's a reason these sayings are so well-known.