From personal care products via detergents to food shopping: online stores and physical stores where you can buy in bulk continue to open.
The recycling route might appear to many to be a solution to the problem of waste management and disposal, but according to supply chain, out of 10 plastic packaging only 4 are recycled.
In addition to the final environmental impact, the natural resources and energy required to produce single-use packaging and the transportation and waste management costs must be taken into account.
As consumers, to curb and reduce these rates, we can choose to buy food, detergents, personal products and more in bulk.
Table of Contents
All the benefits of buying in bulk
Besides the lower environmental impact, however, what are the benefits of shopping in bulk? We have rounded them up in a list, trying to unhinge various clichés revolving around the topic.
Economic savings
Entering a store that sells bulk foods you might be held back by the higher price of grains, legumes, spices. But these are almost always organic products, which on average cost more, regardless of the packaging.
It is the quality that drives up the price, not the absence of packaging. On the contrary: usually ingredients on tap are priced lower.
Reuse materials
You need lots of containers for bulk groceries, starting with jars. This way, you can recycle the many glass packages of legumes, pickles, jams, honey, anchovies, capers and the like. All glass that would otherwise end up in the trash.
Quality
This is not an automatic consequence of shopping on tap. There are good bulk foods and some mediocre ones, just as with packaged foods.
But in some cases you gain in taste: with milk on tap, for example, sold raw on farms or in the various outlets scattered throughout your country.
(Re)discovering unfamiliar products
A point that applies somewhat to all the more vintage stores and signs. Leaving aside for a moment large retailers, one can learn about (or rediscover) new (or old) foods, different products, unusual spices but also alternative uses of certain ingredients.
Human relationship
Again, it does not depend much on the bulk, but on the collected and authentic size of the stores. Whether markets, butcher stores or tea stores, when you frequent similar realities you establish a relationship of trust with the merchant, who becomes first of all an advisor, a confidant, a dispenser of stories and amusing anecdotes.
Read also: EU plans to stop plastic packaging: only recycling and reuse allowed
