Given the ‘plastic bag revolution’, one interesting side effect that I’ve noticed around belonging to an organic food co-op is that the process of belonging to the co-op seems automatically to reduce the quantity of plastic bags that I and other co-op members consume on a weekly basis.
The food co-op process is simple but results in a major operational efficiency. You order online over the weekend and then collect the food. The food you order each week is pre-packaged in a cardboard box for you to pick up. This process forces you to increase the quantity of organic, unpackaged food that you accept in your weekly order. Being a member of the food co-op also obliges (but does not enforce) you to return the cardboard box when you pick up your next order. The result is no consumption of plastic, and for the most part, no net consumption of other packaging materials either.
It also eliminates one’s reliance on in-store packaging. All too often, when one shops at a supermarket, one receives individually wrapped cuts of celery, or tomatoes contained in a plastic bag. With the food co-op structure, everything is loose-packaged. This means that in addition to cutting down on plastic bag consumption, you are also cutting down on individual packaging.
It is easy enough to set up your own food co-op. Dreamcatcher uses software (called Lettuceshare) designed for co-ops to handle the ordering and inventory of available food each week. While this software is not perfect, it is free to use and works reasonably well for members. For groups of around 50-100 members, it’s ideal.
The fact that this sort of ‘minor change’ is happening on a social basis is also considerable. Each new member of the co-op learns new habits about plastic bag consumption. It is easy enough to set up a co-op and test local demand regarding the products that are available.
So perhaps organising food co-ops sourcing local vegetables with clear protocols in their packaging operations could be a step in the minimisation of plastic bag consumption. The concept is practically ‘franchisable’ (in the sense that it can easily be repeated using the identical model) and there has already been evidence that the establishment of one co-op leads to the establishment of another. One founding member of Dreamcatcher was originally a member of the Raumati food co-op, for example.
