in.gredients

Here's another great idea to inspire us. 

It's a great example of good people making a good effort, consciously & creatively.

A new grocery concept is schedule to open Fall 2011 in Austin, Texas. 

  In.gredients will be the first PACKAGE FREE, ZERO WASTE grocery store in the U.S.    

A similar store in London, Unpacked, has been a great example of how this can work.  So, how does it work exactly?  Locally & seasonally sourced market items will be available to you, sans packaging. Since your pockets will fill quickly, you can bring containers from home or use their compostable containers.  The goal is to "pre-cycle".   And get this- with every purchase, the consumer decides what charity a portion of the proceeds will benefit.   

I like it.

Log onto their website for more info, which includes a great blog.  They are accepting donations and investors to get the doors open.  

Godspeed!

The (not so) Fun Facts

• The US fills 63,000 25-ton garbage trucks every day; about 700,000 tons of garbage is placed in American landfills on a daily basis.
• Packaging makes up about 40 percent of that. The packaging we throw away, then, annually totals nearly 39 million tons of paper/paperboard, 13.7 million tons of plastics, and 10.9 million tons of glass.
• Meanwhile, 30 million tons of packaging was recycled annually from 2005 to 2010.
• The total amount of packaging wasted from 2005 to 2010, however, grew 1.8 percent annually.