My dear blog reader, if you or anyone you know agrees with the letter below, won’t you please share it, hashtag it, copy/paste it, add your name to it, and do whatever you like to get the basic sentiment out there? (And read on for an additional message to you that follows it.)
Dear Trader Joe’s, as well as other grocery stores and processed food manufacturers,
Food, glorious food! I love your stuff, and I adore it all the better when you sell it in containers that are healthy and easy to re-use.
Rather than cans and near-impossible-to-recycle (let alone repurpose) plastic vacuum-sealed boxes, sell us stuff in containers like these!…
Here’s the kind of jars I love best — think healthy, easy-to-clean, and uniform in which to store my beans, grains, flour, pasta, and such:
- Straight-sided and where I can easily reach in wash clear down to the bottom.
- Labels that require just a quick soak to remove.
- Better yet, no labels at all, as in the case of the adorable drinking glasses illustrated after this letter — how sublime that the Welch’s name appears only in fine print!
- Interchangeable sizes and lids would be extra classy!
The mustard sauce in the photo is great — and is all the better for the jar!
Yours truly,
da-AL — a customer who I doubt is alone
P.S. Don’t think you can get away with overpricing products with super-cute holiday gift-type containers and expect us to think you’ve done anyone a favor.
Back to you my dear cyberland friend,
As you can guess from above, I’m asking businesses to go beyond using less plastic. It’s lovely when grocers sell us food in glass jars. Let’s encourage them to take it up a gazillion notches by doing something that’ll benefit us while making us more loyal to them!
I hope you’ll share this with anyone who’s as upset as I am with how impossible it is to get away from plastic. Share this with individuals as well as with businesses. Even small gestures can go a long way when they’re multiplied. As consumers, our wallets wield immense power.
Every time I turn around, I read more scary stuff about how corrosive plastics are to our bodies, and downright catastrophic to the environment. There may have been a time when we deluded ourselves that plastic was better than glass, but these days, we know better.
When I was small, my family ate Welch’s jam. Why? Sure, it was tasty, and we needed something not too expensive for our toast — but with all the jams out there, Welch’s outsmarted the others! Theirs was in glass jars meant to be repurposed into drinking glasses! Customers wanted to collect the cute freebies while getting decent jams at the same time.
Win-win joy here, there, everywhere!! Pardon me while I do a little jig at the keyboard! Why the heck don’t all stores and all brands continue to do something like what I described?
For crafty readers and those of us who enjoy looking at stuff we’ll never do — here and here and here and here and here and here and here are some links. Key search words: repurpose and up-cycle.
Are you concerned about plastics?…
Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 
Bring back glass only! 100% agree with you there. I wish our governments would pass a law banning any packaging that cannot be easily recycled. Good for you, da- AL, for your call to action.
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We’ve bought tote bags here and there. Use them for 90-95% of our grocery shopping. We refuse the – kind – offer of plastic bags in shops to take the stuff we buy. Unless it’s too bulky, then we recycle the plastic bag over and over again. If all consumers/shoppers did the same worldwide we could probably cut down plastic waste by 30? 50? 70% or more…
Thanks for the post.
Hope all is well with you.
Brian
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Great suggestions, Brian – mother earth & I thank you 🙂
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Most welcome my dear. 🙂 Have a lovely week.
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I totally agree with you da-AL! If any chances to get groceries in paper bag or clothes that would really help us. And these containers are applicable for evey family! 🌼💜
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Thank you 🙂
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Great post da-Al…in India we are trying a lot to avoid plastic,but the problem is that steel and glassware are not so light weight and they are definitely costly. But still change is coming. Now I am saving all glassware sauce bottles to collect homemade jams!
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We have the same problem here — but glass is so much better especially in terms of any food that’s acidic…
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I agree with you!
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Oh yes, indeed, the glass jars such as the one you have pictured here are great for storage, The wide mouth jars provide easy access and for that reason I have saved a few jars only mine did not come from Trader Joe’s. Alas, there is not a TJ in my town.
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Thanks for the great post and reminder, dear Daal. Will absolutely share this week. Hugs, XxX
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Thanks much, Patty ❤
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Tried to comment at your site but wasn’t able to for some reason, fyi
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Do you remember which post it was, da-AL ? I moved my website from dreampack.org to pattywolters.com, so maybe the post you read was still linking to the ‘old’ one…
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Yes! I wish more retailers would consider packaging. Personally, I’ve stopped using plastic bags for the most part, but I’m at a loss when it comes to what to do with doggy-doo. Anyone got a good suggestion for environmentally friendly ways to stoop and scoop?
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I’ve been using veggie bags (tho lately a friend has suggested I take my own veggie bags to store) – also, I save bags from bread, etc. Someone told me to buy the recycled kind from pet store, but so far have managed to scrounge enough from recycling types of things…
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That’s what we use too but I’d like to get away from plastic. We often use plastic bags at the store JUST so we can use them for poo!
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me too re veggie bags lol — a friend of mine is very very good – she has her doggie only poo in backyard & scoops it up immediately – guh, tho – I have little backyard that my bedroom looks onto & I hate idea of looking onto a poo container…
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If only Titus was a tinier dog–I think our bucket would be more like a dumpster!
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Lolol I hate to admit, but I feel like I should boycott tiny dogs — they don’t want to be bred to be that small – tho I’d love if I could take my medium-sized doggie on airplanes like others take their ‘large rats’…
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Nicely done, da-AL! It’s great there’s increasingly more awareness about being eco-friendly and trying to ditch the plastic. What bugs me is where plastic is used but it’s not recyclable.. why bother? Why not at least package it in the stuff that can be recycled? Glass jars make a better alternative. But please – dear retails – stop putting stuff in ridiculously overpriced packaging to make us believe it’s better for the environment when it’s cheaper for you while charging us three times the price! xx
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Amen, Caz
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Btw, I just tried to comment on your newest post, but somehow it won’t let me. Just want to say am so glad you’re hanging in there — love your kitty! Didn’t know you had one 🙂
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Aww no, what happens when you try to comment? That’s so frustrating, I’m sorry you’ve had a problem with it. I know you can’t comment through the reader, you have to go on the actual site (I think because I’ve got a paid-for theme and am self hosted perhaps). Do you get an error message?
Yes, kittykat can be cute…when he wants to be! Don’t be fooled by the cuteness 😂
xxxx
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Ah, yes, now I remember — you’ve mentioned that before about not being able to comment thru reader — it’s part of why I don’t do self-hosted. When I comment on your posts it’s often via the email announcements that you’ve got a new post
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I still use just plain jam jars for morning orange juice and even for wine glasses. Great post to get us all thinking. 🙂
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Wonderful 🙂
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I’m with you, da-AL. Makes total sense.
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