Ever looked around a grocery store and thought “wow, there’s so much plastic”? From pre-cut fruit in clamshells to cucumbers wrapped in plastic, it can be hard to avoid.
That’s because plastic food packaging makes up approximately 40% of all plastic waste generated globally. The USA, Europe and China generate the most packaging waste.
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But plastic isn’t the only source of waste associated with our food. Food waste is a huge problem too – and it happens on both an individual and retail level.
For example, did you know grocery stores will toss perfectly good produce if it doesn’t meet their ‘beauty standards’? If it’s not the right size, shape, or has even minor blemishes, it’s tossed.
Additionally, Americans waste 40% of all our food – be it through improper storage, buying more than needed, etc.
In today’s economy, everything’s becoming more expensive, and that includes groceries. According to the USDA, in 2026, prices for all food are predicted to increase 3.6 percent. In other words, we – literally – can’t afford to waste anything.
If you want to start zero waste grocery shopping, there’s more to consider than just plastic packaging. Here’s everything you need to know about getting plastic-free groceries, avoiding food waste, and saving money in the process.
what is zero waste grocery shopping?
Zero waste grocery shopping is when you try to reduce waste while buying items like produce and dry goods. And it shouldn’t only account for plastic packaging waste, but food waste too.
You can accomplish this by choosing loose/naked produce over pre-packaged goods. Bringing your own produce bags and tote bags help cut back on single-use plastics.
Choosing imperfect produce or lonely bananas also helps reduce waste. Some grocery stores will even sell wonky or slightly damaged produce at a discount.
It’s also helpful if you have access to bulk bins (aka refillieries). You bring your own containers and fill them with goods like dry beans, spices, and flours. The beauty is getting to take as much or as little as you need.
Farmers markets are also great because most produce is package-free and doesn’t have produce stickers on it. Berries tend to come in paper cartons and they’re not afraid to sell wonky looking produce either.
However, you can still get plastic-free groceries even without access to these shops. Check if your local grocery store has naked produce to choose from.
For other goods, (like pasta, pickles, or rice), try to opt for packaging like glass, paper, cardboard, and metal over plastic. Here’s how to keep your groceries low waste even without bulk bins.
And if you’re still left with lots of packaging, make it a goal to upcycle the containers whenever possible. Reusing plastic clamshells to make crafts or donating them to community gardens is a good start.
Soft plastics can be harder to upcycle and recycle, as they’re not typically accepted via curbside recycling. Check if your local grocery store has a soft plastic recycling take-back program.
And remember, zero waste can (and should) still apply to your actual food! We’ll be discussing creative ways to reduce food waste in the coming sections so be on the lookout.
For a more in-depth look at the zero waste grocery system, be sure to check out my book 101 Tips For a Zero Waste Kitchen.
make a plan
Now that you know what zero waste grocery shopping is, making a plan can help you succeed.
Researching where your nearest bulk bins and farmers markets are located is beneficial. The Refill Collective is a handy resource for finding local refilleries – just put in your zip code and see what pops up!
If they’re too far away (more than an hour’s drive), it may be more efficient to utilize your local grocery store. Here’s everything to consider when shopping for low waste groceries.
budgeting
What does your budget look like? Mapping out how much you’re comfortable spending is important, especially if you’re going to the bulk bins.
For example, maybe you have $150 altogether you’re comfortable spending, but plan on going to both the market and the bulk bins. Consider setting aside $50 for the market, $100 for the rest of the groceries.
It can help to take cash to avoid going over your designated budget. Credit cards are easy to overspend on because you can’t see the money leaving your hands.
And don’t forget to take advantage of discounts, sales and coupons. If you download your local grocery store’s app, or follow them on socials, you may be the first to find out about these deals.
Local farmers may also be willing to lower their prices on slightly bruised produce or even throw in an extra one for free! Don’t be afraid to haggle, especially if you’ve built a rapport.
Here are a few more tips for staying in budget:
- In-season items tend to be less, because they’re more bountiful. Ex: Summer tomatoes over tomatoes in the dead of winter.
- Dry beans and legumes will always be less than pre-cooked, canned versions. Stock up!
- What’s happening in the world can affect market prices – look for more affordable alternatives when this happens (ex: Instead of berries, choose bananas)
RELATED: How I Cut My Grocery Bill to $300 a Month
what to bring
To shop low waste, there are certain items that’ll make your life easier. Here are a few of my all-time favorites.
produce bags
There are all kinds of reusable produce bags, from synthetic to cloth, mesh vs. solid. I personally love mesh cotton produce bags for big leafy greens like lettuce or kale. Solid cloth bags are also great for storing dry beans or grains at bulk bins.
tote bags
You probably have a bunch of these stashed in one of your drawers. Or buried in your closet. If not, ask your loved ones if they’d be willing to part with some – bet they have a bunch too. Use totes to carry all the produce you stash in your reusable produce bags.
jars
If you’re planning on hitting up a bulk store, taking some mason jars (or upcycled empty jars) is ideal. To make sure they don’t clank against one another, position them into a wine bag with dividers – this will keep them stable.
meal plan and prep
Creating a meal plan for the week helps you better understand what to buy on grocery runs.
I suggest planning meals around ingredients over meals. Because who knows what you’ll be craving Tuesday night opposed to Sunday night?
Making a master list of all your favorite recipes can help narrow down what ingredients you may need for the week. For example, I love Mexican food so I know I’ll want a burrito or a taco at least once in the week.
Make sure to write your list down – either on scrap paper or in an app – and stick to it. This will help you prevent impulse purchases.
But always check your fridge first before buying more. Because who needs an extra bushel of carrots floating around?
Once you’ve acquired your ingredients, prepping some of them ahead of time will help you in the long run.
You don’t have to spend a whole day cooking every single meal. Just peeling and chopping your carrots is a good place to start.
Having ingredients chopped and ready to go makes assembling dinner so much quicker – a blessing after a long day at work!
RELATED: My Weekly Meal Planning System That Prevents Food Waste
If you’re into visual content, check out my meal prepping video above! It’ll give you a better grasp on what I mean by prepping ingredients (not just meals).
know how to store your food
This runs into knowing how to store your food (prepped or not). If you take those carrots and just chuck them into your fridge, you may lose them sooner than you can get to them.
Instead, consider chopping and storing carrots in a glass of water in the fridge. This will keep them crisp for much longer and prevent them from going limp. They’re also easier to snack on this way (I love mine with homemade hummus)!
The opposite is true of berries – don’t wash or cut them until ready to eat. You’ll want to keep them in an airtight container.
And speaking of containers, always try to store food plastic-free. I recommend glass snapware, silicone bags, upcycled jars, and metal tiffins.
Where you put those containers matters too. Fridge organization plays a huge role in how long your produce holds up.
For example, you don’t want to store items like berries on the fridge door – that’s the warmest spot in your fridge! Save that space for items like condiments and sauces that won’t spoil easily.
Your crisper drawers are ideal for keeping high humidity (like leafy greens) and low humidity (ethylene-emitting fruits) produce separate. Just don’t overpack them.
RELATED: How to Store Food So It Lasts Weeks
reduce food waste
Now how do you keep all this food from going bad? You cook with it of course! And that means using up everything – from leftovers to odds and ends.
I better not see you tossing out your carrot tops. They taste similar to parsley! You can use them to make pestos or flavor salad dressings.
And that doesn’t just go for carrot tops. There are so many edible parts of vegetables many people don’t know about – strawberry tops, beet tops, celery root, etc. You just have to know how to cook with them.
Adding strawberry tops into smoothies gives you an extra dose of vitamins – plus you don’t even taste them. And I love making salads using beet and radish tops.
Even vegetable peels can be made into things like chips or stock. Doing this not only prevents food waste but also saves you so much money.
For even more ways to use up odds and ends, I have tons of great scraptastic recipes in my book 101 Tips For a Zero Waste Kitchen. Learn how to make strawberry top simple syrup, preserve your lemon peels, and so much more!
RELATED: How to Stop Wasting Food (And Save Money)
I recently challenged myself to save my food scraps for a week! Watch to learn more savvy ways to use up your bits and ends.
compost
If you can’t reuse your odds and ends in a dish, compost them. Because food scraps don’t break down in landfills.
You can do this by simply collecting food scraps in an empty takeout container and keeping it in the freezer. Even an empty plastic sandwich bag works.
Investing in a countertop compost pail with compostable liners helps keep everything clean. Ideally, you’ll want to get one with a charcoal filter to prevent odors.
At the end of the week, you can compost your scraps by utilizing curbside compost or a pickup delivery service. Community gardens and farmers markets will sometimes also accept food scraps.
If you have access to a backyard, you can get a tumbler, DIY a compost bin, or a bokashi compost system. Trench composting is also a simple option (aka, digging a hole and burying your scraps).
It’s also a good idea to brush up on what’s considered compostable. This will vary depending on who is accepting your compost.
If you’re using curbside compost, they often have access to industrial compost facilities that can break down items like meat and dairy. But if you’re backyard composting, you may want to steer clear of those unless using a bokashi method.
Just remember – composting your food scraps should remain a last resort! Always try to give them a second life first.
RELATED: Your Guide to Backyard Composting
What did you think of this guide to zero waste grocery shopping?
If you need more inspiration, consider purchasing my book 101 Tips For a Zero Waste Kitchen. Inside, I teach you how to buy in bulk, avoid unnecessary packaging, upcycle jars, and more.
The post The Ultimate Guide to Zero Waste Grocery Shopping appeared first on Going Zero Waste.
When most of us think of landfills, we think of rotting disposable diapers, apple cores, and old clothing. Our thoughts don’t usually turn to discarded construction materials. However, the U.S. generated 600 million tons of construction and demolition waste in 2018, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That’s more than double the amount of municipal solid waste generated annually.
A lot of wood, concrete, bricks, glass, asphalt, and plastic are going to landfills instead of being recycled or reused. This creates a massive opportunity for improvement. Repurposing materials is a great way to reduce the ecological impact of a project. Demolition waste can be artfully repurposed in home remodeling, construction, and landscaping projects, adding beauty and charm. Reclaiming waste also helps you save money, as many people go into debt when constructing and remodeling homes.
Here are some easy strategies to help you get started.
Plan Ahead
Reclaiming materials typically takes more time than just buying new items. And it requires more planning.
It is challenging to take a cookie-cutter approach to salvaged materials. When constructing or remodeling your home, you may need to customize it to the available materials. One method is to analyze what materials are available and then plan your project design accordingly. The opposite approach is to design your project and then collect the needed reclaimed materials. When taking the latter approach, it is helpful to rely on salvaged materials that are more commonly available.
Regardless, planning ahead and having plenty of storage space is helpful.
Check Whether Your City Requires Deconstruction
A growing number of cities now require that old houses be taken apart by hand rather than knocked down, which puts far more salvaged material into circulation. Portland, Oregon, passed the first such ordinance in 2016. Today it requires deconstruction of any house or duplex built in 1940 or earlier, and the work must be done by a certified deconstruction contractor who documents every salvaged board.
San Antonio has gone furthest. Under the third phase of its ordinance, which took effect January 1, 2025, mechanical demolition is off the table for any single-family home, multi-unit building, or accessory structure built in or before 1945 anywhere in the city, and in or before 1960 in protected areas. City officials report that contractors recover about 70% of a building’s weight, with more than half of that going to reuse rather than recycling.
More than half a dozen cities from Pittsburgh to Boulder have adopted their own versions, and the ReBuilding Center and other reuse nonprofits are pushing for mandatory salvage minimums to make the rules bite. For anyone hunting materials, the practical upshot is simple: if your city has an ordinance, more old-growth lumber, doors, trim, and fixtures are moving through local salvage yards than used to.
Find Good Sources of Salvaged Materials
One of the easiest ways to find free materials and to prevent them from going to landfills is to visit demolition sites. This can be a great source of windows, doors, woodwork, fixtures, and even appliances. Construction sites can be excellent sources of surplus or slightly damaged materials and supplies. Construction dumpsters are often packed with useful materials.
It is essential to speak with the foreman to get permission before taking any materials. If you are seeking something specific, ask the contractors working on-site if they have found that window or door you want. They might be willing to set materials aside for you. But again, ask for permission first.
Antique malls, architectural salvage stores, and home improvement donation centers are good sources of anything from windows and doors to hardware, tile, and plumbing fixtures.
The Habitat for Humanity ReStore network is another valuable source of new and used building materials, and the proceeds benefit a good cause. Build Reuse, the national nonprofit for building material reuse, maintains a membership directory that will point you to salvage stores and deconstruction contractors in your region. ReuseWood.org, a directory built by the American Wood Council and Canadian Wood Council with Build Reuse, lets you search by ZIP code for barn wood, timbers, millwork, flooring, and reclaimed doors and windows.
Peer-to-peer platforms have become the fastest way to find one-off pieces. Craigslist, Freecycle, Facebook Marketplace, Nextdoor, OfferUp, and local Buy Nothing Project groups all turn up leftover tile, cabinets, pavers, and lumber from neighbors’ finished projects. Setting up saved searches and alerts beats checking in occasionally, since good material moves within hours.
Some people even purchase properties with reclaiming the materials in mind. For example, old barns are filled with gorgeous weathered lumber that can be deconstructed and repurposed.
Utilize Repurposed Materials
Beautify your home with reclaimed and repurposed wood beams and ceramic tiles.
Use cleaned-up bricks recovered from construction debris to create patios, pizza ovens, and pathways, and other attractive features for your new home.
Repurpose shipping containers to make storage sheds. Or stack them to make multi-tiered structures, like a guest room.
Use crushed concrete as aggregate for walkways and driveways.
Sinks, vanities, bathtubs, cabinets, shower stalls, light fixtures, and even toilets can be repurposed.
Find Supplies with Recycled Materials
There are also some construction materials available on the market made from recycled materials.
Plastic bottles are recycled to make composite lumber or bricks, and recycled glass is made into tile and countertops. Old newspapers or blue jeans are made into insulation products, and cork bottle stoppers can make flooring and panels. Purchasing these materials might not be as economical but it does conserve resources.
Using salvaged materials in construction and renovation projects adds character and is a great way to reduce waste. And having an eye for reuse helps conserve precious resources and protect the environment.
Editor’s Note: Originally published on October 3, 2019, this article was updated in July 2026.
The post Using Reclaimed Materials in Your Home & Yard appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/home-garden/using-reclaimed-materials-in-your-home-yard/
Smart homes are commonplace today. Now, the intelligent yard is poised to join the mix. Meet Graham Hine, CEO of ePlant, which recently introduced the TreeTag. This solar-powered monitor is attached to a tree to monitor its health and send updates wirelessly to a phone. TreeTags are placed onto the side of trees using a screw and measure minor size fluctuations in trees. For example, the bark’s contraction can indicate stress, such as a lack of water. The TreeTag includes an accelerometer to detect movement patterns that may suggest instability and a humidity sensor to augment local weather data. The TreeTag employs artificial intelligence to process and transmit its data to the cloud. You can talk to your tree using ChatGPT as an interpreter. The experience is like chatting with a friend, but it might be about how much water the tree needs to be healthy or a report on its growth and the carbon it has captured as it grows.
ePlant is among the most intriguing and fun devices we’ve seen this year. Technology can help us see the environment in new ways, bolstering our senses with data that lets us identify biases so that we can respond to climate change, local extreme weather, and drought thoughtfully and efficiently. Solar-powered devices like TreeTag, if manufactured with minimal environmental impact, can expand our sensory engagement with the health of forests, orchards, and suburban yards to reduce overwatering, preserve tree and plant species struggling with local weather changes, and potentially increase the yield of food produced per gallon of water used. You can learn more about ePlant at https://www.eplant.com/
UPDATE: ePlant has since pushed TreeTag well past the smart-yard use case that framed this conversation. In May 2025, TreeTags supplied the live physiological and environmental data behind the Avanade Intelligent Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show; sensors on 12 trees fed an app that let visitors ask the trees how they were doing, and the garden took a gold medal. The company also offers precision irrigation for growers using TreeTag as a LoRaWAN dendrometer that can serve a single vineyard block to thousands of acres.
- Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.
- Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube.
Editor’s Note: This episode was first published on October 23, 2023.
The post Best of Earth911 Podcast: ePlant CEO Graham Hine Listens to the Trees appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/podcast/earth911-podcast-eplant-ceo-graham-hine-listens-to-the-trees/
Satellite dishes outlast the subscriptions that put them there. Drive through almost any American neighborhood and you will see them still bolted to fascia boards and chimney straps, aimed at satellites their owners stopped paying for years ago.
The subscriber base that installed those dishes is collapsing. Pew Research Center found in July 2025 that 36% of U.S. adults still subscribe to cable or satellite TV, while 83% watch streaming services. DIRECTV and DISH told investors in 2024 that they had collectively lost 63% of their satellite subscribers since 2016.
Every one of those canceled accounts left hardware behind, and removal and recycling still fall to the subscriber, who gets little support from the provider. For lack of clear information, a lot of that hardware ends up in a landfill.
Can You Recycle Your Satellite TV Dish?
Depending on who you ask, the proper method of disposal for a satellite TV dish can be as clear as, well, a fuzzy TV signal. So let’s tune in to what a dish system is made of, because the answer determines where each piece goes.
A residential satellite system is not one product. It is four material streams bolted together:
- The reflector. The curved part everyone pictures. On modern 18- to 20-inch DIRECTV and DISH installations it is thin, powder-coated steel. Older and larger dishes are often aluminum. Either way, it is scrap metal and easily recyclable in most communities.
- The LNB. The low-noise block downconverter on the end of the arm. It holds a circuit board and is the piece that makes the system electronic waste.
- The mount and hardware. Usually galvanized steel, and usually the heaviest recyclable component in the assembly.
- Coaxial cable. Copper conductor inside plastic jacketing, which scrap yards buy separately as insulated wire.
The Institute for Environmental Research and Education recommends separating those parts of the dish before you haul anything anywhere: detach the LNB, coil the coax, and sort aluminum from steel. That takes about 20 minutes with a screwdriver and a wrench, and it is the difference between a recycler accepting your load and turning it away.
The receiver, DVR, and remotes are a separate question, and an important one. Those are usually leased. If you cancel service and keep them, you will be billed for them.
Once It’s Installed, It’s Yours
This is the part that surprises people. The dish becomes the property of the homeowner at installation. Neither provider sends a technician to take it down when you cancel, and neither is obligated to. DIRECTV’s own support forums state the position plainly: the receivers go back, the dish stays, and what happens to it next is up to you.
Renters have a related wrinkle. The FCC’s Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule protects your right to install a dish under one meter in areas under your exclusive control, such as a balcony or patio, and it limits what landlords and HOAs can prohibit. It does not cover shared roofs or exterior walls, and it does not remove your responsibility to take the dish down and repair the mounting holes when you move out.
Read your lease before you install anything.
The Rules Changed in Some States, But Not Federally
U.S. federal guidelines still do not regulate circuit boards as hazardous waste, and there is no national electronics recycling law. What exists instead is a patchwork of state and local policy.
Twenty-five states plus the District of Columbia have passed electronics recycling legislation, most of it built on producer responsibility principles, and roughly two dozen states ban electronics from landfills outright. Whether your dish system is legally landfill-bound depends entirely on your ZIP code.
One change is worth flagging because it is new and relevant. Oregon’s modernized E-Cycles program took effect January 1, 2026, and the expanded list of covered devices now includes cable and satellite receivers, routers, modems, and game consoles. Oregon residents can drop those off free. The reflector itself is not a covered device, so it still goes to scrap metal, but the electronic half of the system finally has a no-cost home in one more state.
The stakes behind these rules keep climbing. The UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2024 found the world generated a record 62 million metric tons of electronic waste in 2022 and formally collected and recycled just 22.3% of it. Generation is on track to hit 82 million metric tons by 2030, growing about five times faster than documented recycling.
Don’t Count on the Scrap Value
Earlier versions of this article suggested that local scrap vendors might be willing to pull the system down for the value of the materials. That is worth a reality check in 2026.
Scrap yards pay by weight and by grade. A modern 18-inch dish is a few pounds of thin, coated steel, which grades low and weighs almost nothing. The coax and the mount are worth more than the reflector, and the whole assembly is still unlikely to buy you lunch. Older six- to 12-foot aluminum C-band dishes are a genuinely different story and can be worth hauling. For the small dishes on most roofs, treat scrap as a disposal route rather than a payday, and do not expect a yard to send a crew for it.
Tips To Get You Started
Here at Earth911, we want your satellite TV dish handled properly at the end of its life. That is not the case. Here is the sequence that actually works:
- Check your provider’s recycling page first and know what it covers. DIRECTV’s recycling page issues a prepaid shipping label and routes equipment to R2-certified recyclers. DISH points customers to Best Buy and a UPS mail-in program that offers free recycling if you pay the shipping costs. Both programs are built around receivers, remotes, and small equipment. Neither is designed to take the dish off your roof.
- Return leased equipment on time. Providers typically give you about three weeks from the disconnect date before non-return fees land on your final bill. Get a receipt at the drop-off point and keep it.
- Search for a satellite dish removal service, a handyman, or a local roofing company. Roofers are the right call if the mount is through the shingles, because someone has to seal the penetrations afterward. Removal is a roof job, not a recycling job, and the two rarely come bundled.
- Find a certified recycler for the electronics. Look for R2 or e-Stewards certification, which tells you the downstream processing is audited. Use the Earth911 recycling search to find electronics and scrap metal locations near you.
- Take the reflector and mount to a scrap metal yard. Separate steel from aluminum before you go.
- Consider reuse before recycling. A working dish and LNB have a second life in free-to-air reception, RV and off-grid setups, and amateur satellite work. Offer it to others locally before you scrap it. There are also plenty of repurposing projects if you would rather keep it out of the waste stream entirely.
- Watch out for lead-generation sites. Several “satellite dish removal” domains are referral networks that sell your contact information to whichever contractor is paying, not recyclers. Ask any service directly where the material goes and whether they are certified.
Earth911 Does Not Remove or Recycle Dishes
We regularly receive inquiries about whether Earth911 offers removal services. We do not. Earth911 does not offer satellite TV dish removal or recycling. If a satellite TV provider or one of its representatives tells you otherwise, that is not accurate information.
What Comes Next for Satellite TV
The retirement wave is not finished. DIRECTV shed roughly 288,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2025 alone, according to reporting by TheStreet. EchoStar reported 6.63 million pay-TV subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2026 after a net loss of 366,000 in three months, and its Dish DBS unit filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 restructuring on June 30, 2026. The company says Dish Network and Sling TV service continues without interruption.
For subscribers, the practical takeaway is unchanged: corporate restructuring does not come with a dish removal crew. If you are canceling, plan for the disposing of the hardware. Return what is leased, get the dish down safely, split the metal from the electronics, and route each stream to somewhere that will process it. That is a Saturday afternoon’s work that can keep your dish out of a landfill.
Related Reading
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on June 10, 2015. It was most recently updated in July 2026. Feature image courtesy of Alexis Lê-Quôc.
The post Need to Recycle Your Satellite TV Dish? Read This First appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/eco-tech/looking-to-recycle-your-satellite-tv-dish-read-this-first/
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