Meet 4 Zero-Waste Pioneers Helping Shoppers Ditch Plastic

Shoppers in the Netherlands can now take low-impact living a step further after Dutch supermarket chain Ekoplaza launched the world’s first plastic-free aisle in one of its Amsterdam stores on Wednesday.

Customers can choose from almost 700 plastic-free products, including fruit, vegetables and grains, as well as more unlikely suspects such as meat and dairy. Those products that are packaged are either wrapped in compostable biomaterials or come in more conventional plastic alternatives such as glass, metal and cardboard.

An estimated 8 million tons of plastics enter our oceans annually — the equivalent of dumping one New York City garbage truck full of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day for an entire year, according to Ocean Conservancy.

Campaigners have been calling for supermarkets to do more about plastic waste as awareness of the toxic problem of plastics pollution has grown. Here, we go beyond Amsterdam to look at what else is happening to packaging in some of the more forward-thinking grocery stores around the world.

Source: huffingtonpost