Tonight after work I went to Costco. My plan was to buy a few non-perishable items, but I found – and was tempted by – champagne mangoes. Costco calls them Ataulfo mangoes, but they’re the same thing, and they’re in season right now. I thought I might freeze some to have in the winter.
Costco was selling them in six-packs for $5.49 each and they were in plastic containers. I looked but I didn’t see a recycle number on the plastic, so I think it’s fair to say they can’t be recycled. If anyone knows that not to be true, please let me know by commenting. Anyway, I ended up putting them back because of the packaging. If I change my mind, I can get some for almost the same price at Whole Foods. Whole Foods is normally much more expensive, but I don’t have to use any packaging at all for those.
I’m not implying I should be patted on the back for this choice. It was a pretty easy choice, for one thing, and mangoes are not at all local, for another. These particular mangoes come from Mexico, so they have to travel a long way to get here. The conditions in which many farm workers have to do their jobs are usually rather deplorable and those workers are not always paid a living wage. Generally speaking, growing your own and/or buying from the farmers market are much greener choices, but I know few people who are complete locavores. In areas such as this one with harsh winters, either you buy out of season and non-local sometimes, or you freeze enough food for 6 months at the end of the growing season. Or, as a third option, I suppose, is that you starve to death. No one likes that one, by the way. That one is a serious bummer.
But I’m thinking about contacting Costco and asking them to consider greener packaging. I’m not the only consumer out there who shops at Costco, and surely it might encourage someone else to recycle if they had the option or even to go without packaging altogether.
