This morning, my friend Jenn ^[1] sent me an article from the U.K.’s Daily Mail ^[2] about an exciting new concept in wine: single serving portions in disposable plastic glasses.

It sounds like something from The Onion or Saturday Night Live, but sadly it’s not. Le Froglet’s wine in individual glasses is flying off the shelves at Britain’s Marks & Spencer, which apparently has a whole store section called Food on the Move ^[3] packed with all kinds of single-serving goodies.

Well, the insanity of producing yet one more single-use disposable product in a time when we are constantly reminded of the dire nature of our environmental situation got me thinking about the one thing EVERYONE could do right now to reduce their consumption, plastic and otherwise:

JUST STOP BUYING SINGLE SERVINGS!

Stop buying single servings of everything. Stop right now. There is no reason that I can think of for anyone to do it. (Okay, I’m sure there must be an exception. There always is. And if so, one or more of you will let me know.) But for all intents and purposes, we can all just stop buying foods in single-serving containers right now.

I realize that foods in bulk bins or glass containers may not be available to everyone everywhere. I get that. But buying the largest size of something that you will consume before it goes bad will cut down on a lot of plastic packaging because the ratio of packaging to product is lower. And if you won’t be able to consume a larger size of something before it goes bad, consider whether you need it in the first place.

Instead of string cheese…

buy a block of cheese that you cut yourself.

Instead of yogurt cups…

large yogurt tubs.

Instead of juice boxes…

large jugs of juice.

Instead of (oh my god I can’t even believe these exist!) individually wrapped prunes…

a bag of prunes.

I’m sure you can think of tons more examples.

Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t continue to look for plastic-free options instead of plastic. For example, in our house we never buy juice in the first place, opting for whole fruit. But I do realize that everyone is different and has to decide what foods they would be willing to give up in the interest of reducing packaging. What I am saying is that whatever you choose to eat, don’t buy individual portions. They are just not worth it!

And for those wondering how you would pack a lunch without buying individually-sized foods, there are a whole slew of lunch containers available these days for just that purpose. Check out the Lunch ^[4] and To-Go ^[5] sections of my Plastic-Free Living Guide ^[6].

That was my rant for the week. What examples of ridiculously sized products have you seen?