What Can You Do With Produce Stickers?
As I continue to look for ways to reduce plastic in my life, one that comes up are those little stickers on our produce. I avoid stickers when possible by shopping farmers’ markets, but during fall to spring, I still get lots of produce (often with stickers) from the store or food co-op. When one composts, you need to remove the sticker.
Produce stickers tell us the country and often the state of origin of the food, which is important if you want to reduce your food miles. And a 5-digit code that starts with a “9” informs us it is organic.
Last year I began to save my produce stickers as I heard in the book, “Plastic Free” by Beth Terry, that you can send them to a guy named Barry Snyder at Stickerman Produce Art. Barry uses the produce stickers to make art. He’s a guy from Erie, Colorado, who gives these stickers a new life through his artwork, so start saving your stickers.
He wants the stickers on white paper sent to Barry Synder, PO Box 301, Erie, CO 80516
Here are my stickers from 2014 that I collected and sent on to Barry. While it’s not much, I’m glad it is being put to good use. Eco-Vegan Gal mentioned there are some new stickers coming out that are compostable, but I have yet to see them.
Here are some samples of Barry’s art.
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What do you do with your produce stickers? Will you be sending stickers to Barry in the future? Please answer in the comments below.
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10 Comments
But Kathy! I want to stop the production of these stickers! Billions and billions of them….every month! This is unnecessary and an environmental disaster. Yuck!
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I’m not endorsing the stickers. As I said, I do my best to avoid them by shopping at farmers’ market and by being part of a CSA. I also look forward to the new compostable stickers. My goal in blogging about this was to raise awareness that even little things make a difference and at least we can donate them towards art if we do have them. Have you been able to go 100% sticker-free? If so, please share more about that process. Thanks
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Let me add, this isn’t your fault! It’s just something that bugs me. And worries me daily as I eat my fruit and vegetables.
Art is good…
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I do the same thing: http://wp.me/p4sJ3i-4W I’m saving them up until I have enough to paper a door at least. I try to shop at the farmer’s market where I can avoid these annoying stickers but occasionally I don’t make it to the market and head to the grocery store, where I might add I CANNOT find a local organic apple even though I live in California where organic farms abound(!).
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Thanks for sharing your journey. Sorry to hear you cannot find local organic where you live.
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I can find it at the farmer’s market but not so easily at the grocery store, which I try to avoid for produce.
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Reblogged this on zanygreenquest and commented:
Makes me feel a bit better about those little stickers I get at the grocery store when I don’t get to the Farmer’s Market. I’ll start a sheet today.
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What a great idea. I try to avoid those stickers as much as I can but sometimes its impossible to do so. I’ll have to see if there’s anyone in the UK using them in a similar way. 🙂
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Thanks much for posting this! I was wondering what to do with the stickers. I’d also prefer not to have them on the veggies and fruits that I want to eat. I’ve signed up for a CSA box, which I really love. But many things that I would want to buy, are not in the box so I currently get them from the local grocery store. Looking forward to farmers markets here.
Will save my stickers for Barry!
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Reblogged this on Golopomo and commented:
Hey! Now maybe the kids will stop sticking these on each other! And one less little thing to go in the trash.
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