|
|
|
|
|
|
Welcome to Bluedot Living’s BuyBetter Marketplace, a biweekly newsletter that navigates the confusing world of stuff.
If your friend sent you this, you can sign up for yourself here to receive the BuyBetter newsletter every other Monday. Do you know someone else who would enjoy it? Forward to a friend.
Your support allows us to provide our solutions-focused climate stories without charging for them. If you’d like to contribute, click here.
|
Bluedot Living’s BuyBetter Marketplace newsletter features items we believe in. When you make a purchase through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
|
|
|
Dear Readers,
Some days, I’ll visit the farmers market as well as my neighborhood butcher and cheese shop and wine shop, and as I put away my fresh flowers and bread, I’ll feel pleased with myself for supporting so many local makers. Or, I’ll just meander around New York City’s downtown neighborhoods and see what I find: a place that sells Japanese denim, an antiquarian cookbook shop, a Swedish candy store. I consider sustainability when I shop in person, but my primary focus is enjoying the discovery process. I also believe that shopping small helps slow what I’ll call the H&M-ification of New York.
|
 |
“Wouldn’t it be loverly” if more people cared about sustainable shopping?
Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to find out what famous movie this still comes from.
Image courtesy Allstar Picture Library Limited / Alamy Stock Photo
|
When I do shop online, I normally dive deep into sustainability. I read company About Us pages, verify third-party certifications, dig into impact reports, and more. But sometimes, I just want to make purchases without having to think so hard. That’s when I turn to a select few online marketplaces that already do that work. They only carry brands that prioritize eco-friendly materials, ingredients, or manufacturing processes. Most donate to worthy causes and offset shipping emissions.
So this week, I’d like to share these marketplaces with you. Whether you’re looking for decor, cleaning products, or makeup, you can rely on the sites below to deliver quality goods.
Happy browsing and happy shopping,
– Elizabeth Weinstein, Marketplace Editor
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
The One-Stop Shop
|
Wooden toys, reusable paper towels, silicone baking sheets, toothpaste tabs, organic cotton socks, rubber pacifiers, latex pillows, compostable phone cases … EarthHero has almost everything. Read our review.
|
| BUY NOW |
|
|
The Eclectic Marketplace
|
Made Trade carries consciously crafted goods from across the world. Think beautiful baskets, inviting quilts, fabulous scarves, cool planters, and more. Save 10% with code BLUEDOT10. Read our review.
|
| BUY NOW |
|
|
The Minimalist’s Choice
|
I’m a huge fan of Public Goods. This membership-based platform sells effective, affordable products all under its own label, which makes shopping oh so simple. Dozens of my Airbnb guests have raved about their toiletries. Read our review.
|
| BUY NOW |
|
|
The Affordable Online Grocer
|
I’ve been a Thrive member since 2020 and love their user-friendly site. The $59.95 yearly fee quickly pays for itself and they have great prices, especially on vitamins. Try the house label for organic oils, nuts, and sugars. Read our review.
|
| BUY NOW |
|
|
The Beauty Specialist
|
Clean-beauty marketplace Credo has clear guidelines on ingredients and packaging — no single-use plastics here! — and co-founded Pact, the non-profit that collects and recycles empty cosmetics packaging. Read our review.
|
| BUY NOW |
|
|
|
|
The Hippest Marketplace
|
Like Made Trade, Goodee carries hip decor, gardening tools, and other useful objets from around the world. We love the focus on what Goodee calls endangered and heritage crafts, which represent a third of the items they sell. Read our review.
|
| BUY NOW |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
Dear Dot: Must I Remove Packing Tape and Labels Before Recycling Amazon Boxes?
|
 |
– Illustration by Elissa Turnbull
|
Dear Dot,
While Amazon and other online stores are using more recyclable packaging, they all come covered with packing tape and labels. Can cardboard boxes be recycled when covered with all of that, or does that need to be removed before recycling (which almost no one does or is willing to do)?
– Emily Steinberg, Brooklyn
Dear Emily,
Covid acquainted Dot with Amazon boxes. And more Amazon boxes. And yet more Amazon boxes. I suspect many of us became extremely familiar with Amazon boxes. And bags. And paper mailers.
What we might be less familiar with is what to do with all those boxes and bags, beyond collapsing them, tossing them curbside, and hoping they are reincarnated into another form to deliver another package. (Dot’s cat, Bob, would like to note that, while he loves little more than a good box, he really only needs one to chew into a bed. Or maybe two.)
How should you deal with the boxes, mailers, and more that arrive at your door? Read on to get the answers from Dot.
|
|
|
|
|
Paid Advertisement
|
|
|
|
|
Have you seen our previous BuyBetter newsletters?
|
If not, visit our site for round-ups of items for better sleep, gifts for hosts, pantry staples, cookware and appliances, cold-weather clothes, clean beauty, laundry and food storage solutions, back-to-school favorites, picks for pups, yoga, baby showers, the beach, and summer clothes, products for picnicking and renovating, kitchen favorites, white sneakers we love, and household cleaning products.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
FOLLOW US
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Want to get in touch? I’d love to hear from you. Tell me about your favorite sustainable products, topics you’d like to see covered, or anything else that’s on your mind — email marketplace@bluedotliving.com.
I’ll see you again in two weeks.
– Elizabeth
|
Elizabeth Weinstein, Bluedot’s Marketplace Editor, lives in Manhattan with her husband; her papillon, Finley; and her cats, SanDeE* and Modell. When she’s not asking the folks at Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom to try on all of their sustainable sneakers in a size 9½, she can be found at the Union Square Greenmarket or gardening on her rooftop terrace.
|
|
|
P.S. The image above depicts Audrey Hepburn as Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in the 1964 film, My Fair Lady.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Paid Advertisement
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
|
SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
|
|
|
The BuyBetter Marketplace and bluedotliving.com are published by Bluedot, Inc.
Find more simple, smart, sustainable stories at bluedotliving.com, our Martha's Vineyard website, our Brooklyn website, our San Diego website, our Santa Barbara website, our Boston website, our Toronto website, and our Los Angeles website. Subscribe to this newsletter here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
