[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Sometimes when I take out the trash, I get hit by a wave of despair. If this is just me and my trash, in a world of seven billion people, what does the sum total of all the planet’s trash look like? Where does it all go? The danger of thinking this way is it can lead to overwhelm, then passivity; however, it can also lead to action.
The average American consumer produces just under five pounds of trash each day, while a family creates about 18 pounds. Multiplying those numbers by 365 days for the year, it all adds up to: 1,642 pounds per person annually. 6,570 pounds per family annually. On a more global scale, the United Nations estimates that humans produce
400 million tons of plastic waste every year.
Enter the reasonable yet unrealistic aspiration for a totally zero-waste lifestyle. Yet it’s also unrealistic to keep living as if waste was not a problem. In between zero and conspicuous lies your sweet spot, and it’s up to you to find what that it is. To help you navigate your consumer habits, the University of Colorado at Boulder has created a
7 steps to zero waste lifestyle guide.
Steps to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle
Zero-waste lifestyle step 1: Rethink
Don’t have an all or nothing attitude to zero waste. Think about what you can do and what you are willing to do. The truth is that we all have different abilities to reduce our waste, depending on our access and incomes. People with access to bulk stores can buy more unpackaged options, whereas people living in food deserts can't. People with the privilege of extra money can invest in more expensive biodegradable products. People with the privilege of time can save money by DIYing.
Knowledge and education means you can at least make more informed choices. Focus on doing the most that you can do with time, money or access. Make small steps at first, if that’s more doable. For example, carry around your own metal straws, use cloth napkins instead of paper at home, dry your clothes on a clothesline, drink boxed wine, go paperless whenever you can, use biodegradable dog poop bags.
If you start to question the packaging a product, act on that. I’ve been thinking about how wasteful dentist floss is lately. Turns out, there are plenty of zero waste options.
Zero-waste lifestyle step 2: Refuse
What can you do without? When shopping, try to buy products with minimal or no packaging. Choose items in bulk, bring your own containers, and opt for products with reusable or recyclable packaging. Think about where your hard no’s are and build on them. I refuse bags 90 percent of the time. I never buy water in plastic bottles unless it’s an emergency. Take out is a guilty pleasure. I’m going to try to do it more sparingly and enjoy the restaurant experience as the treat that it is. Now that the pandemic has waned, Starbucks lets you bring your own mug again. It’s worth keeping a zero-waste kit in your car: a tote bag, mug, straw, water bottle, bamboo utensils and cloth napkin in your car for any eventuality.
Zero-waste lifestyle step 3: Reduce
Do a trash audit. Are there lots of frozen foods boxes? Guilty as charged. Can you limit your kids’ frozen meals to two per week? Good luck with that (my kids love frozen meals). Pick three things from your trash that you would like to try reducing. You can start small. It can be straws, dental floss, and wine bottles. Can you wash clothes in cold water? Works for most items just as well as hot or warm. Can you turn off your AC at night? Can you lower your heat in winter and wear a sweater?
What are the small changes that you think about making in your head but need to be nudged to execute in world? Can you get a compost bin and commit to using it for your food waste? According to Fortune magazine, U.S. consumers waste a lot of food year-round, about
one-third of all purchased food. That’s
equivalent to 1,250 calories per person per day, or $1,500 worth of groceries for a four-person household each year, an estimate that doesn’t include recent
food price inflation.
And when food goes bad, the land, labor, water, chemicals and energy that went into producing, processing, transporting, storing and preparing it are wasted too. Most people assume throwing away food is no big deal. It's organic and breaks down. But organic material like food needs oxygen to break down. Crushed under tons of other stuff in the landfill, food doesn't get the oxygen it needs to biodegrade. Instead, it mummifies and releases methane, a greenhouse gas over 20x stronger than CO2.
Zero-waste lifestyle step 4: Reuse
If you haven’t gotten the memo yet, thrifting is cool. And hip. And, by the way, sustainable. Find a local store that you like and make it your first stop for clothes items you need. Clothing swaps, sample sales, and estate sales are also a great way to get gear and clothing. Trade sports gear in, or get gently used gear, at
Play It Again Sports. Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, freecycle and other such listservs are excellent resources for buying secondhand.
Zero-waste lifestyle step 5: Repair
Mending clothes or fixing shoes, especially expensive ones, seems old fashioned in a fast fashion world. But there is something inherently satisfying about tending and mending. And for equipment and electronics, there is a growing movement called right to repair laws. According to sustainable America, in a key step toward a
circular economy, right to repair laws make it easier for people to fix items instead of throwing them away. Proponents say these laws should reduce waste and support local economies. Right to repair laws have now passed in New York and Colorado. As of February 2023, Right to Repair bills had also been proposed in
20 states, targeting electronics, wheelchairs, farm equipment and more.
Zero-waste lifestyle step 6: Regift
No shame in regifting something that you didn’t love but someone else might. Regifting is not about giving your “trash” to someone else to deal with. Truly evaluate who would enjoy the gift and get the most joy from it. A gift economy is the best economy, and anything you can do to add to the gift stream is a win.
Zero-waste lifestyle step 7: Recycle
The step of last resort—recycling—is for when you have exhausted all other possibilities. A recent
New York Times article addressed the fact that recycling symbols don’t necessarily mean the article will be recycled. If you are going to recycle, you might as well do it with precision. In other words, don’t wish-cycle. Hope is a central tenet of wish-cycling, the act of putting something in the recycling bin and hoping it will be recycled, even if there is little evidence to confirm this assumption.
Put time and effort into recycling, by washing out containers and separating out contaminants. When in doubt, look it up. For example, sticky notes can be recycled along with other paper products, as the glue gets filtered out in the process. But goldenrod, those ubiquitous mustard-colored envelopes, are not recyclable because goldenrod paper (as well as dark or fluorescent paper) is saturated with hard-to-remove dyes.
Save Amazon mailers and plastic bags for designated plastic bag recycling—some supermarket chains have these bins. Printer ink cartridges can be taken to places like Staples for recycling.
Small steps like this, in aggregate, can steer us towards the direction of progress.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title="Featured Products" border_width="2"][vc_row_inner equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle" gap="35"][vc_column_inner width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="168884" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" css=".vc_custom_1695332430781{padding-right: 7% !important;padding-left: 7% !important;}" link="https://www.vitacost.com/senzacare-senzabamboo-childs-eco-friendly-ultra-soft-bamboo-toothbrush"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="168882" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" css=".vc_custom_1695332454166{padding-right: 7% !important;padding-left: 7% !important;}" link="https://www.vitacost.com/mollys-suds-wool-dryer-balls-3-balls-2"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="168883" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" css=".vc_custom_1695332487497{padding-right: 7% !important;padding-left: 7% !important;}" link="https://www.vitacost.com/radius-biodegradable-anywhere-floss"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
