3... 2... 1… Zero-Waste
An athlete’s secret to being efficient is to minimize energy waste and their every move is streamlined for pure speed and strength. This advice applied to the sport of living sustainably is “zero-waste living”. The zero-waste lifestyle has become a trend in the last decade with people striving to buy package-free, organic, local and ethical products.
Zero-waste is a concept that originated in industry. It promotes the idea that industries can refine their production processes and find other uses for their by-products so no waste would be created. In the last decade, this concept has been restyled for the household into a trending lifestyle, thanks to Béa Johnson from California, and other pioneers of the zero-waste lifestyle. These pioneers have shown the extent to which waste can be reduced, thereby inspiring millions of followers. In her book — Zero Waste Home — Béa explains all the steps she and her family of 4 take to produce less than ‘a mason jar’ of trash per year, year after year!
The zero-waste lifestyle follows a simple process called “The 5 Rs” –
Refuse what you do not need or can replace. For example, disposable dishes, single-use plastic bags, packaging, free samples, toxic cleaning products, and much more. This extends to services too, like refusing services from unsustainable energy suppliers and refusing to drive everywhere. This is really the biggest category and is different for different people. For some, this may easily include flights, while for others, omitting meat and dairy is easier than omitting flights.
Reduce what you do need. For example, clothes, shoes, energy and water, etc. This extends to single-purpose items that clutter your house and life. When possible, buy second-hand to reduce demand for new resources. If you can’t refuse something for whatever reason (like flights or meat), then you can try reducing your demand for it instead.
Reuse or repurpose what you can. For example, reusing jam jars to store food, old clothes as cleaning rags, vegetable peels to make broth, coconut shells as bird feeders or planters. This is the category that allows you the most creativity.
Recycle whatever can be recycled. Formerly seen as the holy grail of sustainable living, recycling is really a last resort and should only be used when the other options are not possible. Again, it would depend on you, your local environment and services available to you. So, if you love your dairy/plant milk, but can only buy it in plastic bottles or tetra packs, you might choose to buy and recycle the plastic bottles. Of course, you would make sure that the plastic bottle is recyclable before buying it.
Rot or compost all organic material. This includes kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, garden waste, but can also include newspaper and egg cartons (shredded). If you are lucky, your local area may collect sorted organic trash for composting, but many people don’t have that luxury. That said, composting is easier than you think and there are a few composting systems that are foolproof, compact and even odorless. The most famous of them is the Bokashi kitchen composting system.
The 5Rs are followed in the order above for maximum impact. So though you might reuse plastic bags, it is better to refuse them. Don’t worry about running out of trash bin liners: With your rapidly reducing waste, you’ll need fewer and fewer of them and still find one a year later when you think you have run out.
To know what steps you can take to reduce your waste, you need to know what you throw away in the first place. Therefore, a fresh zero-waste start always starts with a “Trash audit”. Before taking your bins out, look through your trash bins to learn what they contain and what you can change. For most, the bulk of their trash will be packaging from a few categories of products or tissue paper.
Expert tip #1 — Start with the easiest items first and the bulkiest ones. Remedying these would give you a greater sense of accomplishment. Zero-waste transition takes a long time and a sense of progress will help you stay in the game.
A surprising discovery for me and my better half in one of our early trash audits was the number of beer bottles that accumulated in the recycling bin every month. This was easy to reduce at once. And soon enough, we ended up replacing beer entirely (with the occasional exception of course) with homemade “water kefir” — a fizzy, cider-like probiotic drink that is a healthier option for us and our planet.
In the above example, we reduced glass waste and one might argue it’s one of the better recycled materials. But there’s a lot more sources of waste linked to every product we consume. In zero-waste living, it’s debated what constitutes waste. Some zero-waste followers focus on the tangible waste in their bins. Others like to consider the chemicals, energy, transport, social and other costs linked to each product. So if you eat aThe social and environmental costs behind coffee production led me to refuse coffee. My body thanks me for it too because, even though I thought coffee did not affect me, I’m more energetic without it.
Zero-waste or a-bag-of-waste-a-month, no one expects you to go live on a mountain with no electricity or food. There are ways to make sustainable living sustainable for yourself.
To be continued …
