Becoming a zero-waste household may seem daunting, but at the end of the day, it’s all about rethinking what you use each day. It sparks conversations and education, and when the whole family gets into it, there’s fun to be had. At the start of the new year, let’s all rethink the trash we create. Here are some tips to get started:
EDUCATE
- Learn about your city’s recycling, upcycling, composting and hazardous waste programs and locations.
- Write down what you’re throwing away for a couple weeks. You will be surprised how much can be diverted from the landfill.
ORGANIZE
- Have accessible, properly labeled bins in all areas needed. Keep it simple.
- Create a space in the garage, shed or outdoors for all waste-stream containers, so they are easy to empty, transport to a car, or haul out to sidewalk for pickup.
REFUSE
- Stop junk mail from coming your way by contacting your local post office.
- Walk away from the freebies. Just because it’s free does not mean you need it.
REDUCE
- Use cloth napkins, handkerchiefs, old T-shirt rags, and hand towels instead of paper napkins and paper towels.
- Switch your paper billing to online billing to reduce even more mail and paper waste.
REMOVE
- Remove the temptation of a “garbage can” and use recycle bins instead.
- Remove clutter. Donate all items that are not sentimental, but that you haven’t used in a year.
REUSE
- Bring reusable totes for groceries and cloth/mesh bags for fruits and vegetables. Store bulk items in glass jars and bottles (NF018). And to really avoid grocery waste, order bulk items from Azure.
- Replace all of your disposable items with reusable items (i.e., water bottles, razors, soap dispensers, plastic utensils).
REPURPOSE
- Type in “repurpose” on Pinterest and you will be overloaded with ideas, including turning old flour into play dough and broken wooden furniture into children’s blocks.
RECYCLE
- Almost everything can be recycled. You just have to be resourceful and sometimes you might have to mail it off to a company.
- Recycling should be a last resort. It takes a lot of energy and costs a lot to recycle.
COMPOST
- Find an indoor compost system that works for your home and get to know how it works. For indoor use, try Bokashi Buckets and Vermaculture Bins.
- Create outdoor compost that you can either transfer your indoor compost to or a separate one for yard debris.
ENJOY & NETWORK
- Join like-minded communities online and check out any freecycle classifieds where one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And above all, have fun!