Taking Steps Toward Zero Waste

When I was in England in December, I found myself wandering into a lot of bookstores. By that point in my trip, I had read all of the books I'd brought with me several times each and was in desperate need of a new read. It was comforting to once again browse through a bookstore where the books were actually in my language.

At a bookshop in London, I came across a book called Zero Waste Home. This book totally struck a chord within me, and--after standing in the store reading it for a good twenty minutes--I had to buy it.

Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson

For those of you who have never heard of the zero-waste movement, it's exactly what it sounds like. You basically minimize the amount of garbage that you produce, with the goal of working it down to no garbage produced.

Sounds pretty extreme, and I have to admit that zero-waste seems like a pretty high bar to meet. But I've begun to notice just how much garbage a single human produces in a single day.

According to the EPA--yes, Mr. President, we actually DO need this federal agency and it would be great if you didn't try to annihilate it--in 2014, the average American generated about 4.43 pounds of garbage per day. That means that each person living in the US of A makes 1,618 pounds of grabage per year, for an annual grand total of 258 million tons of American garbage!

As a result of this personal awakening, I have personally been striving to reduce my negative impact on the planet, more so lately than ever before. But I was never really sure how to go about it. I mean, I've always been a recycler. But zero-waste goes way deeper than recycling.

The strategies for reducing waste can be grouped into five broad categories, nicknamed the 5Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rot (and only in that order).

Today, I'm just going to focus on that first one: Refuse.

Refuse means saying "no" to things that you don't need. Sounds pretty easy, right?

But it's hard to say no to free pens, free samples, free notepads. It's hard to tell the cashier, "I don't need a bag," after they've already started loading your items into a plastic grocery bag. It's hard to call the junk mail companies up and tell them to take you off their mailing list.

But if you don't genuinely need those things, they're just going to clutter up your car, your house, your office, and end up in the garbage eventually anyway. So just say "no." 

Saying "no" also decreases the demand for those cheap pens, those plastic bags, those promotional postcards, which means that fewer will be made in the first place. 

Those plastic bags suck anyway.

So my challenge to you, dear reader, is to take a moment--right here, right now--to think of some opportunities in your near future when you might be offered free stuff. And then visualize yourself saying "no, thanks." Sounds very cheesy, I know, but if you think about it ahead of time, you're less likely to automatically accept those freebies when they are flung your way. 

I seriously recommend that you get your hands on a copy of Zero Waste Home yourself. (You can borrow mine, if you want.) It's full of all kinds of tips and tricks.

And if you have any questions about zero-waste, leave them in the comments. I'm just beginning to embark on this zero-waste endeavor, and I'd love to know that I'm helping others to do the same. 

I'm not asking you to drastically change your lifestyle in one fell swoop. I'm just asking you to take these baby steps with me. If a lot of people each make a little change, it adds up to a big impact.