Ouch, what a title. Potentially a controversial statement, but I think that it is more important for everyone to reduce their waste than for some people to eliminate their waste. In a perfect world, I would be zero waste all the time, but particularly in a pandemic that is very difficult. So, this week, I thought that I would talk you through the areas of my life that are not zero waste. They are all areas that I know I can improve, especially once things are more open and I have a more concrete routine. If you have any ideas as to how I can do this, let me know!
Food Shopping
Although I do some of my shopping from zero waste shops and I buy as much as I can loose, there are several things that I always end up buying in plastic:
- Veggie/Vegan meat substitutes – this is a difficult one, because when I weigh up the impact of eating vegetarian or vegan against the impact of the packaging, the actual food still has more of an impact. Examples include Tofu (which comes in cardboard and plastic), veggie sausages (which can be cardboard but are also sometimes in plastic), and veggie mince (which always comes in plastic). I don’t really have a solution for this other than stopping eating them.
- Oat milk – again, this is a diet thing. My oat milk comes in Tetra Paks, which I cannot recycle at home, and at the moment cannot travel to recycle. But I do have a solution – my parents have a milkman who brings dairy milk, eggs and fruit juice in glass bottles or cardboard. The company also does oat milk, so I will start getting it from the milkman!
- Baking supplies – I bake about twice a week, and although most baking supplies come in paper bags, it’s still not ideal and I definitely need to do better. I can easily refill everything from zero waste shops, I just need to be more organised.
- Frozen fruit and veggies – I use frozen fruit and veg a lot for smoothies, and it’s great because it keeps a lot longer. However, I the packaging is all plastic and non-recyclable. The solution is maybe buying fresh fruit and veg and then chopping and freezing them.
Bathroom
This is a smaller category, but still, it has it’s problems:
- Toothbrush – although my toothbrush is bamboo, I have a second toothbrush which is for baby teeth because I have some problematic wisdom teeth that I have to clean with a smaller brush. This is plastic, and I don’t think that bamboo toothbrushes are made that small.
- Toothpaste – same thing as above really. I did try some zero waste toothpaste, but I didn’t like it and my teeth didn’t feel clean. I would really like to find an alternative that doesn’t use plastic.
Cleaning
I am exploring some zero waste cleaning (see my all-purpose cleaner if you want an example), but I don’t do everything zero waste.
- Toilet cleaner/bleach – this is just habit really, but I use bleach to clean my bathroom in particular and I dilute it with water to clean floors. There are two potential solutions to this – firstly to find an alternative, but secondly to find an option that I can get at a zero waste shop.
- Anti-bacterial spray – at the moment, I clean everything that we bring in from outside the house with this spray. I’m hoping that soon I won’t have to use it as much, but it would be good to find an alternative.
Make-up
- Erm, all of it – this is one of my New Year’s Resolutions. When I finish a product, I want to replace it with one that uses less packaging, is vegan etc. But, I need to use what I already have, because obviously that’s the best way to limit waste.
Arts and Crafts
- I like making things, and I used to make cards for people all the time, so I have a lot of leftover supplies. I also love painting and drawing, so I also have a lot of paint, brushes, canvases etc. Again, I’m using up what I have as and when I need to, like at Christmas when I made tags and cards. However, I don’t really see a solution to not using more supplies, other than not making anything.
So that’s it. Those are the few that spring to mind, but I’m sure I can think of others. I see these as areas for improvement as and when I can. It’s important to remember that whilst it’s great to do your bit and our choices can change consumption levels, there need to be big overall changes in policy and infrastructure. So, do what you can, but don’t beat yourself up for not being 100% all the time.
Waste Makes Waste 