Imperfectly Zero Waste

Four years worth of trash squashed into one mason jar. Metal straws and rows of grains and spices neatly stored in glass containers. Perfect aesthetic photographs of white kitchens free of clutter. These are all things that come to mind when you hear the words “Zero Waste”. The movement has gained a lot of traction over the last few years - but what exactly does it entail? 

What is Zero Waste?

At its core, Zero Waste is about sending zero things to the landfill. In the UK alone an average person throws away 400 kg of waste per year, which is roughly the weight of one seal. And if you’ve ever seen a seal you know that they are huge. The issue is further compounded by the fact that materials in landfills don’t decompose, with the durability of a glass bottle averaging at 4000 years. The goal of the movement is to solve these problems by employing the key concepts you probably learned about in school: reduce, reuse, recycle.

On a more complex level Zero Waste proponents want to redefine the system, to move away from a linear economy to a circular one. In a linear economy we take resources from the earth, turn them into products and when we’re done with them we simply throw them away. Then we go take more materials from the earth and the process begins again. But resources are finite, and eventually, they will run out.

A circular economy presents a solution to this issue. It takes inspiration from nature, where nothing is wasted, even a rotting tree sustains little critters that return nutrients to the soil by feasting on decay. In nature, one creatures trash is another creatures food. In a circular economy, instead of discarding resources, we resume them back into the system, eliminating waste in the process. 

The Benefits of Zero Waste

For You

• Health Benefits

We all know how tempting the cookie aisle is, or how those ready-made frozen pizzas seem to be calling our name, especially on the weeks when we’ve decided that we’re going to start eating healthy. A Zero Waste lifestyle offers an easy shopping system that keeps us out of the way of temptation.  It encourages the reduced consumption of packaged goods leading people to ditch grocery shops for farmers markets to avoid creating unnecessary waste.  This means that you’ll be eating less processed junk, shifting to a diet of fresh whole foods. Diets high in vegetables and fruit contribute to a healthy digestive system, higher energy levels and an extended life expectancy.

• Improved Mental Health

In today’s busy world it’s hard to keep track of everything. While we’re busy juggling meetings, organizing a gift for a friend’s birthday and trying to be on time for important events it’s easy to get overwhelmed. We return home to relax only to find it crowded with unnecessary things. We waste precious time that we could have used to take care of ourselves sorting through seemingly never-ending laundry piles ( why do we keep so many clothes we never even wear?) and trying to remember where we left our keys.

Cluttered spaces drastically affect our mental health and productivity. Researchers at UCLA have found a direct link between the stress hormone cortisol and clutter. Elevated cortisol levels over a sustained period of time are linked to depression and anxiety. Clutter also encourages procrastination and is detrimental to our productivity.

Adopting a Zero Waste approach to life prevents the accumulation of unnecessary things in our home, allowing us greater clarity and the space to focus on things that truly matter. This mindset encourages us to think before we buy and to carefully consider what does each new item contribute to our lives. By buying only what we need we’re not only kinder to our planet, but also to ourselves.

• Financial Savings

A Zero Waste lifestyle may initially be an investment. A 20 dollar reusable water bottle may seem more expensive than the 40 cents single-use alternative. But considering that Americans spend 100 dollars per person on plastic bottles each year, it’s easy to see that the reusable bottle is the cheaper option. Save those 80 dollars for something you actually enjoy, like a spa day or a brunch date with friends. 

You also eliminate redundant purchases - armed with a Zero Waste mindset you can shop more consciously and avoid succumbing to the sale tactics that companies use to get us to spend more money. No more buying random picture frames that you’ll never use just because they were 50% off. Even by simply reducing your food waste you can save 1800 dollars annually.

Financial savings with minimal changes to your lifestyle? Yes please. 

For Your Community

• More Jobs

Eliminating trash creates more work in repair, rental and recycling services. Recycling and reuse industries create at least nine times more jobs than landfills and incinerators and by meeting its goal of recycling 70% of all waste the E.U could create 560,000 new jobs.

Creating a culture of fixing and reusing items allows for more jobs in our communities. Think about how people lived when our grandparents were young. Instead of tossing out a dress because it tore, they would either stitch it themselves or take it to a seamstress. If one of the kitchen chairs broke they would pay a carpenter to repair it instead of buying a new one. All these jobs were done by local skilled tradesmen who were paid a living wage for their services. This created employment, empowered smaller businesses and boosted the local economy. 

By valuing our things, investing in higher quality longlasting items and adopting the reuse and recycle principles we contribute to the creation of 3 million new jobs.

• Helps Marginalized Communities

With nearly 80% of incinerators in the U.S located in the most marginalised communities, it’s easy to see how poor waste management disproportionally affects low- income areas. Poor minorities are more likely to live near hazardous waste storage sites. Zero Waste encourages the elimination of waste and landfills altogether - by being careful with our consumption we reduce the need for unsustainable and toxic waste storage, helping marginalised communities in the long run. 

The Zero Waste Approach also helps with the redistribution of resources. Community-based efforts can help eliminate 31 billion dollars worth of food waste by giving them to shelters and food banks. Reuse projects can distribute useful items such as furniture or clothes to people in need. Even on a smaller scale, instead of throwing out that top that you no longer wear, think about giving it away to a friend or a co-worker that could give your garments a second life.

As children we learned that “sharing is caring” and Zero Waste redistribution projects enable us to do exactly that- to show that we care by giving back to our communities.

For Our Planet

• Save Resources

In the UK you could fill 103,000 double-deckers with all the wastepaper sent to landfills each year, with the average family annually throwing away 6 trees worth of paper.  And recycling isn’t the way to go either. While a brilliant idea in theory, recycling systems are currently unable to cope with the masses of waste we produce, only 9% of all of the plastic ever made has been recycled.

Enormous pressure is being put on planetary resources to keep up with human consumption, leading to deforestation, desertification, overfishing and illegal poaching. The Zero Waste movement offers us the most effective solution - eliminate your waste by only buying what you need and repurposing old items instead of throwing them out. This decreases the demand for new resources, allowing our planet to replenish and puts pressure on corporations to adopt more sustainable practices. With just a tiny bit of mindfulness, you can contribute to protecting the environment. 

• Reduced Greenhouse Gases

Landfills heavily contribute to methane gas emissions. Methane is carbon dioxides more troublesome cousin,  with one tonne of methane causing 72 times more warming than one tonne of carbon dioxide. Global methane emissions are estimated to be between 30 and 70 million tonnes each year, accelerating global warming and contributing to the rise in sea levels.

By committing to sending as little as possible of our waste to landfills we’re helping cut the greenhouse gases we’re releasing into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are responsible for extreme weather, increased wildfires and disruptions to food production. Simply avoiding excessive packaging can do so much to help our planet, and it’s easy to integrate the Zero Waste shopping mindset into our daily routines. 

Letting Go Of Perfection

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the different elements of the movement. Zero Waste is a lifestyle shift, encompassing different aspects of your life such as food, clothes and even skincare. But becoming Zero Waste propagators overnight and never cultivating trash ever again is an unrealistic goal with our busy schedules. Not everyone has the time to dedicate an entire week to decluttering your house, or intensely researching every item you buy to ensure that it’s ethical. 

But Zero Waste was never about that. It’s there to encourage us to be a little more mindful with our purchases and to consider the value of things we add into our lives. It helps us create and hold space for the things that matter, nurturing the planet in the process. You don’t have to be perfect, life rarely resembles the impeccably curated Instagram feeds of Zero Waste bloggers. Just by using a refillable water bottle or doing some of your weekly shopping at the farmers market, you’re already making a difference. The actions of millions of people add up, creating real and sustainable change.

We don’t need one person doing Zero Waste perfectly, we need all of us doing it imperfectly, one day at a time.