Living a life with less (or even free of) waste doesn’t happen overnight. It requires changes in your daily habits and thought processes to go from tossing waste straight into a trash can without a second thought, to carefully composting, recycling, opting out of using certain wasteful items, and introducing new waste-less items and products into our lives. In short, it’s a process.
Here are some creative ways to step up your trash reduction game.
Compost single-use items
At its core, being truly trash-free means eliminating as many single-use items from our lives as possible. But, in order to help you get from here to there, first consider at least being selective about and then responsibility disposing of the single-use items that are currently in your life.
So you used paper towels to cook and clean up afterwards. As long as they have no unnatural chemicals like cleaning sprays on them, feel free to toss them into the compost bin.
You got food to-go or brought home restaurant leftovers. Make a mental note to patronize food establishments that use compostable to-go containers, and mention your concerns to the manager if your favorite joint isn’t meeting your zero waste-ish needs. Some plastic to-go containers are also recyclable – check your local recycling guidelines. Always ask for no plastic bag and no plastic utensils.
You bought tea that comes in individually wrapped packages. Recycle the paper wrapper and then compost your tea bag after you’ve used it. Make a mental note to choose tea companies that don’t use plastic wrappers or plastic tea bags. Paper coffee filters can go straight into the compost too.
Don’t forget about the bathroom either. Used tissues, and even loose hair leftover after your shower can all go into the compost.
Cook with your food scraps
When you cook, leftover scraps like broccoli stems, onion ends, carrot tops, shrimp shells, and so on can easily be tossed into your compost bin, no problem. But, if you want to get the most bang for your buck, then start freezing your food scraps.
Once you have a decent amount saved up, plop your frozen scraps right into a large pot of filtered water. Bring the water to a boil, then let it simmer for an hour or two. All the delicate flavor molecules left in your scraps will slowly be teased out into the water. Strain out the scraps, and you’re left with broth. Use this broth to make soups or you can also cook grains like rice or quinoa with broth to add an extra depth of flavor.
After making broth, you can freeze it once again to save for later.
BYOSF,F (bring your own spoon + fork, fool)
Don’t get caught up trying to grub down and then quickly realizing you have no choice but to eat off of single-use plastic utensils that you’ll then be expected to toss upstream of a landfill. Instead, the name of the game is yet again planning ahead. Keep it simple by throwing a reusable to-go set of utensils in your daily bag, ideally along with a reusable bag so you’ll always be ready to rumble.
Also consider keeping extra metal utensils in places like your car or work desk. Inspire your coworkers to reduce their waste as well by hanging out and chowin’ down on your work lunch with your reusable utensils. A bit of warm water, a squirt of bathroom hand soap, and a little finger massage is all you need to keep your utensils clean and ready for another day of use.
Master “just the food, please” when ordering out
Food waste and waste related to food (such as single-use cups, plates, deli clam shells, utensils, etc.) are such a large portion of our waste stream that the struggle to be zero waste or anything remotely resembling zero waste is real when buying food, especially take out food.
You know how it is – whether you get your food delivered or order for pick-up, you end up bringing inside your home a paper bag inside of a plastic bag containing multiple sets of plasticware wrapped in plastic wrap with some condiments you probably already have in the fridge wrapped in tiny tubes of plastic, plus a stack of crappy napkins that disintegrate with any presence of moisture and then each individual container that your actual food came in as well. W T actual F.
Cut down on this crap by first ordering to pick-up as much as possible, instead of getting food delivered. Next, when making your order, ask for “just the food, please”. Tell them you don’t need napkins, no fork, no spoon, no condiments, no bags, no nothing – just the food and the bare containers it comes in. Get an extra gold star if you bring your own reusable bag to carry your delicious load back home.
Just to encourage you more – the other day when ordering “just the food, please” for pick-up, I was gifted extra food from the kitchen staff as a reward for my efforts to “save the world”. Umm yes please!
Recycle those plastic bags
I know you have a plastic bag full of of plastic bags at home. Sure, sometimes it’s nice to have a couple of plastic bags around to carry something wet, or dirty, or stinky, or whatnot – but no one needs a bag of bags, or worse – bags of bags.
Bags of bags are a hidden but rampant household epidemic, and the best solution is to take them back from whence they came: the store. You might have seen it before – often by the entrance and/or exit doors of grocery stores is a large container to happily recycle those bags of bags. Get rid of your bags of bags, and then go to your parents and grandparents homes and get rid of their bags of bags too – because you know they have them.
Plastic bags are not recyclable in the regular recycling bins, so if they float on the wind into your life as they seem to do, then collect them up and drop them off responsibly. Here’s an added bonus to recycling this way – you can also collect up other types of plastic film that also often comes with food, such as bread and produce bags, ziplock baggies, plastic cereal box liners, and case wrap that comes on water bottles and paper towels. Even film plastics such as dry cleaning wraps and newspaper delivery bags can be included. Try to recycle these plastics clean and dry.
You can also try and find a TerraCycle box near you to drop those bags, and other non-recyclable items in. TerraCycle is an incredibly innovative and sustainable company that has found a way to reuse or recycle just about anything.
—
If you’re looking for more tips on reducing your waste, here are four additional ideas to get you going.
