Easy Ways to Reduce Your Waste, Pt. 2

Dec 05, 2019

“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

Upcycle and Thrift

You can find lots of great items at thrift shops or consignment stores. Buy used clothing, kitchenware, glass jars, anything. Basically everything you find will be unique, which is always fun. I purchased a winter coat from a store like this; it was a no-name brand, but it contained all vegan materials. And I can say that it is the best coat I’ve ever had; it’s incredibly warm and comfortable. The only thing wrong with it is that a tiny little part of the zipper is gone, but that in no way impacts the quality or functionality of the coat. The best part is that it was only seven dollars! It’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made, keeping me warm when I was outside for hours working at a doggy daycare in the frigid winter months. It’s unlikely that everything you buy will come from a thrift store, especially when you’re still learning the ropes. At the very least, though, when you do purchase new products, try to buy from ethical, preferably vegan, companies. And if you're not sure if the companies you usually buy from are "ethical," do some digging. Most sustainable, fair trade, vegan, etc. businesses proudly advertise that on their products and/or websites.

Compost

I don’t compost (right now). On social media, influencers make composting seem fun and easy, but it takes time and effort to figure it out and keep it up. That's not to say I disagree with composting; I think it's great, and I will start composting in the near future. There are even services that can pick up compost (if you happen to live in a city where that's available, which most people don't) or you can use it yourself in a garden or lawn. Since most of the products I buy are low- or zero-waste, the packaging is generally compostable. So, instead of throwing it in the garbage, I sometimes find a way to repurpose it or just toss it out in the woods or bury it outside. It feels wrong to "litter" like that, but if I were to throw it in a landfill, it would just sit there basically forever, unable to naturally degrade.

Rewear All Your Clothes

I have certain things in my closet that I wear all the time, things that make me feel super cozy and comfortable, and I would wear them every single day if that wasn't socially unacceptable (not that I'm necessarily one to adhere to societal norms). Because of this, I’m trying to be more conscious about wearing everything in my closet. For the most part, I do, but there are still some items that I keep saving even though I only wore them once or twice (or never at all). This is especially difficult for nicer clothes; since I'm home most of the time and generally don’t care about getting dressed up to do anything, I have very little need or desire for fancier things. But there’s always this question of if I’ll ever need these things in the future. I’m holding onto just a few of them for now, since I’m not sure about my future career and life. But this tip is actually a BOGO because it has two meanings!

Unless you get really sweaty or dirty all the time, you don’t have to wash and dry your clothes after every single use. If I’m just wearing a t-shirt around the house, there’s absolutely no need for it to get washed. Not only will that decrease the quality and longevity of your clothes, but it uses way more energy, water, and other resources. Also, try to hand wash and air-dry clothes when you can, though I know that isn’t an option for everyone. But since I only do laundry about twice a month anyway, I’m doing what I can at the moment to reduce my waste.

Feminine Hygiene

Pads and tampons are, at least to me, an ethical gray area; I know there has been and still is testing done on these kinds of products to ensure their safety. But they're something every young woman needs. Luckily, we live in a wonderful, modern world where there are so many more options now. The best choice is a menstrual cup, but if you’re committed to using pads/tampons, I would recommend reusable pads (you can also find these homemade on Etsy if you want to try out different styles) or period underwear. If that's too expensive, try a brand like Natracare instead of the larger companies that put all sorts of terrible things in their products. British company Dame also makes a reusable tampon applicator, saving millions of plastic waste from being thrown in landfills or the ocean. (Or you could just go without the applicator.)

DIY It

This is probably the most challenging part for me, aside from composting. And that’s only because I’m kinda lazy. I like to be able to buy stuff from the store or online that’s already prepared so I don’t have to think about it. But that’s the problem of our society: we're lazy. I’m transitioning to mostly homemade cleaning products, personal care, and beauty products, or am buying more sustainable versions of these things. For instance, I stopped using shampoo and conditioner years ago; I just use a baking soda-water mixture and then an apple cider vinegar-water mixture when I wash my hair now.[1] I’m not sure if this would work for everyone, but it seems to suit me just fine. I just fill up two old reusable plastic water bottles with the mixtures, and I’m set for a month or so (depending on how often I wash my hair).

I use bamboo toothbrushes, and I make my own toothpaste, which has taken some getting-used-to. For deodorant, I currently buy Booda Organics which comes in a small glass jar (and smells heavenly of coconut). After I finish it all, I reuse the jar. They also offer to give you a free return mailing slip to send back the box and packaging so that they can reuse them. As far as makeup goes, there are options to make it yourself, but I barely wear makeup now as it is, so the little I do wear, I still buy. And I’m still trying to use up all the makeup I’ve had sitting around for way too long.

Follow Zero-Waste Influencers

They can be a great source of inspiration and knowledge on your zero-waste journey. I love to watch videos of how they grocery shop, make their cleaning products, and literally everything else. It’s really easy to binge that kind of content; I can’t be the only one who thinks so, right? I’ll link to some below for you to check out.[2] And, of course, they’re all vegan. I actually once started watching a video about zero-waste, but the woman started off saying that she wouldn’t ever really be zero-waste because of…meat. She still ate meat but was attempting a zero-waste lifestyle! Clearly, she wasn’t educated well on the topic, but I hope she has been since then.

Also, I want to warn you against some of these influencers that are environmental “vegans” who are living that way for the planet. I used to think that they could also be classified as ethical vegans since they’re living that way for the good of the planet. However, I've found that some of them promote nonvegan products like wool dryer balls and honey/beeswax (by way of using these things in their videos). I won’t claim to know whether or not the wool balls were already in their possession before transitioning to a plant-based, sustainable lifestyle, but since it wasn’t made clear, that makes it seem – to people watching those videos – that wool is better than dryer sheets. If they knew how terrible the farming of sheep is to the sheep but also to the planet, as sheep are one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, they probably wouldn't continue to promote those products.[3]

As far as honey (and beeswax) goes, that’s never vegan because honey doesn’t belong to humans. Bees produce honey through laborious work for their entire lives (which is very short) in order to feed themselves, and, more importantly, their queen. Queens often have their wings clipped so they cannot fly away, the bees used to impregnate her are usually killed as their semen is extracted, and at the end of the day, that honey belongs to them.[4] If I were to work my entire life to ensure my family had food to eat but then someone else just took it away and gave my family Twinkies instead…I can’t imagine a more cruel thing to do. Honey’s never vegan, and it’s never ethical. So, beware of these sustainable “vegan” influencers because they often don’t have that ethical connection to the suffering of the animals.

Declutter

When you remove or reorganize things in your life, you reduce or eliminate the temptation to have things around. For example, I recently went through my phone and considered each app I had. Did I really need it? Did I ever even use it? If not, I deleted it. This is especially useful for apps that waste time, like games or social media, and apps that waste money, like Amazon or Etsy. Since I spend most of my life on the computer, I've built up a lot of clutter on there also. Dozens of bookmarked pages, so many that I get too stressed just thinking about them to ever look at any of them. If you do a lot of online shopping, remove those temptations by clearing out your cart (and not by buying everything in it) and your saved-for-later items. It may seem like you're losing out or giving up all those things, but they're just things. Soon after you remove the idea of them from your life, you'll completely forget about them.

You can use these ideas to declutter anything else in your life. For me, the best place to start is the closet. Several times a year, I take a deep dive into my closet, looking at all the clothes I have and thinking about what I can do to reduce. Even though I’ve donated many bagfuls in just the last year or so, I still feel like I have too much, and I was never that interested in fashion in the first place.

Go through each article and really ask yourself if it’s something you need or if you're just hoping you’ll wear it someday or if you're holding on to for nostalgia. If there’s a shirt I got on a vacation somewhere, but I don’t really wear it anymore or if I'm hoping to lose enough weight to fit in it again, I just take a picture of it and then give it away. Even though I thought I’d miss it, I almost never look back at the picture or think of it again. However, you shouldn't give away everything all at once in the name of minimalism or zero-waste. It should be a continuous process of consciousness to minimize using things in your life; you don’t want to get rid of everything and then wish you held onto something (like I did with a few things) or then realize you might have actually needed some of them.

Introspect

Have a reason to do this. Find something in yourself that makes you feel passionate about making this lifestyle change. Like veganism, it will be difficult to stick with if you aren’t committed. There will be times when it’s challenging or you may have to go out of your way or you can’t find something you need, and your dedication will be tested. That’s just a part of life. You must understand that you’ll make some mistakes along the way, but at least you’re trying. And that’s a heck of a lot better than what most people are doing. If you know why you’re doing this, for whom you’re doing this, then it will remove a lot of that pressure from you. Do your best. You got this.

Final Thoughts

When we talk about climate change or global warming, we never feel a real sense of urgency. It seems like it’s too great of a problem for us to really comprehend, and we don’t want to believe that the way we live is actually contributing (causing, really) the demise of our home. Sadly, though, it is, and we must begin to make drastic changes in our lives to combat this. It’s like the earth has a dangerously high fever, and we are now tasked with treating it before it goes beyond the point of no return. Be conscious, and shop wisely.