Zero Waste For Beginners – How To Do It?

There are many ways to reduce the rubbish we produce and this can be divided into smart buying habits, recycling and reuse of existing products. If you are not sure what Zero Waste is and why it is time for a change, you can find all the answers to that here. It is important to remember that this is a process of personal progress and every step towards it brings us closer to a better future.

Ecological and smart Zero Waste shopping habits.

– Buying quality products:

Quality products will stay with us for a longer period of time. When a product is a quality item, it will serve us for a long time which means it will take time until we throw it away and it will also reduce our need to buy the same product frequently.

– Buying products without packaging:

This can be carried out in many areas such as buying solid soap, buying vegetables and legumes in bulk, choosing shipping without packaging, choosing products that do not arrive with additional packaging inside the main packaging (for example, tea and health snacks), etc. Almost every product purchased comes with packaging of some kind. Try to reduce your product packaging as much as possible.

– Buying second hand:

One person’s junk is someone else’s treasure. When buying second hand, you extend the life of the product and prevent it from reaching landfills. The price is usually more affordable and you can find really cool things.

– Buying from businesses that offer eco-friendly solutions for their packaging:

Today more and more businesses are offering eco-friendly solutions and shipping products without unnecessary packaging. In almost every field you will find a business owner who emphasizes the ecology of his products. Beyond the fact that it helps us preserve the environment, it is important to support these businesses so that they can continue to provide such services.

– Buying locally:

Beyond supporting local businesses, buying locally also helps the environment in that the transportation of the products is saved. Most of the raw materials also come from the same area and this also helps in reducing the requirements for importing similar products.

– Walking around with reusable products:

It starts with taking reusable bags for the supermarket/shopping and continues with carrying boxes for buying groceries in bulk or for buying take away food. It is recommended to walk around daily with a reusable bottle/cup, personal cutlery and a straw so that you are ready for any situation.

Reuse.

There are lots of ways in which products can be reused and all that is required of us is creativity and awareness or finding a person/organization that uses this product as a raw material. First try to repair the product. If it can not be repaired, try to think how you can turn it into something else you need or even use only certain parts to create the new product. In the cases when you do not find a use, I am sure that somewhere someone is looking for just that thing for his project. It is recommended to search and post in appropriate Facebook groups.

Recycling as a last resort.

Many people think that recycling solves most of our problems, but this is not true. Although it is better to send material for recycling than to throw it in a regular bin, recycling also has a negative environmental impact as a result of transporting it and operating factories to deal with it. Most of the production processes produce greenhouse gases and need to be transported after the product is returned to raw material. It is best to save the recycling option as the last default if we have not found any additional use for the product.

Compost your food scraps.

Not many know this, but our organic leftovers also create a negative environmental impact, firstly because of the place they occupy in landfills. Secondly, buried food degrades in a way which causes pollutants that spread into the air and contribute to global warming. I have prepared two detailed articles on this, one explains why it is important and how to operate a composter at home and the other details how to build a composter facility.

Of course there are plenty of other ways we can reduce our rubbish production, but this is the basis of Zero Waste. Do not stress if you have a lot of habits to change, everything is fine. Progress at your own pace, step by step. As I mentioned in the previous post, we do not need a small group of people to reduce their garbage completely, but a large group of people who will take steps in that direction.

So what habit are you adopting today?