Living Low Waste

Our environmental impact as humans is enormous. And it is so easy to look the other way and continue in with our (high waste) routines, ignoring the fact that every little step taken to reduce our impact counts. Shifting more into living a low waste lifestyle is a great step in the right direction. It shows our beautiful earth that we do care and we are putting in effort. When i realized that it is my responsibility to protect the earth and began the journey of reducing my impact it was quite overwhelming. I had been living alone in one place for a few years at this point in time and had never really thought about how my actions could have detrimental environmental impacts. I simply thought it was the norm to use plastic bags at the grocery store, buy plastic water bottles, use ziplocs, tin foil, plastic wrap, have hour-long showers when i needed a spa like experience, wash clothes when the were not even dirty, run the tap on high while multitasking in the kitchen, etc. I recycled but not super mindfully and if it was more convenient to throw something in the garbage i would.

I feel like i have done a 180 since then and now feel empowered in my low waste lifestyle and love sharing little tricks with friends and family. I put together a few easy steps:

1. Bring cloth bags with you wherever you go - no more single use plastic please! I love my cream coloured cloth bags that i carry around with me or keep in my car because i think they are so cute (they are all from different places but all off-white so they go together in a way). I think it is important to be excited by what you use because then it will motivate you to make use of it. If you don’t have any great re-usable bags or don’t love the ones you have, then find some new ones and invest the small amount in them so that you are more motivated to always have them on you. You can get really nice ones from your favourite coffee shops and boutiques. I have seen the moon juice one around a lot and also use the cloth bags my reformation purchases came in. Most of mine are super thin and light so they can fit in any bag i use, which makes it very convenient.

2. Bring reusable water bottles / drinking vessels! I love my hydroflask and always carry it with me filled with filtered water when i leave the house. Not only does this mean that i won’t purchase a plastic bottle when i am out, it also means i drink more water throughout the day and i have clean filtered water with me. Often cafes and restos provide tap water (and i try to avoid tap water due to the nasty things added, that have leached into, or are detected in the water system), so if i have my bottle with me, i have peace of mind when drinking water on the go. Bringing a reusable vessel is also great for if you are buying a coffee, tea or tonic out - all cafes should be doing this now.

3. Nothing wrapped in plastic while grocery shopping. I try to buy most of my produce and grocery items at farmers markets and health food stores but even here sometimes things come in plastic. If an item on my shopping-list is wrapped in plastic where i am shopping then i choose not to buy it and will look elsewhere. If you are buying things that need to go in a bag when shopping (think little mushrooms) then i ask at the counter if the shop has paper bags, they usually do! When buying bulk items i either bring a jar from home and weigh it (if this is an option at the store) or i will use a paper bag. At Whole Foods they have paper bags for the mushrooms and i always grab these and bring them to the bulk section to put my items (like seeds, grains, nuts…) in. I also have a couple small reusable cloth bags for bulk items too, these are super affordable and are sold at lots of (health food) stores.

4. No-plastic at home - store things in glass containers or silicone Stasher bags. It was a process when i decided to switch over to no-plastic at home. I had so many ziplocs and i didnt want to just throw them out, so i tried to use them more for non-food items to prevent leaching (i used them for travel or other organization at home) and also re-used plastic bags when i could, until they got holes then i threw them out. When i switched over i bought some glass food storage containers, but i also save nice jars and store all my grains/legumes/nuts/nut-butters in these, giving most things i buy at the store a second life!

5. Limit materialism! A few years ago i decided to be more conscious about what i buy and decided to place a big focus on clothing/shoes/bags. I have a big problem with fast-fashion and so have stopped supporting these companies in the past few years. I also decided to drastically limit my spending on new items in general and opt to buy mostly vintage or pre-owned when possible. There are so many great places to find pre-owned designer clothes online and so if i am looking for an item to fill a void in my wardrobe this is definitely the first place i look. Pre-owned and vintage is also often more affordable! When it comes to clothing i also look for sustainably sourced and natural fabrics like (organic) cotton, linen and wool.