Have you given much thought to what you constantly throw out? From time to time I do. But admittedly, most of the time, not so much. Then I came across this video recently:
Watch here if need be
If you are anything like me, I don’t think about throwing stuff away. Stuff comes in wrappers. You have to do ‘something’ with it. So we chuck it. Sure, we recycle the best we can when it’s convenient. But what if we were more intentional about what we throw out. Which means, we have to be more intentional about what purchase, and what it comes in.
So again, if you are anything like me, now that it’s been brought to your attention, what does that mean?
I’ve only been pondering this about a week now, so these are pretty new thoughts, so I’m going to share them. And you’ll hear about this topic again as I realize a deeper understanding of this and/or are given/find more information.
Minimalism naturally leads to less waste.
As I think through my day, and think of the stuff I throw away, I realize that because of my recent minimalist tendencies and other changes like eating local, I’m already headed down this path without realizing it. But there are certainly other small things I can do to reduce my output.
Here are some examples:
- Tea. I really enjoy tea. All of my hot tea is loose. But my cold tea is in tea bags which results in tea-bag trash. Why not find loose cold tea?
- Water bottles. I already have been drinking my water from a Sigg water bottle. But if you buy water in plastic water bottles, now is a good time to change that up. There is a more detailed blog post in the works on this topic.
- Coffee cup. For over a year now I’ve been carrying with me a double walled stainless steel coffee cup. I’ve rarely had a cup of coffee out of anything else since I purchased it. Part of the reason I started to use it was out of practicality, I ride a motorcycle thus it’s harder to transport your Starbucks in their disposable cups. Plus I like to keep my coffee hot for as long as possible. But I use this cup at all the non-Starbucks coffee places I visit as well. I even had it with me when I was visiting family for a month and a half last winter in Ohio. Having said all that, I save $.10 on each cub at Starbucks by using my own cup, and most one-off coffee shops will only charge me a refill price or a size small when it’s 16oz. Oh, and there is nothing to throw away. :)
- Deodorant. More to come on this, but I’ve been making my own deodorant. So there is no container to throw away.
- Shampoo. Same story. I’ve been using a refillable container and using Baking Soda. Works great!
- Eggs. I buy my eggs at a Farmer’s Market. More to come about this as well, but there are nothing but benefits for this one. But for waste, I return the empty egg cartons and they give me money back for doing so.
Other areas I’ve been thinking about how to improve, and taking steps to do so:
- More conciouse of using a towel while cooking rather than a paper towel. And it’s ok to dirty a plate and clean it rather than put stuff (like hard boiled eggs) on a paper towel for a quick snack.
- Looking into using a straight razor to shave. From what I’ve read, modern ‘safety razors’ are simply a way to sell a product and make money because they wear out quickly. We’ll well about this one though. Biggest problem I see, outside of the obvious, is travel. Pretty sure I can’t get a straight razor on an airplane in my carry-on.
- Bacon. It comes in plastic and I don’t know how to get it any other way.
- Grocery bags. This is an easy fix. I just need to buy reusable bags. Probably the next time I venture to Trader Joe’s I’ll pick up a few.
- Fridge Storage Containers. I tend to use ziplock bags more so than Rubbermaid or Tupperware. A lot of this is for space. I live with two roommates and we share one fridge. Bags are pretty collapsable. I do reuse them, but only two or three times and then throw them out.
- Vegetable bags. I don’t get everything from the Farmer’s Market, I go to the grocery store as well, and those plastic bags I put my vegetables in add up pretty quickly. The above video talks about laundry bags? I don’t have any idea what a laundry bag is.
- Magazines. Getting rid of magazine subscriptions. Sadly, most are more expensive on digital devices than they are in paper. Hopefully they will start to trend like Wired just did, and you get the digital version if you get the paper. So now I just need to figure out how to not get the paper and just get the digital version for the same $12 a year. Now I just need Bicycling, Triathlete, and Runner’s World to follow suit.
- Toilet Paper? Anyone have any solutions for this one? And I’m already saying I draw the line at cleaning up my roommate’s poo.
I’m sure I can think of more stuff but I do have actual work to get done. :) But I can say this, just having it on my mind, that what I buy, what am I going to have to throw away as a result? With everything in live, there is a balance, so I don’t think it’s necessary to have absolutely no waste, but significantly reduced? You bet.
