Steps towards zero waste - 2019

They are beautiful Ilona, you really are the clever bunny we kinda been doing the same reusing gift bags each year for the very few gifts we give

Grouchy wrote: »

I've found if I don't buy X I won't have to be thinking about recycling it. And for other things have found substitutes for many things.

For me, change has been stepping away from consumerism in tandem with cutting waste, they really go together I think.

Still a way to go for me though ...

^ this is the truth of the sorting the issue, I've read so many threads where its ended up so unproductive with throwing out all the plastic and replacing with reusable, when the easiest and cheapest way to limit waste is to just stop buying.
It never ends I have a handle on my landfill waste but still recycling way more than im happy with. I have enough plastic containers to see my life out, im lucky that Christmas is now not much different then a normal week as my kids have grown and cash is king.
Principles do cost I don't save money limiting waste as we try and limit food miles on all our purchases and that tends to negate any savings but over the year it averages out.
Im so excited for you to be on this journey it will challenge you in ways you wont expect.
Best of luck

I am so happy to see this thread, thank you dragonlily for starting it. It's a very important topic and one that, as you found out, doesn't seem to have been explored yet on the OS forum. So appropriate for this forum!

I feel like I have banged on about the negative impact of plastic for decades, only for people's eyes roll and glaze. Only when Attenborough showed the impact of it on Blue Planet, it became national news and not a second too soon!

After all these years of trying to live plastic-free I have a few points to make, hope they are useful to others attempting to go this way.

It is not possible, in the Western world, to live 100% plastic-free because it permeates every aspect of our lives. So just do your best, taking it a step at a time aiming to improve but do not despair if sometimes it doesn't work.

It is really expensive, and not always accessible to people on low income, people with disabilities, people living in remote places, to mention some, to eliminate plastic completely. But there are actions that most people can take.

I won't make a list here because there are so many "what to do" lists kicking around now that this is a widely spoken about topic.

I just wanted to say, really, do your best, spread the word, make your voice heard, stay informed. More and more businesses are taking on board the requests of customers to be more responsible about packaging etc.

Good luck on this journey!

Hello everyone


Can I join in please? I will never be a zero waste guru with a years worth of waste in a jar... Not least because most of my waste is generated by my cats... But I make small changes along the way and try to avoid plastic where I can.



wrapping paper; for those of you who still want to use wrapping paper, IK€A has brown paper with a print on it that can be recycled. I'm still using up ribbons, but once I will have parted with all of that I will move to natural string or just left over yarn, I might just throw all the mini-left-overs in christmassy colours into a box during the year and use them for gift wrapping.


WellPreserved, what a shame, although I can in a way understand them that it is just too much of an effort....



cling film... This is one of the things I never thought I could go without a few years back and now totally can. I realised this year that I didn't even used it for christmas baking. Dough that had to rest in the fridge went in there in a bowl with a lid, the ones that had to go into the freezer first were wrapped in baking parchament that I later reused for baking and for the very sticky dough a ton of icing sugar on the surface and rolling pin did the trick.
I am guilty for buying two huge packs of ziplock plastic bags lately though, but after I found clothes motts in my knitting yarn I decided to put my yarn in bags. But since they don't get dirty I can just use them for years.



Illona, the bags are lovely!



I sometimes find it hard to avoid waste because it colides with another thing. For example, I try to only buy organic dairy and eggs. We have someone selling cheese and eggs from a van once a week and I could get everything into my own container. But it isn't organic... So I decided to value animal wellfare over reducing waste in that matter.