What Is Zero Waste?

What is zero waste?

It’s a growing a movement to reduce what you consume and throw away.

It’s a set of five principles: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot (or compost). These five serve as a guide to getting as close as you can to reduce your non-biodegradable footprint and preventing excess waste.

It’s a practice, a process, a lifestyle change, and a mindset shift to try for zero, all the while knowing that though you will never arrive at it, you’ll keep striving towards it anyway.

It’s about doing what makes sense to you, doing what you think you can sustain. Don’t treat it like a crash diet; make small changes to achieve long-lasting results. With this in mind, a zero waste lifestyle will look different for everyone.

It’s about making choices with more thought and more care, not only for your trash can but for you and the planet.

It’s about finding a way around our society’s economy. Our current, modern day economy is linear—>resources are extracted, processed, consumed, and discarded. And, though we need a systematic change coming from our governments, there are a LOT manageable steps we can start making at home. It’s up to us to start making change in our homes and eventually in our communities.

It’s about cultivating creativity and resourcefulness that typically requires a slower paced life and a little bit (okay, sometimes a lot) of inconvenience. Looking at my consumption habits through through the lens of zero waste changes what, how, and why I buy. For instance, when I’m out shopping for something I need, one question I ask myself is: Can this product be used in a different way after it has served its purpose? Another one is: Is there something more sustainable?

In the end, zero waste becomes more than just about preventing or avoiding waste. When you think about it, it brings you to a lifestyle that reconnects you to our food, to our health, to our communities and towns, to the natural world, and to our planet.

Are you still curious about zero waste? Then, follow your curiosity. Start implementing a small change that brings you to life, and move forward from there. And, after you change that one thing, start on the next one. Little by little. Big changes will come.