Sustainable living by going zero-waste
it’s easy sitting in your room, watching television, and tossing stuff into the trash but have you ever wonder that where does this trash ends up well you are smart enough to figure out that it ends up in landfills (but not all). Some of it swirls in the ocean damaging the ocean’s biodiversity and some stay laying around the curbs. There was about 2.2 billion metric tons of solid waste generation globally in 2016 and it’s expected to rise to 3.4 billion metric tons by 2050 if we keep this pace frankly enough we are destining ourselves to perish in our waste. But there are still people and communities who are understanding the situation and coming up with solutions that we can adopt to play our role and one of them is going zero waste.
What is a zero-waste lifestyle?
Cutting down your waste disposal limit every day is a zero-waste lifestyle. The concept of zero waste is not limited to homes, it’s also applicable at larger scales such as companies. About 53% of the US companies are aware of this concept but the rest are not. So still there is a need to make others aware of this idea as well.
Changing toward a zero-waste lifestyle is switching toward a better life because, in the end, you will be making a difference by playing your part. It’s all about changing linear economy (using resources from the earth and dumping the waste in it) to a circular economy where you are reusing and recycling things to reduce the disposal process.
Why it’s important to understand it?
Every year we have Earth overshoot day to mark the date we have consumed our resources that the earth regenerates sustainably. It was 22 August in 2020 means we are consuming 1.5 times faster than our globe biocapacity. So the question is what we are doing to move the date? And it’s not that we don’t have space to dump the waste due to overconsumption, it’s also the toxic chemicals leaching down ruining the freshwater resources, and release of methane from landfills adding to our global warming problems. The situation is monumentally overwhelming and quite frustrating but you can use that energy to take action and letting go of the unsustainable lifestyle.
Is one person going to change the course?
YES! Small steps add up to make a big difference. Everything is linked with the other, what are you eating? What are you buying? How do you get to your workplace? An average person living in North America generates 4.8 pounds of waste per day. So you can have an estimation of what it would be by the end of the year which is insanely a big number. We should not have any doubt that one person can make a difference. You have to have faith in yourself.
How you can slash your trash?
· Use the precycling approach it’s a decision made on behalf of a consumer to cut waste from the source or to minimize it by reusing, repairing, or recycling.
· Dump plastic bags, use reusable bags, or cart your groceries back to your car.
· Ditch plastic bottles and use reusable water bottles and jars instead.
· Refuse the items that you don’t need at the restaurants, cook more at home, buy fresh groceries
· Cut out paper towel, use some old piece of cloth to clean spills, use hankies instead of tissues, use newspaper to clean glass
· Avoid disposable cups and try an alternative, buy from the places that use biodegradable cups
· Try composting the kitchen waste, buy food in the bulk section, and use your reusable bags to avoid packaged food
Misconception about it!
Two major misconceptions about it are time and money. it’s not laborious you have to take little steps every day starting from adapting simplicity (refraining from unnecessary things) and then moving towards waste reduction and in the end, you will find out that it’s cost-effective as you are not spending time or money buying the unnecessary things. There are other undeniable benefits like buying healthy fresh food instead of buying processed food.
People and communities you can join!
Well, there are lots of people who are sharing their experiences daily to guide us through. People sharing ideas on how you can reuse things, reduce waste (from bathrooms, bedrooms, wardrobe, workplace), make compost, prepare your food using amazing recipes(using leftovers, etc.). you can join them too I am leaving some links.
