Zero Waste Living Tips for your 2020
1/ Take your own cup to any party you get invited to, this will eliminate the possibility of a single use plastic cup being needed for your beverage 🍸
2/ Save the rubber bands off your fruit n veg bundles, your mail etc. incredibly handy
3/ Walk and or Ride your Bicycle 🚲 Seriously, you’ll save HUGE $$ and you’ll get fit and you’ll save the planet 🌎 That’s a Win Win Win!
4/ Embrace a packed Lunch 🍴 from home to take to work – once again, SAVE $$, Eliminate Plastic and eat better food 🥘 Leftovers are KING 👑
5/ Use a cake scraper to get every bit of food out of the pot 🥄 you will get all the good bits and save $
6/ Start a List – This is where you write down what you wanted to buy, instead of actually buying it. If in a month’s time you’re still needing/wanting that particular item, then you can start seeking the best Zero Waste version of it. This could mean Creating your own, Op Shopping (thrifting) EBay, Facebook Market place, purchasing locally made/crafted etc…
7/ Google “What’s happening” in your local area and if there isn’t any Zero Waste groups or Swap groups then consider starting one. It could simply be a once a month get together where everyone brings something to share and you discuss tips, tricks & all things Waste Free.
8/ Make collecting discarded rubbish a priority on your daily walk /cycle to work – carry a small cloth bag and your gardening gloves with you and pick up the loose rubbish you go past. It doesn’t take long when you get home to sort it into it’s correct disposal piles/bins and you’ve saved it from entering the ocean.
9/ Grow Something. Be it a single Herb Pot🌿 on your sunny windowsill, or a full blown garden that takes up your yard, growing something saves waste and creates opportunities.
10/ Turn the oven off 10mins before your food is due to be finished. Leave the door closed and the residual heat will finish the cooking off nicely.
11/ Repurpose items lying around your home. That chipped Teacup that you cant let go will make a cute succulent garden 🎋 the plastic wrapping that came on a bunch of flowers 💐 from a well meaning friend can be carefully removed from the bunch and wiped over with a damp cloth. It can then be used for wrapping gifts at a later stage.
12/ Use Online Services instead of physical ones. Newspapers, Magazines, Music, Books etc…
13/ Take your own Headphones 🎧 Unpackaged food, Cup, bamboo cutlery 🍴 Neck Pillow and throw rug on your next flight ✈️ ask for your drink to be put directly into your own cup, refuse those useless little bags of peanuts and shrink wrapped personal care items.
14/ Select natural fibres when you do need to purchase new. Be it clothing, a bag, dish cloths etc. this way when they’re worn out, they can go straight into the compost pile.
15/ USE WHAT YOU HAVE – Simple and affective. Don’t own a fancy Keep Cup? Try a Jar with rubber bands around it as a heat band 👍
16/ Reuse everything! I know this is a similar tip to number 11, but the point needs to be made. That cup that the handle broke off, it can be used to scoop your homemade clothes washing liquid out of the bucket and into the washing machine. The plate you dropped and can’t glue back together? Use the pieces to write on and mark out your veggie seedlings 🌱
17/ Borrow DONT buy! I don’t own a food processor 😱 shock! Horror! Hahahahaha… I don’t want to own one either, it’ll just be another gadget to clutter my home 🏡 Instead, I simply posted on Facebook that I was looking to borrow one and that I’d make cookies in exchange for the borrow. I had 5 people offer theirs in 5 minutes flat 👏
18/ Make do – Don’t have a rolling pin? Wash the empty wine bottle from last night’s dinner and use that! Don’t own stackable pots to melt chocolate? Try a Pyrex bowl over a pot of boiling water, works just as well! Just don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water or your chocolate may burn ☺️
19/ Learn “No Thank you.” No thank you to the “free pen” the energy company wants to give you as a thanks, No Thank you to the balloon 🎈 the salesperson in the shopping centre wants to hand your kid. No thank you to the plastic, rubbish filled party bag at the neighbors kid’s party. You get the idea…
20/ Remove bins from all rooms of the house expect the kitchen. (Or go ahead and remove them all together) Having bins conveniently located in every other room encourages waste. Mindlessly throwing something out you’re supposedly done with stops you from rethinking what it can be reused for. We have a small 10ltr reused Ice Cream bucket from my cafe that sits in our kitchen as our “bin.” We challenge ourselves to go as long as we possibly can without filling it. We’re not anywhere near perfect, we still create waste, but we’re a heck of a lot better than when we started this journey 4 years ago.
21/ If you can’t find it plastic free, don’t buy it! This is a big challenge as we are a plastic filled nation 😞 and just about everything comes with some form of plastic these days – BUT TAKE HEART, there are also pretty much alternatives to almost anything. It may take some research in your local area, but it’s worth it.
22/ Ditch paper towels for good! Use old towels cut up into usable sizes, op shop for face cloths as their the perfect size to cover food when re-heating etc.
23/ Ditch Tissues as well! Make the Handkerchief Cool Again! Op shop baskets are filled with prettiest retro print handkerchief’s . They’re normally 30cents each 👍☺️
24/ If you forget something from home and there is no zero Waste option available, Go Without.. This isn’t a popular point, but it will make you remember your Cup/bag/container/Jar/Utensils next time 😉
25/ Forage overhanging Fruit trees 🌳 I live in an older neighbourhood and so many of the old homes have huge fruit trees that have grown so large that they hang over the fences onto the street side. At the moment there are Mangos 🥭 Avocados 🥑 and Passionfruit overhanging. I simply popped my head over the fence and asked nicely if I could collect some the fruit on my side of the fence. They didn’t mind as long as I stuck to “my side.”