This week is Zero Waste Week, an initiative to help and inform businesses, schools and communities about waste and it's impact. It's a movement, challenging people to go 'waste free': reduce the amount of waste you produce going into landfill to zero. It doesn't mean you literally create no waste, as it is nearly impossible to farm your own foods, make your own clothing from scratch and.. How would you do living without a laptop or TV?
Zero waste means reducing, reusing, repurposing, rotting and if you can't do any of these, recycling.
The average person in the UK sends 100 kilos of waste straight to landfill every year. This often includes food scraps and recyclable materials, breaking down into smaller parts, releasing CO2 and poisoning the earth around the landfill. That is why the Zero Waste movement is trying to gain some traction: making sure we send less of it to landfill.
People need to know that their councils can compost and recycle for them, and everyone should be buying less packaged/non-recyclable materials and products.
I was so glad to receive a free compost bin from the council about two years ago, finally being able to send less waste to landfill. We now have a dual compost bin in our patio (I have too much compost now, but that's a story for another time)! It actually works, but I don't recommend one if you have a small garden. It can get smelly if you don't have your browns and green properly divided and we had a major fruit fly pest that was taking over our apartment (and probably our upstairs neighbour's too).
Me and my husband are trying our best to be as zero waste as possible, but some foods can't be purchased in recyclable (or compostable) packaging. We only have a small bag full of waste every two weeks, and most of that waste consists of soft plastics. It's mainly packaging from packed fruits and vegetables we get in our Oddbox or plastic packaging wrapped around our cheese or Vegetarian food products - it would be so wonderful if they finally move to compostable/recyclable packaging! We don't have any 'waste' anymore from our bathroom/beauty and household products, which I'm quite proud of.
We compost food scraps, recycle carboard, can and glass packaging (and yes, still some plastics that can be recycled). Even though we seriously try, it's nearly impossible to go completely soft plastic free, as - honestly... - we still want to enjoy eating (and therefore, living).
Sources:
Zerowasteweek
Goingzerowaste
Reducereuserecycle
Carbontrust
BBC