The zero waste journey is made of the accumulation of little acts of resistance against the status quo in everyday life. This series of post is about those little steps I take every day to make my life simpler and more sustainable.
It has been a while since the last zero waste progress post and a lot has happened since, but here are a few of the things that I have done on my journey to a more sustainable lifestyle.
Open an ethical bank account
After 8 years of relationship, we finally opened a joint account. Because the banking system and finance have a big impact on the planet, we chose to do so in an ethical bank. It works just like a normal bank, but our money is used to finance social and environmental projects which might not get financed looking solely at the economical aspect. If you are interested to make the change and you live in Spain, the UK, Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands, you can check Triodos. We have been with them for more than two years now and are happy with the service. If you live in France, you can check Crédit Cooperatif. And otherwise a good old “ethical bank in + [name of your country]” web search should do the trick to find a sustainable bank near you.
Of all the changes I made in the past 4 years, my simple wardrobe is the one that has simplified my life the most. Because I have fewer things in front of me, it is easier to choose what to wear in the morning. I know better what goes with what. In the process, I refitted quite a few pieces that were too big and I hadn’t really noticed before, and I got rid of clothes that I realised were uncomfortable.
You can find a lot of posts on how to have a more sustainable wardrobe. But although they are interesting guidelines, I find it is impossible to follow them 100%. At the beginning, it can be intimidating and at times I felt overwhelmed by the impossibility to be perfect. Following my post about the lessons learned in my first year of zero waste, I wanted to share with you the lessons I learned when trying to build a more sustainable wardrobe.
I don’t believe in new year’s resolutions, however I think new year is a good moment to set some achievable objectives for the coming year. A year only has 365 days, and it is a good way to not get caught up in routine and finish the year depressed because you haven’t achieved anything. This year, my green objective is to focus on eating local.
With a bit of luck, we will eat very local garlic this spring
If you wish to be more green this year, you can scroll through the list below for inspiration. FYI I still have to do/master much of those. The good news is that you need only 30 days to create a new habit, so you could even pick one for each month of the year. Just don’t try and start too many at the same time, as you might get discouraged.
In addition to lack of time, I have been less inspired to write lately. I realised that it is because I reached a plateau in my eco-living route. I am trying less new things because for most things I have reached an acceptable compromise between the time/resources I have and the environment. I still have a lot to figure out, but it is not on the menu at the moment either because I am still using up things I previously own or it requires a big-time investment to do better. New things and tips are what make me excited to write, but there is possibly more value in sharing longer running habits, as my reflexion on them is more mature.
Unpaper towel
One of the first things we stopped buying was kitchen paper. We used it as napkins and for cleaning. To replace kitchen paper and paper napkins, my mum gave me tissue napkins she was not using. For cleaning, we replaced the kitchen paper by a bunch of rags from old t-shirts and bed sheets. They can be used to clean surfaces, remove dust or dry out accidental spells. After use, either I let them dry until the next laundry or I put them directly at the bottom of the washing machine. Like this they get washed without even having to think about it. For those who worry about the increased water use, we are not doing more laundry now than before and remember that it requires about 15 litres of water to make a sheet of paper.
The zero waste journey is made of the accumulation of little acts of resistance against the status quo in everyday life. This series of post is about those little steps I take every day to make my life simpler and more sustainable.
Getting more and more involved at work and having travelled quite a bit in the weekend, I have more and more trouble to find time to dedicate to the blog and to zero waste in general. I am trying not to let the fact that I am busy affect my commitment to sustainable living, but I have to admit, I have had a few setbacks since September, the biggest one being having to get a car for work. But the fact that I had to lighten some of the constraints doesn’t mean I gave up. It is not about being perfect, but about doing what I can.
The zero waste journey is made of the accumulation of little acts of resistance against the status quo in everyday life. This series of post is about those little steps I take every day to make my life simpler and more sustainable.
With the new job and the summer I have had even less time than expected to dedicate to this blog. I was even tempted to stop writing altogether, but then P. reminded me why I started it in the first place: to keep moving forward toward a mindful way of life. Being busier, I will need this space more than ever not to let convenience get in the way of my convictions.
The zero waste journey is made of the accumulation of little acts of resistance against the status quo in everyday life. This series of post is about those little steps I take every month to make my life simpler and more sustainable.
The last couple of months has been busy with PhD graduation, job interviews and starting a new job. Being now working full time might slow down my zero waste progress, although I will keep going. It also means that I will have less time to work on this blog. It has been a great tool to fuel my reflection and my actions about sustainability for the past year and although I might become more quiet, I am not planning to give this space up yet.
Simple wardrobe refactor
This month I have finally switched to my spring-summer wardrobe, with a bit of delay due to all the crazy travelling for graduation, job interviews and else. This was much needed, as with time passing, I had taken clothes I needed for specific occasions out of storage without putting them back. I also had to buy some new clothes to look sharp in my job interviews. All in all, my wardrobe was back to crowded and I had to fight with it every morning. I decided I would give away at least two items for every new one that made it to my wardrobe until I no longer have extra clothes. I have been donating quite a bit of clothes in the past few years, so it is getting more difficult to find things to give away. All the clothes I have left are pieces I like and that fit me. So I try to focus on giving the ones that I know I will never wear because I have other similar pieces that I like much more and I managed to give one more full bag of clothes that way. To be continued.
Fountain pen
I used to buy those ink pens that you have to throw away once the ink runs out, but now that my stash ran out, I have dug out my high school fountain pen. I still have a few cartridges to go with it, but when they are over, I will switch to a refillable cartridge as this is the most sustainable option. When I get there, I might write in violet for a while as I happened to have a full bottle of it.
Handkerchiefs
I bought a set of second hand handkerchiefs at a flea market last summer. It turned out 10 of them was not completely enough. I would often run out while they waited to be washed. In the meantime, my dad rediscovered the stash his parents got him and gave them to me. Now with 20 of them, the rotation works quite well. The only problem was that I would regularly forget to take a clean one with me, so I have put a few in the entrance basket where I put my keys. It is not 100% fail proof, but helps me to check if I have one with me before I leave.
Doing without … a printer
We left our printer in London, and although we thought about buying one several times, we finally decided we would not need one. We can copy, scan and print for 0.15€ a page in the corner shop. Not having the printer at home and paying per use means we think twice before printing something and we try to look for alternatives. I have been using eTickets more and more, for example. This makes sense economically (we will have to make a lot of copies before paying more than printer + paper + ink) and environmentally (one ‘community printer’ will generate less waste than a lot of individual and cheaply made ones).
Fix it and make it last … umbrella
I have never been a great fan of umbrellas, maybe because there is always too much wind to use them in my home town, but somehow in San Sebastian it is hard to do without one. I have this umbrella that I miraculously found in a London bus a day of rain I was totally under-equipped for. The canopy was off at the end of one of the ribs, but it did the job that day and many other days. Recently the canopy went off a second rib and I was starting to consider getting a new one. But then I started thinking about how to fix it and I came up with a quick solution: use rubber bands (they had been salvaged from bunches of parsley or something like that) to tie both parts back together. This will not last forever, but the fix took 10 min and saved me the hassle of looking for an umbrella that is small enough to fit in my bag and resistant enough to last me for years. And the day this umbrella finally gives up, I’m planning to use the canopy to make a waterproof reusable shopping bag.
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This July, I will take part in Plastic Free July, an Australian initiative to raise awareness about the plastic pollution our current lifestyle leads to and encourage refusing single use plastic during a month. Since I started my zero waste journey, I have cut single use plastic tremendously, but there is still room for improvement and this challenge is a great way to pin point what they are. Follow me on Facebook to see how I am doing.
It is really easy to join, even if you are a complete beginner with waste reduction. At www.plasticfreejuly.org, you can pledge to join for a day, a week or any part of the month you like and if you don’t feel up to looking at all your plastic usage yet, you can start with the ugly 4: single-use bags, water bottles, straws, and single-use to go cups.
What will you do this July to reduce your single-use plastic consumption?
The beginning of this month marked the one-year anniversary of our move to Spain and the genuine start of our new zero waste lifestyle. I carried a trash audit 6 months in and did the same last week as we took the different recycling bins out. Except an increase in glass recycling due to the fact that the ’empty jar’ cupboard is now full, there are not major changes to report, so I will spare you the detailed inventory. Instead I wanted to share a few lessons I have learned in my first year of zero waste. I hope they can help beginners and less beginners to feel more confident in their waste reduction journey.
Focus on baby steps
When I first came across Zero Waste, I got over excited and though that once I really got started I would fit one year of trash in a mason jar. ZW was making the synthesis of a lot of ideas I had regarding what my lifestyle should be and I was excited to have a framework to put all those ideas into action. Because ZW touches all the little aspects of life, it was quite overwhelming at first as most of the things I considered routine needed to be reevaluated. The key is to focus on one or two little things at a time and find a new system for them. Once a new and better habit has been taken, then it is time to move on to the next thing. After one year, I still haven’t covered all the areas I wanted to when I started the journey, but I have a much more sustainable life style already.
Take your time to get rid of things the right way
It would be hard to live a zero waste life without looking into minimalism or simple living. Quite early on in my ‘zero waste observation’ phase, I realised that I had too much stuff. I got so relieved by the realisation that getting rid of the excess would make my life more breathable that I couldn’t wait to start decluttering. Now I wish I had taken more time and thought in this process. Beyond a couple of things that I was too quick to discard, I now realise that giving so many things to charity was not the best zero waste course of action. I got rushed by the move to give away things that would probably end up in landfill, when I now know ofbetter ways to give a second chance to those items (free cycle, FB give away groups…). We now have an area in the entrance where I put things to give away, letting myself the time to change my mind and waiting to find them a new owner.
Wait until buying zero waste gears
A few of the things I use every day to reduce my waste and that I owned before starting zero waste.
There is a certain aesthetic presented on social media around the zero waste movement. I confess to having been very close to buying a Klean Kanteen as I read several articles that were convincingly explaining that it had all the characteristics of the best reusable waster bottle. The truth is I already had several water bottles and although they were less ideal, they would do the job just fine for quite a few more years. If I didn’t buy a new water bottle, I bought a glass lunch box as I wanted to move away from all things plastic when it came to food. I now prefer to use the glass jars I buy my yogurt in as they are less heavy and could have spared the purchase. We all already have a lot of stuff that can be used or transformed to reduce waste at home. The only other things I bought new are my menstrual cup and recently menstrual pad. I might buy other zero waste gears in the future, but I will have taken the time to make sure I really needed them.
Enjoy the empowerment of the little things
Some people might say that zero waste is only a drop in the ocean and it will never make a real difference. I have a lot of reasons to disagree with this (the Zero Waste Chef compiled a great list of arguments to answer the common critics against zero waste). The main reason I think zero waste makes a difference (at least in my life) is that it guides me to make purchase decisions based on what I want society to be like. It broke me free from buying what is cheapest or what advertisements managed to make me think I wanted. I feel I have more control over my life and know more about what I consume. This is probably the most satisfying part. More so than the actual waste reduction.
Don’t try to be perfect
There are only so many hours in a day and at some point it is important to let go to keep the motivation going on the long run. There will be trial and error before finding a new habit and this same habit might need to be reconsidered a few months down the road because the situation has changed. There will be progress and then set backs, moments when you are caught unprepared, important items that are not available unpackaged. It took me a bit of time to accept that I didn’t need to beat myself up every time I couldn’t avoid producing waste. In the same way it is important to approach zero waste in incremental steps, it is important to accept that we don’t live in a context where it is possible to reach the zero of zero waste. Zero waste is about taking better decisions for a simpler life and the future of humanity.
Zero waste is made of the accumulation of little acts of resistance against the status quo that threatens our future on this planet. I can never find enough time in the month to write a full post about all the little things I do to make my life simpler and more sustainable, so I would like to try a new post format inspired by the simple things series for the beauty is simple. Here are 5 little things that brought me closer to my zero waste goals this month.
New produce bags
In preparation for potentially having to live apart from my boyfriend for a while, I sewed a few more produce bags so that we can both have enough of them to keep the amount of packaging we send to landfill low. I used my experience with the ones I have been using for a while to come up with a more convenient design for the bulk aisle (I’m hoping to post a tutorial for them soon – here it is).
Make it do with a bad purchase
A few years back I bought a ‘Bobble’ water bottle to be able to filter water on the go. What a bad purchase! With each change of filter, so much plastic had to go to waste that I only changed the filter once and stopped using the bottle. Since I didn’t want to throw the whole bottle away, I used a box cutter to remove the filter part and now we can use it as a simple water bottle.
Phone case from up-cycled materials
For Christmas, I offered P. to make a case for his new-to-him second-hand phone and I finally finished it this month. It is made entirely from materials that had a previous life. The fabric, button and elastic came from the pile of material I save for craft projects and the padding was some wrapping new screens came in at work. It is actually its third life as it was used to protect things when we moved last year. The design is adapted from this tutorial.
No food waste recipe: ‘Pain perdu’
We don’t eat much bread, so it is not uncommon that we don’t manage to finish the one we buy before it gets stale. This is not a reason to throw it away. Even weeks after, we make French toast with our hard bread. I love that in French it is called ‘Pain perdu’ i.e. lost bread. Recipe: Mix 1 egg, 10 cl milk and 25 g. Cut the stale bread in slices and deep them for about 30 seconds in the mix. Put in an oven dish and bake until golden.
Reusable pads
As I mentioned before, my zero waste focus of the year is the bathroom. After successfully switching to a menstrual cup, I was still finishing up my disposable pad stock to deal with leaks at the beginning of the cycle. I finally invested in re-useable pads. I am looking forward for my first truly zero waste cycle.
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How about you? I’d love to hear what little acts of resistance you carried out this month.
In my attempt to break with my consumerism habits, 2016 was focused on clothes: I simplified my wardrobe and learned mending skills. Now that I know where I am going on that front, I decided 2017 was going to focus on the bathroom.
Like with my wardrobe, I started by an inventory to be able to monitor my progress. Not that it comes as a surprise, but getting all the content of my bathroom cupboards out on the table shows that I have way too many cosmetics compared to my needs.
Below are a few of the measures I have taken so far to get closer to a minimalist and zero waste bathroom:
1. Finishing up what I have
When I come across a piece of cloth I no longer want, it goes to the charity pile or to the sewing material pile if it is not in a good enough state. It is not that easy with cosmetics. In the long term, I hope to use only natural cosmetics with limited packaging, but I have set to finish every occurrence of a type of product before looking for sustainable and zero waste alternatives.
By cutting our tubes of toothpaste open, we make them last at least one more week.
I used the inventory as an excuse to reorganise the different types of products together. As I mentioned before, I am working on using all the samples and hotel toiletries I have accumulated. We finished most of the shower gels, but I find some shampoos really don’t agree with my hair. I started using those as shower gel after a friend gave me the idea.
There is still a long way to go. Between all my samples and the different types of hydration cream I own (do we really need a different product for hand, face, body … ?), I have 40 hydration cosmetics to finish!
2. Identifying the products I really use
I don’t have a complicated beauty routine and I would like my bathroom cabinet to reflect that. Beyond not having multiple versions of the same product, I would like to have fewer types of products in the future.
Once I finish what I already have, my plan is to find a good alternative for my everyday toiletries (any combination of DIY, organic, natural or package free):
+ Conditioner if the water is too hard: I got used to hair conditioner in London, because the water was too agressive. I was planning to replace it with vinegar as I already did this successfully in Denmark, but it turns out I don’t need conditioner here.
And keep a bit of the fancy stuff for the special occasions:
Make up (1 mascara, a few eye shadows, a couple of lipsticks)
1 Perfume
A couple of nail polishes
Considering how much of those I use, I probably don’t have to worry about renewing them for quite some time. Then the big question is what to do with what doesn’t fit in those two categories. I’ll let you know if I find a good answer.
3. Getting natural zero waste soap
I was happy to find some Alep soap without packaging at my organic shop. I haven’t really started to use it yet, but P., who got a bit tired of my shampoo hotel business, has been using it since Christmas and doesn’t seem to complain.
4. Changing my period management
I use to not see the point to spend money for organic things that were not food until I heard a specialist explain on the radio that pesticides in tampons and pads were actually more dangerous than in food. They are in contact with mucous membranes and the chemical thus go directly into the bloodstream. So even if you don’t care about the plastic pollution, it is worth reconsidering the status quo.
I bought a menstrual cup before leaving London. It took a bit of time to get used to it (3-4 cycles), but now I definitely find it to be the most comfortable way to deal with my periods. I still use a pad in addition for the first days. At the moment I am finishing a box of organic ones, but I am planning to switch to reusable pads ASAP. I made an attempt at sewing some, but I was not super successful, so I am going to buy some.
5. Installing a compost bin …
… and removing the ‘traditional’ bin.
I use the glass pot on the picture above to put my hair and nails until I take them to the compost. For the rest, we need to walk to our balcony trash centre. As explained above, I am on my way to zero waste periods and I already stopped using other disposable items. I no longer use Q-tips because they are bad for the ears and since I don’t make up often, I simply wash my face with soap instead of using cotton pads and make-up remover. However if you need cotton pads, it is easy to make or buy reusable ones. Aren’t those and those cute? I have to resist not to make some for myself.
Au pays des Coccinelles 