A Zero-Waste Day
If you’re not familiar with the concept of zero-waste, it’s pretty straightforward: reduce, reuse, and recycle (RRR) to the point where you don’t create any waste that must be sent to a landfill. It sounds great in theory! Pretty much everyone can agree that producing less waste is a good thing. It’s when you start getting down to the specifics that people jump ship left and right, and honestly I can’t blame them. Imagine how many bags of trash you take out every week, then imagine trying to go from that to literally zero trash at all. It seems impossible, yet some people manage to do it and I commend them. Personally, I am not at a point in my life where I am able or even willing to live a zero-waste life. If you feel the same way, I absolutely get it; but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are lots of ways to cut down on the amount of waste you produce in your every-day life! I talked about a few ways that I’ve reduced the amount of trash I produce in my getting-ready routine, and now I’m ready to try something a little bit different. In the spirit of jogging my mind and pushing myself toward creative problem solving, I decided to live one zero-waste day. Just one measly little day. The results? Ehhh…. Mixed.
Getting ready: Before I’m awake I’m potentially already creating problems. I sleep on a typical mattress. Mattresses have some recycling potential (just google mattress recycling options in your city), but just like any recyclable product, there’s always a little bit of the product that can’t be salvaged. Does a mattress fit in with a zero-waste lifestyle if the remnants have a limited lifespan and won’t biodegrade? What is garbage? What is waste? Are they the same? Just because I’m not throwing it away today, can I still include it in a zero-waste life? I’m not even out of bed yet and I’m having an existential crisis. I quickly decided that for the sake of my personal experiment, I would consider “waste” to be anything I would have to throw in my trashcan within a given month. Next, I got dressed and showered without too much trouble, as I’ve eliminated most of the plastic packaging from my shower and what remains is recyclable. Clothes are also recyclable in the sense that they can be donated or sold and become new to someone else. So far, so good. I start running into more existential problems in my makeup routine. Sure, I don’t have to throw away lipstick tubes or makeup brushes every month, but items like these do need to be replaced sometimes and mine cannot be recycled. There is definitely room in this part of my routine for some changes. Some brands like MAC offer recycling programs for their product packaging, so there is in theory a simple way to make my makeup “zero-waste.” I’m technically still following my arbitrary one-month rule, so I put the makeup on anyway. Some of my hair products do not have recyclable packaging. I can skip them for a day, but I make a note to look into homemade hair products.
Eating: More of the same. My dishes and silverware are all permanent, so it’s not like I’m chucking disposable plates in the trash every day to begin with. I looked in my fridge and saw a lot of potential. “This fruit container is plastic so it can be recycled, and this egg shell can be composted.” But just because those things can be done, doesn’t mean they are done. My city doesn’t accept every plastic or paper product, so things like my coffee creamer bottle and egg carton get thrown in the trash even though technically some cities are able to recycle them. I also do not compost in my apartment. My city doesn’t offer a composting program and I do not have access to space for a compost pile or tumbler. My eggshells and grape stems could be composted, but the bottom line is that they aren’t. Eating caused the most turmoil for me, because I had to really face the reality that even if I shop with good intentions, I might be sabotaging those choices by getting careless with how I dispose of them. Some food products left me with no good options. Drive-thrus use styrofoam almost universally. A frozen pizza still has plastic film that has to be thrown away. All of the meat I have ever bought comes wrapped in styrofoam and plastic film - a double whammy in terms of garbage. Even some of my produce comes wrapped in filmy plastic containers that I have to throw away. I could make it through one zero-waste day of eating, but I don’t realistically see myself getting through one month without producing garbage, even if I was composting and recycling every hard plastic. I did give myself some points for my ceramic coffee cup that I take to Starbucks, my silicone and metal straw collection, and my reusable containers that I pack my lunches and snacks in. Those have to count for something, right?
Work: Currently, I work in a restaurant. I myself do not produce any garbage while I’m at work, but the restaurant produces lots just by its nature. I’ve been researching restaurant-scale composting and comparing prices on styrofoam and biodegradable to-go boxes, but did not consider the restaurant’s garbage as my own for the purposes of the experiment. Again, reusable cups and straws are my friends at work.
Dinner and bed: The evening was actually the easiest part of the day for me, besides the same food dilemma as breakfast. I use cloth and jojoba oil to take off my makeup at night instead of makeup wipes, and I reuse my moisturizer jars when I finish them.
In just one day, there’s a lot to reflect on. If I had tried to commit to a zero-waste month or year, there would have been some more logistical problems to solve like where to buy foods in bulk and how to curb my Chick-Fil-A cravings. Instead, the questions my day raised were more philosophical. Would I be willing to give up a product (say, my favorite strawberry wafer cookies) that is not sold in RRR-friendly packaging? Am I really doing good if I support companies that use eco-friendly packaging, but then I throw the container in the trash because my city can’t recycle it? Which practices are worth changing and which are just part of the reality of modern life? Do my gasoline-burning car and long showers cancel out the good I try to do in other areas? If a biodegradable package gets put into a landfill, is it any better than styrofoam? What changes add up and what changes simply don’t matter in the grand scheme of things? What is an acceptable lifespan for a product - ten uses, two years, …? Is altruism or regulation more likely to motivate people to make big and small changes? This day-long experiment gave me a lot to chew on, and I hope it spurs some thought and discussion in your life too. I did end the day with some practical takeaways; for example, I could definitely be more thoughtful about the beauty products I choose to buy. I also think I could get a little more creative, like taking my own cup to drive-thrus and keeping tupperware in my car to take leftovers home from restaurants.
I encourage everyone reading this article to try an experiment of your own. Starting when you wake up, how long does it take before you throw an item into the trash? Hours? Minutes? Take a look in your trashcan at the end of the day and see if you can detect any patterns. Maybe composting would totally revamp your garbage game. Maybe you could invest in some alternatives to plastic baggies and saran wrap. Maybe the bathroom is more of a problem trash-wise, and you could stand to look into more sustainable alternatives. Whatever decisions or changes you make, I’d love to hear about them in the comments here or on the Facebook page. If your own experiment also leads to more questions than answers, then let’s get a discussion going! Lastly, I’d like to say that this article should not leave you with guilt. We live in a world that for a host of reasons produces a lot of garbage. Just because you’ve grown up in that world doesn’t make you bad, and how full your trashcan is every week is not a measure of your goodness. I hope that you found this article to be thought-provoking (and I do think we all have room in our lives to cut down on garbage), but Troop 7B is not about gimmicks or feeling holier-than-thou. It’s for learning about our planet so that we can live better, together. So go out and see what positive changes you can make, but don’t beat yourself up over every little strawberry wafer cookie.
