To ask who is actively trying to reach ZERO WASTE and has anyone managed it?

[Smartphonetoomuchoo]

I have been trying to reduce what I buy and the waste we make as a family for nearly a decade. And while I have made some significant changes and I am very proud of where we are waste wise, we are still working class, fairly low earners with children to pay for and bills to pay.
while cheap swaps save us money (second hand everything, no car, no tumble dryer etc) some of the more expensive swaps (shampoo bars, butchers and green grocers and bakers, organic, ethical, milk man, etc) just keep our bin filling up.

Has anyone got there? We are getting there and the constant talk and sharing of wins etc are helping to change the attitudes of friends and family. But we are no where near zero waste and I'm 9 years in, making fairly big changes.
My dh was initially against the idea but now he shows me things he wants to do to lower our impact so I definitely believe that peoples attitudes can change with gentle nagging.

Yabu- Zero waste is unreachable
yanbu- we can get there!

Ps yes I do have a smart phone and I'm on mumsnet, I'm not talking off grid, just becoming good for the world rather than a drain

It's not about one person doing it perfectly. It's about a million people making as many swaps as possible.

How does recycling fit in? Is that excluded from your waste in considering zero-waste?

It would be useful to know how you are defining waste and where your boundary is of the waste you consider yourself responsible for?

e.g. If you buy something that cannot be produced without creating waste, albeit the waste has already been disposed of before you purchase it, are you taking responsibility for that because you created the demand for the production and therefore the waste or do you exclude it?

Do you include food waste? Contamination of water? Anything that goes in a recycling bin? Waste generated on your behalf?

Just curious what this means to you.

I think zero waste is unattainable, however we still try to limit it as much as possible.
It difficult for us in some ways, for example I looked into our local zero waste shop where you take your own containers and fill up with rice, pasta, flour etc. But because DH has a severe nuts and seeds allergy, and they sell nuts, the cross contamination risk is too high, so we have to buy packaged food more than we’d like.
I think everyone should do what they can, but there are so many limiting factors, cost, practicalities, health, time, etc.

@Smartphonetoomuchoo

Ps yes I do have a smart phone and I'm on mumsnet, I'm not talking off grid, just becoming good for the world rather than a drain

That's a more extreme position than "zero waste" though because you are utilising the earth's resources, so how can you ever be giving the earth more than you consume?

We are far from zero waste and I don't think we ever will be.

I try to make little changes where I can, but it isn't always possible, due to time, cost or quality for example. I think we can only do our best.

How does being so climate and waste oriented align with having children?

I am sure big companies love this stuff, people at home trying desperately to do all they can and concentrating on buying reusable straws while they produce tonnes of waste and pollution.

I agree with the comment above, do what you can, make it sustainable and encourage others to do the same. Use your political power as much as possible to get the government on board with reducing waste and climate action.

www.imperial.ac.uk/stories/climate-action/ - this is good for what you can do on an individual basis.

Zero waste is an admiral thing, but I think it is genuinely impossible. Reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle as much as you can, but remember the bigger picture, ghost nets and Amazon producing 465 million pounds of plastic waste a year for example.

I think everyone should do what they can, but there are so many limiting factors, cost, practicalities, health, time, etc.

I agree, I think sometimes people forget about this - and blame (often less privileged people than themselves) for not doing "enough".

When I moved 3 years ago I didn't buy a kitchen bin because I was going to be zero waste.

I do what I can. Soft drinks only come in glass bottles, veg is bought in reusable produce bags, bars of soap have replaced shower gel. I carry my own coffee cup.

But it is completely enervating trying to do it.

In supermarkets packaged veg is cheaper than loose veg. Why?

Why can flour and sugar come in paper bags but pasta and rice can't?

I love zero waste shops in principle, but here's the thing. I just want the same stuff without the packaging. I don't want alternative toothpaste that tastes of mud. I don't want organic pasta that's four times the price.

And I live in a big city. People in food deserts don't have much chance at all.

We can't just blame the shops either. My local council does the bare minimum (I'm not even sure they do the legal minimum) in collecting recyclables. Food waste bins were rolled out and then taken away again. It's a miserable situation because the institutions with the power to support us are sabotaging us.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=veues-0iXYk

A video on why zero waste is not necessarily the answer ...

@legoriakelne

It would be useful to know how you are defining waste and where your boundary is of the waste you consider yourself responsible for?

e.g. If you buy something that cannot be produced without creating waste, albeit the waste has already been disposed of before you purchase it, are you taking responsibility for that because you created the demand for the production and therefore the waste or do you exclude it?

Do you include food waste? Contamination of water? Anything that goes in a recycling bin? Waste generated on your behalf?

Just curious what this means to you.

Good question yes I am including waste further up the production line, so I go second hand as much as possible. Obviously food isn't possible and I would love to be self sufficient but I'm not a millionaire with loads of money for land so. I consider recycling waste yes because it has come out that the UK has been sending their recycling to other countries to recycle, so much waste that other countries are rejecting it. Not very green. I compost paper and aim to reuse glass jars but you only need so many. I use jars as glasses instead of buying glasses to try and keep them all. what else can I do?

unfortunately I went down the zero waste rabbit hole and now feel a tremendous amount of guilt for everything I buy/ own/ rent/ use.

the only thing I think is 'free' waste wise is growing and foraging. growing comes with bagged compost because I haven't been able to make my own yet but thats on its way in a few months. I don't know whats worse!
peat free

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

How does being so climate and waste oriented align with having children?

odfo

I think absolute zero is impossible. In our lifetime. But I would be so happy to be proven I'm wrong on that.

We don't have enough of a reduction here but I'm hoping that when my kids are older and have flown the coop, we can move and make more and better changes.

That's interesting. I've read a few things about not everything being collected as recycling actually being recycled. And the various unintended consequences of switching to non-plastic products - and once you're aware of that you start doubting all the "good" decisions you thought you were making.

None of us can individually change the world alone, we can only do our best.

I've been struggling with guilt about pretty much consuming anything lately. I think more time online due to pandemic restrictions has meant I've been exposed to it more and had less other stuff going on to balance it out.

I don't think it's practicable in a population of this size, being born into a society that's structured as it is, to avoid having a footprint. Accessing medical care - all the disposable products used just to run blood tests... Tormenting ourselves with guilt over it doesn't help anyone.

You sound like you do a lot.

I used to manage zero waste about 20 years ago. It helped that I had no children then, not much of a social life and I lived close to Planet Organic in West London. Also I had an eating disorder and the majority of my diet consisted of raw veg. These days I just do as much as I can to minimise my impact on the planet but as a family we have a full recycling bin every week and I would like to do better

Things I do that work well:

Colour coded cheeky wipes or flannels for face washing, for spills and wiping stuff in the kitchen, for various other things where people might use disposable wipes or kitchen towel etc.

Bar soap instead of shower gel or liquid hand soap

Toilet paper bought in bulk with no plastic packaging

Washable san pro (a breeze after cloth nappies)

Making own sourdough bread

Buying from local packaging free shop when poss

Buying second hand where possible especially when dc want plastic toys.

Carrying a contigo mug of tea everywhere I go plus water for the dc.

Carrying homemade granola bars wherever I go for the dc. Sometimes I don’t have the time or energy for this.

Composting cardboard and paper packaging. Composting all raw food scraps

Things that worked less well:

Bar shampoo (have gone back to Green People)

Cloth nappies (used them but they leaked a lot and we didn’t manage full time due to house moves/ damp flat/ childcare issues)

Clothes that come from ebay all seem to be doused in some kind of horrendous perfume these days that sets off my asthma and is very hard to get rid of. I’ve started buying brand new clothes again. I do always wear my clothes out rather than changing them for fashion’s sake. I try and buy good quality clothes with ethical credentials where I can.

Milkman (too expensive)

Also I realise i haven’t properly answered your AIBU. I voted YANBU but actually I don’t sweat over zero waste these days, I just do my best and I hope everyone else does too. Some people’s best is much better than mine but perhaps they are, like I was 20 years ago, single, child free, with enough income to make eco choices, with enough time to cycle to the nearest farmer’s market or zero waste shop, and that’s great they are choosing to spend their time and money making that happen. Maybe at other points in their life they won’t be able to do that. OF COURSE politicians and corporations need to do the bulk of this work tackling environmental problems but if individuals start to do everything they reasonably can, including lobbying for change the political landscape could change. I have to hope so anyway

I'd rather buy loose items, but where that isn't possible, I'll go through the ranking order of compostable, recyclable and minimal.

Can't do a thing about single use plastic where my medication is concerned.

Only buying things in natural materials wherever possible and leaving it until there is no way around the need for a new item.

Looking after the stuff I have.

Most of all, not seeing shopping as a leisure activity.

Do not think that zero waste is possible.

Been recycling for 30 years now.

Old clothes, books, DVD's etc. are given to charity.

When we upgrade devices we pass on old devices to friends / family - do not sell them as we have no need to, gave my older laptop collection to local Schools last year (Work in I.T.).

But we still have to put our bin out every two weeks or so.

I thought when there were cardboard shortages it was said that part of the reason was because the supply chain was so reliant on recycled cardboard and people hadn't been recycling as much back into the system?

The mentions of composting cardboard instead of recycling reminded me. In that scenario - where recycling of a material is so effective that the supply chain relies upon it - isn't it more wasteful to compost instead of returning to the system?

(For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not griping at anyone, just curious and thinking out loud.)

‘Why can flour and sugar come in paper bags but pasta and rice can't?’

Don’t quite a few brands sell pasta in cardboard boxes?

Some places in England don't have recycling bins at all. I do what is easy for me and refuse to feel guilty

@legoriakelne I wonder that too. I do know metal recycles well in a closed loop. Paper and cardboard can be recycled successfully. Plastic recycling produces inferior plastic which can’t then be recycled again.

My cardboard goes partly in the recycling but as we shop online far to much the bin often gets full and thick card is brilliant and also necessary for good compost- you need a balance of ‘green’ and ‘brown’ stuff to make it work well and the cardboard provides aeration for the worms. So my cardboard makes great compost and that saves me buying it in plastic bags as well as saving compost milage!