Four easy and practical tips to reduce waste
Ocean waste is all the rage. Seeing pictures and videos of scuba divers swimming through shoals of polythene, sea turtles eating straws and crabs making homes in cans has become a normal occurrence. Coupled with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent and damning report about the state of the planet’s climate on October 8th 2018, I started to wonder what part I am playing in the downward spiralling environmental abuse we find ourselves in.
It’s easy to read environmental articles and reports and think “what difference can one person make in the grand scheme of a planet?”
The honest answer is perhaps not a whole lot, but it’s better than no people doing anything and individual tales of environmental evangelism have been shown to inspire others to try and make a difference as well.
So with all this doomsday negativity in mind, and a sprinkling of inspiration by a friend and former colleague Ben Dixon, I decided that for the whole month of October 2018 I would collect every bit of inorganic waste I generated with the goal of understanding what and how much I was producing, where it was coming from and how to reduce it.
When we are constantly throwing away our waste it is hard to get an understanding of this, but by allowing it to pile up on my bedroom floor over 31 days I got a real sense of what my impact is.
So here we go, four tips to reduce waste.
Tip number 1: BUY A KEEP CUP
This one is in capitals because it is so obvious it borders on patronising.
I buy a lot less coffee than I used to anyway owing to switching to an instant one with breakfast in the flat (judge me), but by still using disposable cups from work for tea and buying the odd generic flat white from a try-hard espresso bar I racked up 38 cups in a month. And they’re not recyclable. This is pretty horrendous.
The easiest thing to do is buy a reusable coffee cup.
Anyone who says the cost isn’t worth it is in my opinion short sighted and probably wouldn’t hesitate to drop the same money on a round of drinks on a Friday night. Not only are reusable cups waste reducing, they’re also nicer to drink from, next-level stylish and a lot of shops give you a discount if you use one. So if you’re a caffeine fuelled office hamster spinning the corporate wheel you’ll make the money back in no time.
One I bought recently from MiiR also donates to clean water provision initiatives, so you’re being doubly good.
Number 2: Buy clothes from shops
Clothes bought online come in enough layers of plastic to justify a decent game of pass the parcel. Fast fashion habits where people buy loads of the same thing in different sizes to try at home then send most of it back only exacerbate this problem.
The easiest way to solve this is by just going to the shops. That way you can reduce all that plastic use, see more stuff and if you go with your mates you can actually interact with them in person rather than just on WhatsApp. Goes without saying to use public transport to get there. Or share a lift.
If you do buy online, try sustainable fashion like my favourite brand Patagonia who will likely bring that thinking into their supply chains as well. The fashion industry produces 10% of global carbon emissions, so actually online or not just buy sustainable fashion.
You get the idea: Eat less meat
The impact of the meat industry on the climate is fairly well known. Cows and sheep produce a lot of methane, crops needed to feed them require a lot of water etc. etc., but on top of this all meat comes in a shed load of plastic packaging. If you’re practically a full-blown carnivore this racks up a lot of waste pretty quickly.
Now I’m not preaching to totally give up meat and go the way of the chickpea, I love a lamb chop every now and again, but simple things like bulking out meals with pulses and big veg will make them go further and reduce the reliance on our animal friends.
Maybe try going veggie one week a month, you might like it.
Finally…: Make your own meals
I get lunch out almost every day. It’s convenient, it’s good value and the food on offer round Sydney is actually really good quality. But when I kept hold of all the containers, wrappers, bags and plastic cutlery that goes with these lunches I realised that after coffee cups this was the source of the my second largest amount of waste. Add in the odd takeaway for dinner and you’re accumulating a serious amount of rubbish.
Making your own meals is not only cheaper, using tupperware for lunches will drastically reduce your weekday waste generation. Take away the takeaways and that’s even more bags and containers that you’re no longer needing, not to mention the fuel from all the delivery mopeds (unless they’re on a bike which is pretty good).
So there you have it, four pretty straightforward tips to reduce waste.
Now it’s important to note that these tips come from assessing my lifestyle and may not resonate with everyone. A lot of people I know already make their own lunches and have keep cups, and I salute you for that, but on the flip side I also don’t buy many clothes online and try to eat less meat than most. Plus there are loads of other forms of waste I don’t generate so can’t comment on those.
I’ve also focussed this article solely on the waste I generate, and not on other ways I impact the environment. For example I don’t have a car so I walk, cycle or use public transport to get almost everywhere, but I also fly a lot with work and for travel so can’t claim to be an emissionless eco extremist. Maybe that can be the focus for next time.
But for now, as long as reading this it makes you think about what simple steps you might be able to take to reduce your impact on the environment then it was worth writing.
On a final positive note, almost all of my waste is recyclable which is great.
