Waste Less, Live More - Starting the Zero Waste Journey

These days, when I go into a supermarket and see egg plants & ginger roots (like, really?!) individually wrapped in plastic, or when I see people on the high street heaving heavy Primark bags around, I can't help but feel a bit sad/scared/disappointed, you name it. If I'm honest I can't really say when these things began to bother me, as in, there was no big moment when the scales fell from my eyes and I suddenly saw the light. It was more of a steady development, where the initial idea slowly entered my mind and grew bigger and bigger until I became hella passionate about it. I can't even have a conversation about wastefulness without seeming like a priestess on a pedastal on a busy market, announcing that the end of the world is nigh. 

All I know is that I came across @bezerowastegirl's Instagram profile one day and started following her. Her content was captivating, clean, concise and inspiring. One image in particular made me admire her with awe. It was an Instagram post showing a small glass jar containing a couple of wrappers and other waste. Underneath it said:

The rest reads:

... in our city. I have a cute adoring husband who makes a great effort to reduce his waste and this is his and mine combined. You can see a detailed list of everything we toss on Be Zero's website! 

I was so astonished by how little waste she and her husband are producing (if my calculations are right that picture shows waste collected over more than six months) that I wanted to start my own Zero Waste journey and be more mindful about the choices I make every day. Do I really need a plastic bag for my shopping? I don't mind looking like a pack mule when I forget to bring a reusable tote bag (happens more times than I care to admit). Do I really have to keep buying bottled water? Do I need to have my coffee in a takeaway cup ? These are small changes that can have great impact if we all started to act on them. Life seems to be all about peoples' convenience now. Veggies are already chopped for our convenience, they are packed up in aluminium and plastic so we only have to chuck them in our frying pan when we come home. Don't worry if you don't have a carrier bag, here is a 5 pence plastic bag that you can always rely on when going shopping, no worrying needed, for your convenience. I get that we all have difficult lives with challenging schedules, but can't we just make a little time and effort for the most basic things, like preparing our meals? Can't we get by with the clothes we have instead of accumulating more and more things we don't need?

As Andrea says in the Instagram caption, it's not about making zero trash. It's about making educated choices and rethinking this fast-paced consumerism. It's about refusing and not giving in to all these fashion trends. It's about appreciating the nature around us and changing our habits, rewiring our brains. 

I made changes little by little. The first thing I did was to ditch bottled water and plastic bags. Two incredibly easy things to do. I got myself a klean kanteen reusable stainless steel waterbottle and a GoGlass waterbottle. I then said Sayonara to ddisposable coffee cups and invested in a much-loved KeepCup. I stopped buying my lunch and took to doing some meal prep and take my lunch with me in a glass lunch box. Even though this was also motivated by different reasons (#SouthernFail) I started cycling to work now (which is really not an easy feat in London). I now buy almst exclusively in charity shops.

Andrea created the 30 day Zero Waste Challenge on her blog, which slowly helps you make those changes by giving sustainable alternatives. We don't all have to be Zero Waste Messiah's and drastically change our whole life. If we start thinking about our choices and making small changes  we can collectively make the world a cleaner and more sustainable place.