Everything You Should Know About Zero-Waste Lifestyle

What Is Zero Waste?

Literally, “Zero Waste” could be a philosophy of eliminating waste generation in every aspect of life. it's focused on the redesign of resource life cycles so all products are reused. The goal is for no trash to be sent to landfills, incinerators, or the ocean.

A zero-waste lifestyle means reducing landfill-bound trash to the minimum, a worthy goal considering that a plastic bag could take up to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill. Likewise, when you look through your trash, you’ll probably find discards that could be recycled, reused, or repurposed. you get attracted to zero-waste living, you’ll prioritize your shopping list and reduce the amount of clutter and excessive packaging or goods you bring into your home without any actual need.  Whether you’re an expert in zero-waste or a beginner, there’s always something to learn or ways to improve. Here’s we try to summarize the basics of zero waste lifestyle

The goal of a Zero-waste lifestyle

The immediate goal of a zero-waste lifestyle is to send zero trash to landfills. However, because we don’t sleep in a zero-waste world and then many things are out of our control. the general public within the zero-waste lifestyle movement acknowledges that sending nothing to landfill is sort of impossible. so that they concentrate on just doing the maximum amount as they will and not putting an excessive amount of emphasis on being perfect.

The ultimate goal of a zero-waste lifestyle is to scale back one’s consumption of single-use plastic and environmental impact the maximum amount as possible and to inspire others to try to do the identical.

Basic 9’Rs of Zero-waste

Rethink:

The most effective place to start out changing your life into more sustainable and exquisite is where you begin thinking and reassess yourself. Where you're and where you wish to be is the ultimate motto of rethinking. To show your lifestyle into zero-waste, start figuring out on yourself what you're doing wrong.

Refuse:

Start saying NO to what you don’t need. It involves refusing single-use plastic like bags, straws, cutlery, cups, etc that go into landfills directly after one-time use.

Reduce:

Go for donating or selling things that are no longer of use. It also includes only focusing on necessary purchases. “Reducing” might also mean shopping with a purpose and focusing on necessary purchases rather than unnecessary buying.

Reuse:

Reusing things that you already have rather than buying new for single-use products plays an important role in living a sustainable lifestyle. There are so many great reusable products available these days from reusable coffee cups to reusable cutlery.

Re-gift:

Re-gifting is another good option for a zero-waste lifestyle, you just pass over the gift to someone else, instead of holding it back that could be lying in the cupboard unused. If you are not using the gifts then it's better to pass it along to someone that will.

Repair:

Do not rush to stores, when something broke or gets worn out. Moreover, try to repair it at home or upcycle the product into something else useful. For example, photo frames could be upcycled into jewelry hangings

Rent:

Renting things in place of buying new is the new normal. In this way, you are saving money as well as product consumption. Instead of borrowing from rental shops, more and more people are hiring stuff straight from their neighbors and saving huge amounts of money in the process.

Recycle:

Generally, we believe that recycling is the go-to solution for waste reduction but it's not true. So, better to go for waste prevention. It comes last in four in the list behind refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle

Rot:

Compost your household waste into organic manure that is beneficial for the fertility of the soil. Composting is the key to zero-waste.

Zero-waste Lifestyle Benefits

A zero-waste lifestyle brings a lot of benefits economically, personally, and environmentally. Here we discuss one by one:

Economical Benefits

1. Meaningful shopping: Adopting a zero-waste lifestyle, you skip unnecessary shopping that results in a minimalist life, saving money. As a result, shopping becomes conscious, automatic, and less frequent.
2. Long-lasting products become a priority: You start buying long-lasting things. For example clothing, furniture, electronics. Quality becomes the priority over quantity. It also saves your wallet and every time you shop, you should ask yourself “Do I need this?”. Instead of buying new, you should try to buy second-hand.
3. Less food waste: A very important benefit of adopting a zero-waste lifestyle is less food waste. Food is important for everyone, it should not get wasted. Moreover, cook appropriate proportions and do not get food rot.
4. Encourages circular economy: The zero waste movement promotes a circular economy. This type of economy helps to be regenerative. It provides job creation while strengthening the community structures. Certainly, the economic potential of repairing and reselling valuable materials represents new business opportunities that could help to grow a local, circular economy.

Personal Benefits

1. Healthy lifestyle: Going zero waste means fewer visits to the stores. It means reducing and ultimately eliminating plastic packaged food and snacks. The benefit is that you will eat more fresh produce, and healthy bulk food items more often (like grains, beans, nuts, etc.). Start cooking at home.
2. Saves money: A lot of the zero waste practices include purchasing things mindfully, DIY’s, and also shopping second-hand. Second-hand items, recyclable and reusable ones often cost less. So, you eventually spend less money.
3. Reduce obesity, getting in shape: A magical benefit that came like a bonus with a zero-waste lifestyle is weight loss, especially in the initial transition phase. If you used to grab readymade foods and snacks, they always come with a heap of plastic or cardboard packaging. Certainly, such foods contain a lot of sugars, fats, and a lot of calories. So, going zero waste will require you to come up with some creative, homemade, and healthier alternatives.
4. Adopting new and healthy habits: The modern world promotes and encourages a lot of unsustainable habits. For example, we are shopping mindlessly for new clothes and new cosmetics. It is caused by materialism that leads to purchasing more and more stuff. Instead of spending hours of your free time in shopping, you can: 

•  relax with a good book 
•  cook something for the first time
•  go on a hike or a walk 
•  swim, do yoga, go for a run, etc

Environmental Benefits

1. Resource conservation and pollution reduction: The present consumption rate of resources on the planet is unsustainable. Deforestation, mining for silver and gold, and drilling for oil require loads of energy. We use a vast amount of single-use products, which pollute our planet. The zero-waste lifestyle is all about contributing to conserving nature and its precious resources at your level. It encourages a shift from our direct consumption habits into more circular, sustainable for Earth’s preservation.
2. Helps in reducing global warming: The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 42 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions are caused by producing goods, such as processed food and plastic packaging materials. Reducing, reusing, and recycling can conserve that energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 
3. Encourage systematic positive change: Each consumer can choose to reject unsustainable, single-use items. They can be easily replaced with reusable items, like glass or metal containers, canvas bags, reusable water bottles, bamboo straws, and utensils. By refusing such items, you can inspire and encourage others to do the same in your society. 

How to start a zero-waste lifestyle on a budget?

Switching to a new lifestyle doesn’t mean spending more money to buy things accordingly but using efficiently what you have already. Here are some tips to adopting a zero-waste lifestyle within a budget:

Use what you have

Always try to use what you have already, it includes DIYs to make zero-waste products at home.

Buy long lasting products

Do not use short time usage products like plastic razors, sanitary pads, disposable cleaning wipes. Rather buy products that will last longer like a bamboo razor, menstrual cups, and cloth wipes

Shop Second Hand

Try to shop second-hand and swap/share with friends and family. Second-hand products are way too good to save your money. Check out your local library for books, toys, You can often rent instead of owning things you only need to use once or a handful of times.  

Quality over quantity

Do not buy cheap quality items, opt for best quality over quantity.

Try to Upcycle

Upcycle the things that you have at home. For example, if you want reusable bags, then you can sew some with old fabric like bedsheets, t-shirt, etc.

Stop buying single use products

Stop buying single-use disposables like paper towels, paper napkins, cups, plates, and cutlery. It’s a continuous activity: buy, use, throw away, and buy again. Choose to reuse instead, stainless steel and bamboo are good options

Shop locally

Stock up your kitchen needs that have a long shelf life like lentils, beans, rice, etc. when you find any coupon or sale nearby. Besides, try to buy from the local farmer’s market, it is more cost-friendly. 

Grow your own vegetables

Try to grow your food at home, make a backyard or kitchen garden in your house. Plastic wrapped produce from the market becomes more expensive than plastic-free produce. Herbs like cilantro, lattice, basil, mint are very easy to grow at home or even indoors in the kitchen itself.

Buy soon to expire products

When you go to a grocery run into the store, try to find products soon to expire. This way you can save products to be thrown and your money too. Storekeepers put soon to expire products onto clearance. It is budget-friendly for zero-waste shopping.

Prepare your own meals

Try to skip your habit of buying convenience food/drinks on the go. People buy coffee, burgers more often on the way to the office/home. It might be difficult to change initially, but you’ll eventually manage your habits and not miss your former routine. Make your booster drinks and cook your food at home.

Role of Waste segregation in a zero-waste lifestyle

Waste segregation also plays an important role while adopting a zero-waste lifestyle. Without knowledge of waste segregation, you can’t go for zero-waste. In simple words, waste segregation is the sorting of waste into dry and wet for easy and systematic recycling.

Segregation of waste should be based on two factors:

• Type of waste: waste could be dry, wet, biodegradable, non-biodegradable, soiled, toxic, medical waste, oils, etc.
• Treatment and disposal of waste: it is the method of how the waste will be treated and disposed of like recycling, composting, incineration.

Importance of waste segregation

• The key to best recycling is the segregation of waste, properly segregated waste can be recycled efficiently leaving a very less amount of waste that is of no use.
• Waste Segregation is needed in the very first place. If you start doing this at your home or office, it will be more cost-efficient than post-collection segregation. Post segregation requires more labor to do this job. 
• Mixed garbage will ultimately go into landfills and harm the environment by releasing methane gas into the environment and leaks poisonous liquid that contaminates the soil and water bodies, so segregation is essential to make the best use of garbage by recycling, reusing, and composting.
• In Indian villages, plastic ones entered, will never leave. There is a lack of service and mechanism to recycle or collect plastic trash. As a result, many villages just innocently burn it or dump it in the open. The administration should take some action to make people aware of waste segregation and do the needful to collect the waste from the villages.
• If you are not doing your garbage segregation, someone has to do it for you but it becomes worse for people to segregate that waste that goes into drains due to a lack of waste management methods. People have to get into gutters to clean the drain.

How to segregate the waste/methods of segregation

We all must be aware of what we are throwing in our dustbins and where it ends up finally. Is it harming the planet or is it being properly recycled only this way? You should learn how to segregate the waste properly. Waste can be categorized into seven categories: 

Dry/Solid waste:

This type of waste is composed of solid things like paper, plastic, broken or unused glasses(should be wrapped in paper or packed in a box), metals, containers, jars, etc.

Wet/liquid waste:

wet waste is the kind of waste i.e in liquid form. It can be household or commercially produced. Household wet waste like oils, liquid food, detergent, or any other kind of liquid. 

Organic Waste:

organic waste is generally coming from households in the form of food scraps, meat, vegetables, etc. It should not be thrown with regular waste because organic waste produces methane when decomposed and methane is harmful to the environment. Organic waste can be turned into manure with the help of composting and sold to farmers for agriculture.

Recyclable waste:

Waste which could be reused or recycled comes under this category like metals, furniture, kitchen utensils, recyclable bottles, etc. this kind of waste needs some more information about what to put in a recyclable bin and whatnot, you can check with the product packaging for this.

Hazardous waste:

This type of waste comprises some dangerous substances like mercury, solvents, paints, aerosols, pharmaceutical waste, etc. they can be inflammable and highly reactive when comes to contact with water/air. This type of waste can generate a public health issue. It should be handled with extreme precautions and advisories.

Medical waste:

In the current state of the world nowadays, the number of coronavirus cases is rising day by day so handling medical and hazardous waste is essential at this moment. Every hospital, health care center, and clinic is generating a lot of medical waste contaminated with coronavirus like masks, gloves, body fluid bags, urine bags, blood-stained linens, bandages, syringes,  plaster casts, etc. These types of waste have been increased six times more than before COVID-19.

Electrical waste:

Electronic waste now becomes a major problem in waste management schemes. Because of fast updations and launching of new electronic goods every year making a pile of electronic waste. E-waste is generated by all electronic goods we use at our homes and offices like computers, cellphones, printers, DVDs, vacuum cleaners, and so on. lead, cadmium, etc.

Myths about the zero-waste lifestyle

MYTH#1: It’s too expensive

Switching to a greener lifestyle might seem pretty expensive initially, but in the long, run you’ll start realizing you’re saving a huge amount of money. Eco-friendly products usually last long and reusable in comparison to cheap quality products. Eventually, you’re investing in quality products and tools just by cutting down on countless cheap, trashy stuff.

MYTH#2: Zero-waste is restrictive

Our society makes us think about buying more stuff than we need. We do excessive shopping of clothes, accessories, and luxury items, etc. Don’t even think of impact-free living as depriving, a minimalistic purchasing approach will make you realize you don’t need all that stuff. On the contrary, living with few necessary things will make you acknowledge the truly important things in life.

MYTH#3: Zero-waste is time-Consuming

Turning your habits into eco-friendly ways will make you feel like it takes longer than before to do your things. Bringing to the office your packed-lunch from home in a reusable container, instead of grabbing a sandwich wrapped in plastic just before lunchtime, it’s time-consuming. If you feel like you’re wasting so much time, don’t panic! Stay organized and plan your life. You’ll save time as well as money

MYTH#4: You can’t be fashionable with zero-waste

We all love shopping, but what about the pile of clothes lying in the closet that will end up in landfills after some time. Did you ever think, who is paying for them if not you?  In the biggest fast-fashion companies children are often involved in the supply chain, as well as underpaid workers. So, always try to invest in quality over quantity.

Moreover, purchasing things from second-hand stores reduces your environmental footprint and can be life-changing. If you get bored with your same old outfits, donate them or trade them for different second-hand clothes. They’ll still be “new” to you!

MYTH#5: Recycling is the ultimate solution for zero-waste

Indeed recycling something is more eco-conscious than throwing something right in the trash. However, you may know that tons of materials you proudly recycle aren’t recycled, but end up in landfills or oceans, damaging irreversibly the ecosystem.

In recent years, recycling has become kind of a business instead of an environmental mission. The most effective way to minimize your waste is waste prevention at the early stages. Therefore, “reusing” and “reducing” is way better than “recycling”. You can save natural resources by reducing your trash, that otherwise would end up in landfills.

Facts about Zero-Waste Lifestyle

A zero-waste lifestyle includes producing less waste(ideally none). People are doing a lot with creative ideas to follow this lifestyle. Here are some basic facts about the zero-waste lifestyle that you should know: 

The zero-waste lifestyle focusses on sending no waste to landfills

Landfills are major contributors to greenhouse gases emission as they produce Methane, that's far more toxic than carbon dioxide. As such, Zero–Waste practitioners do not buy prepackaged goods or disposables as an effort to minimize waste sent to landfills. By saying no to plastics and other disposables you can help reduce land and air pollution.

A zero-waste is the ultimate way to control climate change

The greenhouse gas emissions damage the global climate. The Greenhouse Effect traps the harmful rays of the sun and dangerously warms up the Earth’s surface. It's an alarming situation of global warming.

The more people practice Zero–Waste, the lesser waste goes into landfills. Certainly, it would effectively reduce its impact on the climate by minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.

Zero waste re-evaluates our consumerist nature

Overconsumption is a huge problem that has negative effects on the environment. Unknowingly, we create waste through plastic cups, takeaway packaging, plastic bags, and styrofoam boxes. These items take years to decompose because of their chemical structure. Zero–Waste lifestyle makes you think to reevaluate how much we need.

Zero-waste controls your daily household management

The first step is to prioritize recycling in households. Primarily, the 3R's of recycling, reduce, reuse. As beginners, it can be hard to immediately stop using plastic. Instead, separate trash within the household to be recycled before disposal. Paper can be sold to newspaper trucks, while plastic and aluminum can be brought to recycling centers. Food scraps can be composted in various ways.

Zero-waste make you stop using chemical-based products

Another concern is using chemical-based cleaning, makeup, and toiletries products that could pollute the environment. Zero waste practitioners often DIY their own natural cleaning products including compostable bamboo toothbrushes and toothpaste using baking soda. 

How to reduce your waste in various aspects of life 

Zero Waste home cleaning

Generally, cleaning products are often wrapped in bulky plastic. Instead, use these three easy tips to reduce landfill-bound trash in your cleaning routine and avoid potentially harmful chemicals

1. Multipurpose Cleaner: Here’s an easy, homemade multipurpose cleaner: In a spray bottle, combine 1⁄2 cup white distilled vinegar with 1 cup water, and add 10 to 20 drops of tea tree, lavender, lemon, or eucalyptus essential oil. Shake well before using.
2. Homemade Scrub: You can eliminate commercial bleach scrubs and package with this simple, effective sink and countertop recipe: Thoroughly mix 1/2 cup baking soda and 1⁄2 cup coarse salt in a stainless-steel or ceramic bowl. You can use lemon juice for extra whitening. For many more household cleaning recipes, visit our collection of homemade cleaners.
3. Zero-Waste Cleaning cloth: Save money and the earth by cleaning with fabric squares made from cut-up old socks, sheets, and towels

Zero Waste Kitchen 

Glass and stainless-steel containers of all shapes and sizes can be cleaned and reused over and over again, and easily transported. For example, your empty pasta sauce jar makes a great container for your homemade soup or stew.

Avoid Plastic Bags: Start using big shopping bags made from mesh, cloth, or recycled/recyclable plastic. You can buy these bags for a minimal amount at most natural supermarkets. Opt for reusable bags for buying and storing produce. For packing lunches, try small reusable cloth pouches (check out reuse it) or the FSC-certified, chlorine-free, sustainable bags to store freezer items, use reused glass jars; instead of plastic cling-wrap, use glass or stainless-steel containers with lids.

Eliminate Disposable Paper Products: Living without paper towels, napkins, plates, cups or other disposables is easier than you might think. Rather than paper towels and napkins, choose reusable cloth versions. Certainly, simply use old hand towels, kitchen towels. So, you can quickly save money over costly disposables. Avoid using non-recyclable paper or potentially toxic Styrofoam plates and cups. Instead, use stainless steel or bamboo utensils.

Minimize Food Waste: Save food and the resources required to produce and deliver it by shopping wisely, reviving leftovers, repurposing food scraps into jams and sauces, and more.

Zero Waste laundry room

Zero-waste laundry means washing and drying clothes without any residual waste of chemicals and lint. Chemicals in detergent and softeners directly go into water bodies through drainage. It threatens aquatic life and contaminates the water.

Detergent: Buy laundry supplies for three, six, or 12 months at a time. Natural laundry soap in bulk helps you to reduce your family’s toxin exposure with minimal trash. However, look for recycled, recyclable, or compostable detergent containers. You can also make your laundry soap and store it in a large bin; find several recipes in Love Your Laundry: Homemade Laundry Detergents.

Drying of clothes:  No need for dryer sheets, line drying eliminates static cling. By properly changing your clothing to air dry,  you can reduce wrinkles and have less ironing. Line dry in the sun eliminates several germs and bacteria too because the sun is the natural sanitizer for everything. 

Zero Waste Bathroom 

Recycled Paper Products: When it comes to toilet paper and facial tissue, the best option to use is 100% recycled paper that has minimal waste.  

Reduce Plastic Packaging Waste: Generally, bathrooms have a lot of plastic waste in the form of bottles for shampoos, conditioners, face washes, body washes, mouthwash, and more. Reduce it by buying recyclable packaging or by choosing items you can buy in bulk. For example, shampoo/soap bars can be used in place of shampoo and body wash plastic bottles.

Natural Air Fresheners: Aerosol or plug-in air fresheners pollute your home’s indoor air and clog up landfills. It’s easy to make your own air freshener: Put 10 to 20 drops of your favorite essential oil in a glass spray bottle. Fill with water and shake vigorously. you can opt for lavender, lemon, tea tree, peppermint, and eucalyptus for odor-fighting and antibacterial scents.

Zero-waste period: Even “Period” can also be eco-friendly or zero-waste if you switch to a menstrual cup in place of disposable pads/tampons. You can buy eco-friendly tampons by boondh. It is chemical-free and safe to use. You can use menstrual cups again and again for years. 

Zero-waste makeup and skincare

The easiest way to lower your environmental impact is to replace your single-use beauty products. Replace things you use once and throw away.

Makeup wipes: Instead of disposable makeup remover wipes, use cloth wipes that you can use again and again after a clean wash. to remove your makeup olive oil and coconut oils is a great option.

Oil cleansing: Oil cleansing provides a deep and gentle cleanse that isn’t disruptive to your skin’s pH. Oils can be truly amazing for your skin if you choose the right oil. Coconut oil is the best option for a zero-waste routine.

Natural exfoliant: Clay is one of the best natural ways to cleanse and purify the skin. It is particularly beneficial for balancing oily and combination skin, as well as eliminating blackheads and congested pores. Oats are the natural way to treat your skin well. When mixed with water for 5-10 minutes, they release anti-inflammatory and antioxidant substances that is very gentle to skin

Zero-waste closet

You can also have a zero-waste wardrobe/closet by opting for some new habits. If you have some skills then you can easily maintain a zero-waste lifestyle easily like sewing and repairing, renting, shopping right, second-hand shopping.

Buy Stuff You Will Actually Wear: Always buy clothing that you actually want to wear. its no point of having unnecessary clothing in your wardrobe that you don't use more often

Choose Natural Fibers: It's sometimes hard to find the natural fiber stuff, but keep trying to have some. As natural fibers are long-lasting and do not leave any carbon footprint on the environment. lesser resources are used to make natural fibers

Buy Second-hand: Buying second-hand means less new resources used, and less items heading for landfill. Always try to plan a trip to second-hand stores to buy stuff. It save your money and environment too

What is a zero-waste kit?

Once you think about going zero-waste in your daily life, you must need the right tools to go on this journey. Did you know about zero-waste kits? It's a savior to make you go plastic-free effortlessly. Consequently, these kits get you off to a great start on your journey to living plastic-free or zero waste by providing all the essentials. 

A zero-waste kit primarily includes the basic things you will need when you are out like a bamboo toothbrush, reusable cup, and cutleries, reusable grocery bags, cloth napkins, food storage containers, and menstrual cups in case of emergency for females.

Is recycling considered zero waste?

• The idea behind zero waste is creating no waste and sending nothing to landfills. It doesn’t mean buying everything in recyclable packaging and simply recycling it. However, recycling is not the solution and still uses huge amounts of resources and energy. Many products (including all plastics) are not truly recycled either but downcycled. It becomes an inferior product of lesser quality that further downcycled, and ultimately downcycled products will end up in landfills.
• We all want to recycle everything but, the zero-waste lifestyle does not only relate to recycling. Recycling is not the solution, and it comes after waste prevention.  We all try to do our best and aim to recycle as little as possible, but it is extremely hard to produce no waste at all. 
• Always put zero waste forward to recycling, this way you can achieve the ultimate goal of a zero-waste lifestyle. Even when everything is recycled, there can still be badly designed products or packaging that waste energy, water, and other scarce resources.
• The true goal of Zero Waste is not just zero waste to landfill or zero waste-to-energy, but redesigning our entire cycle of resource extraction, consumption, and discard management so no resources are wasted at any point along the way.

Zero Waste Swaps

A zero-waste lifestyle is all about switching your daily habits and changing the level of convenience. Only this way can you achieve to follow your zero-waste living. Here are some basic swaps to follow for zero-waste living: 

Zero-waste Lifestyle in India

• The whole world generates around 2.01 billion tonnes of solid waste annually. Waste generated per person per day averages 0.74 kilograms but ranges widely from 0.11 to 4.54 kilograms. India generates 277 million tonnes of waste annually according to 2016 estimates, approximately 0.17 kg per person per day in small towns to approximately 0.62 kg per person per day in cities, somewhere lesser than the other countries. However, India lacks waste management strategies which lead to improper handling of the garbage.
• Traditionally India has a sustainable lifestyle. Our ancestors used to live a pure sustainable and zero-waste lifestyle. Still, we have a sense of it. It’s just we are imitating the western culture to ruin our own culture of living. Above all, we always had tiffin/lunch cooked at home, our grandparents used to carry bags for grocery shopping, used stainless steel or clay utensils to eat food. So it is all about sticking to your own roots and following the path of our ancestors for a zero-waste lifestyle.
• The size of landfills in India is continuously increasing and that is fast becoming a significant concern. In contradiction, the majority of India’s waste is organic which means that there is a tremendous opportunity to compost a lot of it, but to make it possible, Indians need to adopt the practice of segregating waste at its source.

References

1. Gallucci, Nicole. “How to Start a Zero Waste Lifestyle.” Mashable, 27 Apr. 2018, URL 
2. “Zero Waste and Sustainable Lifestyle - 10 Myths Which Are Not True.” Naturaty ® | Wellbeing Carnival, 10 May 2020, URL 
3. The Zero Waste Collective. “How to Go Zero Waste on a Budget.” The Zero Waste Collective, ZeroWasteCollective, 7 Dec. 2020, URL
4. “What Is the Zero Waste Lifestyle?” Center for EcoTechnology, 2 Apr. 2018, URL