Zero-waste Lifestyle during the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Half of the year 2020 has gone, and everyone is thinking about when this Coronavirus will vanish completely. Roaming free in clean air without any restriction, eating at your favorite places, hanging out with friends, and families. All those things are like dreaming about the past and praying for the future to happen again. Coronavirus has changed everything around us, not a single day to day activity is untouched by this COVID-19 effect. Initially, everybody was confused about what to do, where to go, what to touch or not but thanks to the government and health organizations who are working hard to control the spread of this virus. Meanwhile controlling the spread, this pandemic has ultimately caused excessive use of single-use material in the form of PPE kits, disposable masks, disposable gloves, bags of medical wastage of after the quarantine period of an infected person. All of this is the obstacle to the zero-waste lifestyle. Let’s discuss the Zero-waste lifestyle.

What is Zero-waste living?

Literally and logically, zero waste living is the lifestyle for reducing/eliminating waste going into landfills. Making house waste recyclable and reusable is the key point for zero-waste living. Taking care and making use of everything we had thinking we have finished resources. Only this way we can understand to consume and spend wisely.

Challenges to Zero-waste practices during COVID-19

• Due to Coronavirus, keeping sanitation in mind re-usability of grocery bags and bins are suspended at stores
• Initially started by Starbucks, and followed by other chains too personal mugs are prohibited at coffee shops
• In restaurants, everyone is only relying on single-use plastic cutlery amid COVID-19
• Sharing business like swap and shop, thrift store, and rental stores are on a halt
• Lots of plastic is flooding into the market in the form of disposables, hand gloves, disposable masks, sanitizing wipes, etc.

How we can still maintain zero-waste/reduce waste lifestyle at home during a pandemic?

0. Food is precious, do not waste it

In this crucial time, many people are losing their jobs and tackling hunger, struggling to get their life on track.so try to consume up the last bit of food rather than wasting it.

1. Support Local Business

Try to buy local things so that the small scale business people get benefited. You can buy locally grown vegetables and fruits from the farmers market nearby using your own cloth bag in place of a disposable polybag.

2. Use Reusable cloth Mask and gloves

Do not use a disposable mask and gloves, they ultimately fill the landfill and go into water bodies. We have more information about Why we should wear a reusable mask in our previous article:

3. Follow 5 R’s of the Zero-waste scheme

Keep following the 5 R’s rule of Zero-waste lifestyle i.e.

• Refuse means not to purchase anything in plastic packaging
• Reduce purchasing of unwanted things you don’t need
• Reuse means to reuse the things which could be clothes, shoes, furniture, kitchen stuff
• Rot means to compost organic material and helps the environment
• Recycle as much as possible, no matter how much energy it takes

4. Try Composting at Home

Composting is a good idea being at home, you can learn the basic of Composting to start at home through our article on Composting 101. It is the best way to convert the waste(organic matter) into valuable manure to nourish the soil for plantation.

5. Segregation of Waste

Segregate of the waste means sorting of waste into categories of wet, dry, metals, paper, etc so that it doesn’t mix up and treated separately.

6. Be vocal about unwanted restrictions

As we all know that the virus spreads through droplets in the air within 6 feet of distance, so there should be no restriction on the re-usability of grocery bags because scientifically the virus will no longer be alive on such a surface. So be vocal about unwanted restrictions applied due to Coronavirus.

7. Experiment with your DIY skills

Give your DIY skills a chance to enhance in this period because everyone has enough time to work upon these skills, try to make home cleaner mixing vinegar and baking powder with lemon juice, you can also make some homemade fragrances with orange peel and essential oils.

8. Start Cooking At home

Do not rely on takeouts from restaurants, learn to cook at home. It will create less packaging waste as well as food waste but also beneficial for health.

Ideas for making your lifestyle zero-waste

Some of the best replacement ideas which we can use during this Coronavirus pandemic to maintain our zero-waste lifestyle:

Replace Paper towels with Cloth towels

Reuse the Glass Containers

Vegetable Scrap Plantation

Planting herbs at home

Reuse the cardboard to make some storage

Pandemic is present but, Zero waste is the future

Currently, the world is dealing with a giant pandemic named COVID-19, it has started at the beginning of the 2020 and still spreading and causing threats to people but now we can somewhere felt that the fatality rate is decreased that means the virus is weakening, not today or tomorrow day will come that we will be free from this infectious disease. Life will be on track as always. As the proverb says live in your present but plan for your future, the same applies to the zero-waste strategies we are acquiring for our future generations to live a healthy life. Do not stop because of any Coronavirus, keep on reusing and recycling and making our planet waste free…

References

1. Chef, The Zero-Waste. “Plastic Free July: The Pandemic Year(s) — Zero-Waste Chef.” Zero, 1 July 2020, zerowastechef.com/2020/06/30/plastic-free-july-during-pandemic/.
2. Greener Ideal Staff, et al. “How to Live Zero-Waste During the Coronavirus.” Greener Ideal, 30 May 2020, greenerideal.com/guides/how-to-live-zero-waste-during-coronavirus/.