Is Zero Waste Possible?

I was a Girl Scout and totally grew up on the 3 R’s: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse. I was horrified - absolutely horrified - at the scene in Mad Men where Betty Draper picked up their picnic blanket, waved it in the breeze, scattering all the paper items in the wind to settle on the roadside. I literally screamed at the sight. But back in the late 1950s and early 1960s that’s what people did. Just threw used paper products on the lawn, the roadside, out the window. GAH.

As you may well imagine, garbage has been around as long as time: where there are people, there is trash, although ancient trash differed greatly from what we have today. In 200 A.D. in ancient Rome, actual garbage men were hired to collect trash from the streets, toss it into a cart and haul it away.1 Those smart Romans. (Except for that unlucky lead-in-the-water thing.) Ancient Crete dug large pits to hold refuse. The Middle Ages found villages and cities throwing their garbage right into the street, attracting rats and vermin, generally inviting the black plague to come in and decimate over a third of the population, an estimated 75 to 200 million people.2

It wasn’t until February 1965 when (First Lady) Lady Bird Johnson started her “Beautify America” campaign that people began to focus on their environment. That was the same year the federal government enacted solid waste management laws.3 Trash cans began appearing in public, in fields, at roadsides and in later years, on beaches.

Lauren Singer, a woman living in Brooklyn, New York, has been “living zero waste” since 2013. Her environmental science studies at New York University really struck a chord and she began a gradual transition. Her blog, Trash is for Tossers, and her business, The Simply Co., reinforce her beliefs, as she encourages everyone to have a positive impact in their everyday life.4 She has 5 simple steps to get you started:
1. Make a grocery list and plan your menus in advance. Shop in season. Buy fresh and not in plastic.
2. Buy clothing second-hand.
3. Invest in reusable products.
4. DIY - beauty and cleaning products can be made at home for a fraction of their store-bought price.
5. Just say “no” - to plastic, disposable silverware, new clothing. It’s really a challenge, but if you really question your purchases before they are made, you can make an overall positive impact.

Consume less, consume smarter is Singer’s mantra. Her “Package Free” shop sells wonderfully practical sustainable, reusable, refillable items and everything is shipped in 100% recyclable, 100% compostable packaging. You can subscribe to her newsletter or sign up for her mailing list at https://packagefreeshop.com/

So, I definitely do the three Rs in our household. Minimal food waste: Stale bread is made into bread crumbs or bird food. Sour milk makes incredibly moist homemade scones. Extra dinner portions become lunch for the next day. Nearly all our clothing is recycled. Old towels and raggedy T-shirts are made into rags. Fabric scraps are made into quilts. I must admit though, my beauty and cleaning products are still purchased in plastic. I do buy new clothes.

I may not achieve zero waste, but I’ll always be a big fan of the three Rs.



1 https://medium.com/@trashcansunlimitedoutreach/the-history-of-the-trash-can-and-all-its-dirty-secrets-b12c6853e81b
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
3 http://www.pbs.org/ladybird/shattereddreams/shattereddreams_report.html
4 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-woman-saves-big-living-waste-free-lifestyle-142636952.html