Tag Archives: recycle

Waste-Free Living 101

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Every Wednesday morning around 7am, we hear the garbage truck drive up the road. My boys jump up, scream for me to open the front door so they can run outside and watch the garbage men grab our bin, toss it into the truck, empty it of all our waste and drive off again with great gusto, all with a smile and a wave and a “good morning!”

And ‘Poof!’ Just like that, our mess, our waste; broken plastic toys, styrofoam trays, plastic bags, food waste, takeaway containers, greasy tin foil, plastic wrap, and and and is taken off into a magical land, never to be seen again. Right? Wrong. Oh so very wrong.

I first heard of Lauren Singer’s Blog, Trash is for Tossers in 2014 and was completely inspired by her approach to producing no trash/garbage/rubbish. This is the amount of trash she has collected over the years.

This was made even more real for me after spending some time on Galiano Island off the west coast of Vancouver. A fully functioning island (with views you could stare at for years), but a warning: that you take back to the mainland (Vancouver) what cannot be recycled, composted or is biodegradable. So, you literally pack your garbage in your boot for the ferry trip home. Reality check.

There are two sides to this way of thinking: by reconsidering ease and convenience, and being more proactive in caring for our ever-faithful environment.

What’s clear from the ever-increasing solid waste in the world, and the phenomenal and escalating expense of dealing with it, that while important, the 3 R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle) are not enough. This is the driving force behind the emerging trend towards waste-free living. But looking at how much waste Lauren Singer has accumulated, how do we do it? 

The key to waste-free living is to prevent waste coming into your home in the first place. Here are 5 easy ways to move towards waste-free living:

  • Stop buying, using and discarding single use items.  Believe or not, there are easy alternatives to paper towels and tissues, plastic bags and wrap, aluminium foil and baking paper, even dental floss, plasters and ear buds. In this stage of my life, many of my reusables involve breast pads and cloth nappies.
  • Eliminate all the disposable items you bring into your home, and replace them with reusables. A simple example of this for women waste warriors is to replace tampons and sanitary pads with the increasingly popular menstrual cup.  When you consider that each woman over her lifetime may dispose of as many as 12 000 tampons, changing this monthly habit can greatly reduce your waste.
  • Buy without packaging by shopping for second hand goods and clothes rather than new; and buying bulk food items using your own glass containers and reusable bags. This is a new way of thinking for us here in SA, but it common practice in most awesome first world countries. 
  • Stop accepting freebies. YES! For real! We’re often on autopilot when someone hands us something, and most often out of politeness accept things we then want to get rid of. By being conscious about what you agree to accept from others you can prevent taking into your home what are essentially unwanted and unnecessary items. You can say ‘no thank you’…
  • Add another R for ‘Rot’.  Your green food waste is nutrient dense and can sweeten the place where you live if you compost instead of throw away. If you don’t garden at home, find a community garden or school food garden in your neighbourhood and contribute your kitchen waste to their composting efforts – or build a worm farm.
  • Ensure you have reusables ‘on the go’.  Go out and about in the world with the reusables you need on hand.  Always have reusable shopping bags with you.  If you can’t live without your favourite takeaway coffee, get a travel mug. Carry your own reusable water bottle or flask, and bring along a reusable straw. If you regularly eat takeaways make sure you have your own reusable plate and cutlery. If you are not sure how to get this together, see this Waste-Free-Living starter kit from Faithful to Nature which provides you with a glass water bottle, stainless steel straw, bamboo coffee cup and two mesh Fresh Bags for your groceries.

While these five steps might seem small, they go a long way towards waste-free living. Four of the biggest polluters of our environment are plastic bottles, bags and straws, and disposable coffee cups. These items used just once, but so frequently and by so many, result in phenomenal accumulations of completely unnecessary solid waste.  

Essentially, waste-free living doesn’t have to mean doing without. It’s most often about working out what is really important to you, and then switching to the waste-free alternatives. The pioneers of waste-free living often attest to a life greatly enriched by the simplicity and peace of mind that they experience through their commitment to embracing the eco-friendly options.

YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN one of these very cool Waste-Free-Living starter kits of your very own from Faithful to Nature.

All you need to do is comment below/on the Facebook comments thread and mention what reusables you love using in your home using the hashtag #wastefreeliving. Tag a friend on the facebook post for an extra entry…

Thanks for entering. Good Luck!

Contact Faithful to Nature
(t) (021) 785 3268
Web: www.faithful-to-nature.co.za

Terms and Conditions

The competition runs from Tuesday 18 April – Tuesday 25 April 2017.
This competition is open to South African residents only.
The winner will be chosen randomly and contacted via email.
Winner will be announced on the Our Greenish Life website and social media channels on Tuesday 25 April.

Visit www.faithful-to-nature.co.za to find more solutions that will help you on your green journey.

Image credit: crushmag, Galiano Inn & Spa.

5 effortless ways to go green TODAY

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We can’t do everything (yeeeowzers do I know it) but we can do something and so I’ve compiled a short, punchy and (hopefully highly) convicting list of my top 5 easy peasy ways you and your family can move towards a greener lifestyle.

  1. Use reusable shopping bags. Every.time.you.go.to.the.shops. Keep them in your car, in your hand/gym bag, and at the office. Get those cute ones that fold up. And for goodness sake, the reusable bags can be bought AT THE TILL of most grocery stores so you really have no excuse.
  2. Buy a long term water bottle or travel mug. Not only will this encourage you to drink more water, but instead of buying a bottle each time, you can refill the one you have which will save you money and unnecessary waste. If you feel weird handing your travel mug to the barista at your fave coffee spot, then why not try find coffee shops that use decompostable and biodegradable cups. You vote with your money, don’t forget.
  3. Turn off the lights. ESKOM is already helping us out in this regard but if you leave a room, get into the habit of switching off the lights when you do. Get solar lights for your garden, or LED, or energy savers. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving solar lights on in the kids room so they’re never in the dark, and the bedroom light isn’t on for hours in the evenings.
  4. Grow your own food. Farm to table – it really doesn’t get much better. Fruits, veggies, leaves, herbs. This is not as hard as people think and just requires a little forethought. Make a space in the garden and get on it. Start small. Involve your family, eat from the earth.
  5. Reduce, reuse, repair, recycle (and compost). So many people think this is such a shlep (which it isn’t), and it eats away at their guilty conscience (which it doesn’t need to). Really. Get a big visually pleasing storage-something-or-other and put it in your kitchen and throw all your clean recyclables into it. Take it to your nearest depot or school, or you can contact certain companies to come collect (for a small fee). Throw your wet waste into a tub and make compost or Bokashi juice for your garden. Once you start thinking along these lines and form a habit, you’ll never go back.

The beautiful thing about each of these ways of going greener is that they save you money! Repairing something instead of buying new, refilling a water bottle, growing your own food, and lowering your electricity bill.

Protect the earth, improve your health and save money. That sounds pretty darn ideal to me.

Starting New (Or Not)

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This Valentines Day (which yes, is now like moooonths ago) for playschool, I had to dress Clay in Valentines colours, and, since I have this phobia about fairness between my boys, I dressed Ryler in Valentines colours too. I hunted through his slim selection of clothes currently available to us (most of his things are in a box on the ocean between Vancouver and Cape Town), I found one of my favourite red GAP onesies with the wording ‘Ado(RED)’.

As I dressed my little (then) 9.5 month old, I thought back to when I used to dress Clay in the same onesie, and then further back to where I got it from. In fact, I have no idea where it came from. You see my friend Beth had announced to her colleagues that I was pregnant back in the ‘Couve and being the generous Vancouverites that they are and the frugal international students that we were, a number of her work friends donated gently used baby clothes to me, via Beth. (Thanks Beth).

And so while this item of clothing has gone through 2 little people in my family, I have no idea how many it has gone through before us. I find this to be quite a beautiful thought, the idea of other little lives wearing this onesie as their mom or dad took them walking along the beach, or to the park, or to a coffee shop with friends, and how that baby could have fallen asleep on their chest like Ryler does on mine. I feel a sort of nostalgia with an unknown memory to hold onto.

Why do we glamourise consumerism so much? Needing new, and improved, and more… What do we have to prove by having more clutter, other than a gluttonous mentality and feeling as if we deserve better or newer (and I’m not judging here – I’m a great example).

The word recycling previously made me think of squashing cans between this fairly dangerous metal clamp in Primary School or smashing glass in those big igloos (what were they thinking having US Grade 6’s do that?), but has more recently challenged me to think of reusing, reducing and recycling more than my day-to-day food/packaging containers. Lets not just reuse, lets reduce. Lets share a lawnmower with a neighbour, or give someone a spare key to your swimming pool when you’ve gone away for the weekend. How about sharing a pot of soup when we have plenty to go round, buying communal land or a communal car? Let’s share our skills, and our talents, our knowledge and our spaces.

And please, let’s share baby clothes because there is honestly TOO much of it. I’m happy to pass on Ryler’s little Ado (RED) onesie to the next person in need – and expand the untold stories…

Ryler Starting New

My little Ryler in his ADO(RED) onesie