What is Zero Waste?
There is no official answer to this question. Zero waste can be a goal, a lifestyle or a philosophy. It is a mindfulness about every item you consume and its end use. No one can truly produce zero waste but our society has swung the pendulum so far towards a single use way of life. Smart consumers are now “going zero waste” in an effort to combat the extreme damage we are doing to our environment. At Good Bottle we have been inspired by author Bea Johnson writer of the best selling book: Zero Waste Home. She makes following a zero waste lifestyle simple by using the following steps:
Refuse what you do not need.
Reduce what you do need.
Reuse by using reusables.
Recycle what you cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse.
Rot (compost) the rest.
The reason we refill…
* Landfills are among the biggest contributors to soil pollution – roughly
75% of the items buried in landfills could be recycled.
*Although 75% of America’s waste is recyclable, we only recycle around 30% of it.
*The U.S. recycling rate is around 34.5%. If we’re able to get the rate to 75%, the effect will be like removing 50 million passenger cars from U.S. roads.
*In the United States, we throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour – about 42,000 per minute, or about 695 per second.
*Plastics cause more than 80% of the negative effects on animals associated with ocean trash.
*The average office worker in the United States goes through roughly 500 disposable cups annually.
Start Now…
Here are some things you can start doing today:
—Keep some utensils in your bag so whenever you are eating out you
never have to grab a plastic fork, spoon or knife. (think salad
restaurants, ice cream shops, fast food).
—Go Cloth!! Ditch the paper napkins and use cloth instead. Keep a small
laundry bag in your kitchen to make your life easier. I like to add them
to my towels each week so Im not doing an extra load of laundry.
—Invest in a good coffee cup and water bottle. The hard part is always
remembering to bring it with you but it’s so worth it.
—Refill …not just at at Good Bottle but at the grocery store. Switch
your snacks from single packages to items from the bulk section or
buy bigger and use your sustainable baggies to convert your bulk
snacks to an individual snack pack.
—Find some old shirts and towels and cut them up to use for cleaning
products. I stoped using the single-use wipes and floor cleaners….
2 less things you have to buy each month.