No Waste: Some Zero Waste Challenge Ideas
If you follow my Instagram, you might have seen that I attempted a no waste challenge last year. Now before I go any further, there’s a reason why I used the word attempted: my no waste month was admittedly less than perfect and there was a fair bit of infringement in the form of deep-set habits executed on autopilot.
Drinks were served with a straw without me having time to say hey, food delivery was ordered on a munchies spree, glitters were smeared prior to the club. I did a lot of stuff wrong, and I learned a lot from it.
Seeing how much of a single-use convenience era we live in, making the transition to zero waste living does require some rewiring. And forgiving. I decided not to be too hard on myself and allow for some errors, but most importantly to learn from them. Here are some tips I gathered from my zero waste challenge.
No Waste: Some Zero Waste Challenge Ideas
It’s the small actions that count
Don’t go out and try changing all of your life habits at once. That’s just a recipe for disaster. I did a lot of research at the beginning of the month and one thought led to another, which led to another, and to another, and before I knew it I was on the phone with the city of Berlin’s recycling facilities to try and figure out what precisely happened with cardboard past our homes’ recycling bins and to see if I could visit the composting facility. I started wondering what could be worse between unpackaged food coming from afar and local food sold with packaging, literally comparing and freaking out over apples and oranges. I started obsessing because I’m pretty good at that.
And the no waste thing became more and more complicated.
So I took a few steps back on my quest towards living a more sustainable lifestyle. I elected to start with smaller and easier actions that I felt had the biggest impact. I made my own oat milk. I bought in bulk and from the zero waste shop. Packed a lunch every day. Always carried a bamboo straw and all sorts of cotton bags. Eliminated plastic as the first line of action. Made or purchased solid toiletries and simplified everything else (I went no poo over a year ago).
My zero waste challenge tools
Here are some of the things I’ve purchased over the years. Please please please, use up what you have on hand first and replace items as they run out or break (and fix them first if you can). Natural material objects have the added value of being gorgeous and adding that little extra touch of Hygge to your home 😉
Plastic free living in the kitchen
- Use reusable metal boxes and silicon “zip locks” for lunches, leftovers, doggy bags, etc
- Swap Plastic dish sponges for a natural wood and bristle brush with 100% compostable heads
- Use a nylon mesh bag and make your own nut / oat milk rather than buying tetra packs
- Reusable water bottle
- Glass jars from purchased premade food – I bring those to the zero waste shop and put my vegan milk and kombucha in them too
- Cotton produce / nuts / bread bag – I always have those in my backpack
- Bamboo straws
- Homemade cleaning products and soap nuts for the laundry (vinegar, lemon juice, tea tree oil and baking soda are kinds in my home!)
In the bathroom
- Soap bars rather than shower gel
- Safety razor
- Wood hair brushes
- Compostable cotton buds (I know I should eliminate those fully, but I’m addicted)
- Menstrual cups, reusable pads and period underwear
- Bamboo toothbrush
- Reusable alternative to single use cotton swabs. I have this one from Last Object
- Vegan products in solid forms, ones that can multi-task or at the very list a solid bar of vegan shampoo
- For anything I can’t make, cosmetics in glass jars (I’m loving The Ordinary at the moment)
Zero Waste Travel
Now comes the tricky one. Traveling and a zero-waste challenge seem to not fit so well in the same sentence and several people have already told me that being a professional traveler and attempting a no-waste lifestyle was an oxymoron. I get it.
The first big issue is obviously flying. If you’re traveling within Europe, it’s easy to pick low-cost carrier flights over other means of transportation as they are often the cheapest option. But here’s an incentive to go green: it’s not always the fastest! Omio recently published an article showing that 10 European routes are actually faster by train than flying. Trains are a great relaxing commute and always my favorite. I’m also a big fan of bicycle touring, but I understand that you’d have to be on a very long holiday and/or in great shape. Still, consider it as an active out-of-the-box holiday idea of a lifetime and one that aligns most with zero waste living.
A few things to keep in mind for no waste travel:
- Carry the zero waste tools I mentioned above with you on your trip too! This is often the time and place where you’ll generate the most waste. These things are light and easy to pack. No excuse!
- Take advantage of most transport companies now having apps and issuing digital tickets. There is absolutely no excuse to print tickets anymore!
- Solid cosmetics rule! Killing two birds with one stone here: on the one hand, avoiding garbage because you do not have to dispose of tiny plastic bottles, and on the other, you have no problems with fluid restriction when flying. Just take a piece of solid soap and solid zero waste shampoo instead of liquids.
- Take an e-reader instead of books. I love my Kindle!
- Pack minimally. The less space you have, the less you are likely to buy. And the less you buy, the less you have to throw away. If you’re travelling with a small carry-on bag or backpack, you’ll think twice about which clothes you really need and whether you really need to buy that souvenir. And your holiday will be cheaper. Win!
Are you into zero waste living too? I would love to hear your tips and tricks! For more green ways of living, read my ethical banking article
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Thank you so much for these awesome tips. A lot of them I have already adopted but today I ordered a safety razor and reusable eye makeup remover pads. Actually, I ordered breast /nursing pads hah! Always appreciate your useful info, you got me out of wearing underwire bras too. Sports bras forever! 😛
OMG Jenn that’s brilliant, I bet nursing pads are much cheaper than makeup removal pads! And yay to free boobies! ✊
They are so much cheaper and organic bamboo so super soft!!
These are all such great tips! It’s amazing that you learned from your old habits, couldn’t have been easy. I definitely feel that replacing plastic straws with the bamboo straws that you mentioned can be the first step that we all take! Packing minimally is something I have to try on my next trip 😛
I’m terrible at packing minimally haha!
I have a friend that did this in May and decided to carry it on for the rest of the year. It really is inspiring, and through her (and now you), I’ve discovered several ways to help with the cause. It’s really astonishing how much waste we produce in a single day.
Yay, I’m glad it was insightful!!
Our daughter is a big environmentalist. So we have slowly been changing our ways. It is amazing how awareness helps you to change. We have several different re-usable water bottles and just recently bought our own stainless steel straws. I got an e-reader several years ago and between that and my iPad, I only keep electronic docs. Lots of good suggestions for reducing our waste footprint. Wish more countries even did starter things like recycling! As Canadians, we will carry our recyclables with us until we find the right spot to get rid of them.
haha I do that too, I didn’t realize it was a Canadian thing to do lol!!!
These are great tips! I’ve seen some zero-waste challenges going around on the internet (no straw challenge, zero waste baking challenge, etc) but it’s so cool to see being applied in real life 🙂
Living in San Francisco, I’ve grown up on recycling and being eco-friendly, but I’d like to take it to the next level and do a similar challenge: maybe start with a zero-waste day and slowly build up (like you said, don’t try to change habits all at once!)
Zero waste day sounds like such a good idea! Maybe it should be right next to no meat Monday 🙂
Thank you for writing this, it all starts off with making small conscience efforts! I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing reusable bags to the supermarket for groceries and smaller bags for produce (I hate all those little plastic bags)! There’s a lot of products you highlighted in your kitchen and bathroom routine that I’ve never heard of. I’ll definitely be stocking up on the Ordinary cosmetic jars! I’ve always preferred traveling by rail to flying for the scenery and the extra leg room, but being faster than flying in some European routes is absolutely an added incentive 🙂
Yes, I was so excited to read that on the Go Euro website, I also love train travel!
Bamboo toothbrush is a new one! I should go hunting for something like that. When one sits down and thinks about the amount of plastic we use in our daily lives, its really mind-blogging!
It is crazy, isn’t it!
Very good idea for clean your house, city and county. good work.
Thank you 🙂
These are such great tips. I always carry a bottle to refill when I travel as well as my own lightweight shopping bags, I never thought about using bars of soap, but that’s an obvious one I am going to implement straight away.
Yay!!!! #OneSmallChange <3
If everyone makes small changes, it will make a big difference! Before we left for a recent trip, we invested in large metallic reusable drink bottles, and filled them wherever we visited. It was a small change, but made all the difference. And restaurants are happy to fill them for you. I also carried a reusable shopping bag, to cut down on those awful disposable plastic bags! Great tips here.
That’s awesome! I never go anywhere without my reusable water bottle! 😀
This is a great list! I have trouble finding silicone ziplocks and bamboo straws from where I live but that would really help make this lifestyle change easier! Also, I agree that we shouldnt change our habits all at once. I just dont think it is possible to make a 360 degree turn for this. Great post!
Agreed! I got the silicon bags and straws from Amazon, they should be easy to find online from anywhere.
What a great challenge you took. I didn’t know about some the products like the bamboo toothbrush and bamboo straws. I try to decrease my waste, but I think I am far from making zero waste. But I am going to use some of the tips you mentioned
Aiming to decrease waste is already wonderful, it’s good to take small steps first! 🙂
This is great! I love saving jars from food we buy…I have an entire plastic tote of them. My fiance calls me the crazy jar lady, haha. I’m working on going zero waste, but not quite there yet. But I definitely think zero waste isn’t something that has to be done perfectly to make a difference! If we all just changed even a couple of our habits, it would make such a huge impact. Always striving for less waste!