Going Zero-Waste in 2020

Those who follow me will know that I have set myself the goal of going zero waste this year.
For a lot of reasons this year seems like the perfect year to start living differently; for one thing I am finally working completely for myself this year! While my business is over one year old, I spent the last year working part time as a preschool teacher (a hilarious blog post for another day) to help the business grow while still being able to pay the bills, whereas this year is all about living my life with my rules!Yay!
Secondly it’s the start of a new year and a new decade, and thirdly and most importantly, it’s the start of what I believe to be the decade that will decide our future as a species (climate change and this everything else wise).

Interestingly, Iv always had my foot in the sustainability pond. My mom is an environmentalist (she works for the South African National Biodiversity Institute – SANBI) and so conservation of the environment, eco-systems and water have always been a part of our home. As a child I used to think the only thing I would inherit from my parents was their genetics but it seems (with me having been a doctor like dad and now becoming a sustainability activist like mom) I’ve inherited their passions too.

Like I mentioned in my first blog post “Me and My Freedom” (which you can read here) being outside and in nature was a huge refuge for me as a child and it continues to always refuel me today. I remember moments in our beautiful garden in Zim when I was young, where I would swing on the tree branches and sing loudly to myself and the bugs and birds around me, pretending to be in my own Nelly Furtardo music video. Aptly “I’m like a bird” was my greatest hit! I still love that song.There was just something about being in nature, watching the clouds and feeling the grass between my toes that made me feel like I belonged to this life and everything around me. The label “litter bug” was the first insult I learnt and from a really young age I struggled to understand why anyone else would want to pollute what I considered to be my oasis and escape. The conclusion I came to was that these people were hurt, and so because of this, they chose to hurt the one thing that couldn’t really hurt them…their own planet. But what I didn’t realise is that I was a litter bug too! I wasn’t throwing my trash directly into nature, but I was using plastic that would eventually be dumped into the earth and pollute it.

We have a strange trait as human beings to not really think things through right? I can honestly say that I never really took the time to consider where all my plastic waste was going to. Now that I think about it, I guess I just imagined that after I threw it away it would shrink into a tiny tiny block which could buried in the ground to no consequence to the earth and I never thought of the fact that there are billions on families like mine who are producing the same amount of waste as us. The thought of my families black plastic bag being added to a huge truck full of our whole neighbourhoods bags and then being added to our cities weekly garbage and being tossed into a large pile of rubbish somewhere no body could see never EVER crossed my mind. Now that I think about it, I can barely imagine the size of the pile of one neighbourhood’s weekly garbage and because Iv never had to visit a garbage dump and have never been confronted with my own waste for longer than a week, Iv never had to.

So what changed? Quite simply, I chose to think about it.
I chose to think about the fact that plastic does not biodegrade. Let’s ponder that for a moment. It’s not that it takes years, or decades or centuries…it NEVER biodegrades. Can you imagine if other things weren’t biodegradable? Like leaves!? Imagine if leaves didn’t decay and that we still had the same leaves sitting around from the 1800s today. Can you image the build up and the mess? Well, that’s plastic. It goes nowhere. So even though you throw it away and it leaves your house…it just moves somewhere else. Out of sight, out of mind…until it’s not out of mind and it’s everywhere…on the side of the street, in the ocean, outside peoples homes, in the water we drink (as micro granules)…this is not some crazy hippies rant guys, it’s reality and it’s reality now.

So when I finally stepped back into this reality, I had no choice but to change. You know, the funny thing about thinking things through is that it almost always brings the blame back to you as an individual. Which (surprisingly!) is the best thing! Because if you are a part of the problem (you know where I’m going with this) you are part of the solution. And if you chose to be apathetic and believe that the problem is too big and you are too small…you being part of the problem doesn’t change and so you should know that you are responsible for the rubbish you are so annoyed by at the beach or on your hike or on your street. That bottle cap and that plastic bag are from your vitamin water and your grocery shop at Woolies…don’t blame it on someone else just because you think your trash has magically gone to another planet.

This problem is big, but there are over 7billion of us and going zero waste isn’t a chore, it’s fun guys I promise!

It’s wonderful having your things displayed in beautiful glass jars. It’s wonderful not having loads of plastic bags at home that you have to find clever ways to fold so that you can store them nicely. It’s lovely smelling, touching and really looking at your fruit and veg instead of trying to peak around pre-cut slices through a plastic sleeve to spot mould. It’s awesome finding brands and products that are made of biodegradable materials and more often than not they are even more beautifully made than the plastic stuff- have you seen my Pampa Hi Organic Palladium’s! They are so cute and totally earth friendly – have you ever thought that your shoe lace tips don’t biodegrade- well mine do! Or what about my Hemporium travel bag and accessories– guys, I’m not even playing it’s the cutest travel bag I’ve had yet!
It’s fun seeing how many different ways you can reuse your glass jars and containers and how quickly your food waste can make your garden grow and last but not least it’s super fun blogging about and taking pictures of your zero-waste life so you can inspire others to do the same.

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Now I know this blog post may not convert you to zero-waste living because I’m aware that when life gets busy, figuring out a different way to live can be the last thing in your mind but that’s why I’m here – to point out how to do this step by step in a way that is affordable and convenient. As the year goes by I’ll be posting about going zero waste and converting to sustainable living in different aspects of our lives – travel (done already check out my guide to sustainable travel here) fashion, cosmetics, grocery shopping, gifts and more. We will make this change gently and gradually, and I’ll only recommend brands that I know sell great stuff (I hereby pledge that no substandard brands will be mentioned here – only amazing brands I chose to use myself).

This is our year to take responsibility for the gift we have been given of living on this beautiful planet and make no mistake, this journey is not only about “saving” her, either way she’ll survive and adapt…it’s about saving us. It’s about trying to prolong the amount of time we have to live beautifully here.

So, let’s take action to live beautiful and conscious lives this year. It’s easy, it’s affordable, it’s fun and it’s super important. Are you with me?

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CREDITS

Quotes and illustrations taken from @less_stuff_more_meaning @mindfullywed and illustrated by @fogandco