How to Be Zero Waste in 2021
Here’s why it’s so important to have plastic-free packaging.
Are you ready to make some small swaps to help you live more sustainably and reduce your negative impact on the planet? Then this article about zero waste living is for you! Anyone can do something today to live an eco-friendlier tomorrow, from swapping to reusable items, reducing plastic purchases, and reducing food waste.
What Does Being ‘Zero Waste Mean?
Zero-waste isn’t about being perfect; it’s about doing what you can feasibly do to come as close to ‘no waste’ as is practical for your lifestyle. For example, opt for the plastic-free alternative when you choose your next snack and debate between a conventionally wrapped chocolate bar or our snack packs with zero plastic packaging. You can also reduce the number of single-use and disposable products you buy and opt for longer life and durable replacements, reducing the need to contribute your waste to landfill sites.
Here are our top ways to adopt a zero-waste lifestyle which not only helps you live more sustainably but can also save you money as you reduce spending on single-use items.
Top Tips on How to Be ‘Zero Waste’
Reduce Your Food Waste
There are many ways to reduce your food waste, from ensuring you use all food you buy to making a meal plan and eating up leftovers or freezing food for later. The average household wastes approximately 18% of the food they buy. That’s food that goes from the shelf to the cupboard or fridge and then straight into the bin!
Another way to reduce food waste is to support companies that tackle food waste at the industry level. For example, GOÜTER uses food waste from the bread industry to transform perfectly edible and delicious chocolatey bites.
Read our blog post Seven easy ways to reduce your food waste for more ideas on becoming more environmentally friendly when it comes to the kitchen.
Start a Compost
Reduce your food waste by converting leftover scraps of fresh food into homemade ‘plant food’. This is one of the easiest things you can do to reduce waste in landfills, but you can also use the resulting compost to feed your garden. To produce a successful compost, you need green matter (fresh fruits and veggies) and brown matter (garden waste or clean kitchen towels, etc). As all GOÜTER products come in 100% compostable paper packaging, you can feed this brown matter to your compost after you enjoy your tasty snack!
Consider The Packaging
When we see rows upon rows of food, personal, and home items packaged in plastic on shop shelves, it’s easy to forget the impact of each individual container and wrapper. If you can opt for plastic-free packaging or alternatively shop at zero-waste refill stores to avoid purchasing new bottles each time you run out.
Swap Single-Use for Reusable
Invest in hard-wearing items to replace throw-away items such as straws, coffee cups, or cleaning cloths. You can even make it fun and more like a game of ‘zero waste bingo’ and set yourself a challenge to make a swap every two weeks for a longer-lasting product to replace commonly used single-use plastic items. Get creative and swap your tea bags for loose-leaf tea and a strainer, if you have a coffee machine at home, use refillable coffee pods or even switch to a zero-waste period with a menstrual cup. The possibilities are endless!
Buy Locally & Seasonally
Shop with local sellers or at farmer’s markets to reduce the environmental cost of your food. For example, if your food has come three miles rather than 3000 miles, this can reduce environmental costs transporting the goods. It’s also worth noting that food transported by road or ship is less expensive to the planet than flying food across the world. Shopping seasonally can also reduce your carbon footprint. The food is more likely to be locally grown and will use less energy and water to ensure the crops grow to satisfactory standards.
Is Plastic All Bad?
You might be wondering why we can’t just switch to plastic packaging that is labeled as ‘recyclable’ or ‘biodegradable’. The problem is the environmental costs of recycling as this uses huge machinery which requires considerable amounts of energy and water to run.
Even the label ‘biodegradable’ can be misleading as the plastics still takes 100s if not 1000s years to decompose and needs certain conditions to do so. And let’s not get started with microplastics! All things considered, it’s best to avoid plastics wherever possible. This is why at GOÜTER we choose to make our chocolate snack cluster wrappers from 100% compostable paper.
Read our blog post How to enjoy chocolate and live more sustainably for more information on why we avoid using plastics at all costs.
If you end up with waste that you can’t compost, think of a way to reuse it. One example of repurposing plastic waste is by creating Ecobricks.
Sometimes small amounts of plastic just aren’t avoidable, whether that be for a medication, product label, or gift. Cram your plastic waste into a single-use plastic bottle and transform it into an Ecobrick. Ensure your waste is clean, dry, and non-biodegradable. When you have filled your Ecobrick, you can drop it off at a local center, and it will be used in sustainable building projects.
- Start Small
Hopefully, these zero-waste hacks can get your brain ticking over some ways to take a step in the right direction towards an eco-friendlier life. It can feel overwhelming at first, and you may have a ‘where do I even start?’ moment, but you can only do your best. Start slow and implement changes into your life where it makes sense.
Feel free to bookmark this post or write down some ideas to come back when you feel ready to implement some new changes. This will help you feel more positive about your zero waste journey and encourage others through your passion.
How We Help
As you could probably guess, the main culprit for landfill waste and single-use items or packaging is plastics. Scientists have estimated that 50% of plastic is single-use, which is the plastic used just once before being discarded, including food wrappers, plastic shopping bags and water bottles. Although plastics can be recycled, this can require a considerable amount of energy and water to do so. Then what happens when plastics aren’t recycled? They end up in landfills or, worse still, in natural environments and the oceans. Terrifyingly, 90% of marine rubbish is due to plastic which causes life-threatening conditions to marine animals.
That’s why here at GOÜTER, we use only plastic-free packaging for our products and packaging. Another way we avoid creating excess plastic waste is by avoiding plastic moulds and allowing our GOÜTER clusters to come in whatever shape or size they end up as. We’re not about creating perfectly symmetrical bites if it means using plastic to do so.
