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How to achieve a Zero Waste Home 2020

Jan 23, 2020

Zero Waste Living seems to be a Buzz word in the past few years, yet many people don’t know what actions must be implemented in order to live a waste free lifestyle. 

To clarify it, the zero-waste lifestyle is all about simplicity and its primary goal is to send less waste to the landfill.

Implementing this way of living can be seen to have a wide array of benefits for both the homeowner and the environment and contrast to popular belief Zero waste living is more of a goal than a hard or fast rule on how to live!

Bea Johnson the pioneer of Zero waste living and the author of “ Zero Waste Home” has a 5 R guide for everyone looking to start their journey towards zero waste living.

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.

Refuse

 The first and possibly the most important step of the 5 Is the willingness to say no.  Refuse waste coming into your home, whether it is by putting up a no junk mail sign on your door or asking yourself “ do I really need this ” when making a purchase. 

Refusing will eliminate most of the unwanted waste and trash from your home!

Reduce

Reduce the food, plastic and general waste coming into your home by not buying excess food or by refusing to buy products that come in extra non compostable packaging.

Not only do we need to reduce the waste coming into our home, we need to reduce the clutter in our homes to help pair down and simplify our lives!

It’s time to walk around your home and make a list of the things you no longer need and donate them to charity.

Reuse

Avoid anything that has disposable or single use in the name!

There is an alternative reusable product for nearly everything.

The next time you need to buy a single use item see if there is a reusable alternative product.  You also may have something lying around your home that can be up cycled and reused for example replace your kitchen roll with a rag, invest in a good quality glass or stainless-steel water bottle and refill with tap water, and reuse all your glass jars for food storage!

Recycle

After you have refused, reduced, and reused there shouldn’t be much left to recycle. If you do find you have recyclable waste, make sure you know what can and cannot go into your recycling bin!

According to a REPAK report, 65% of people don’t know that just one piece of contaminated packaging can ruin an entire recycling bin. One in every 4 items placed in a recycling bin is not recyclable, and if mixed with other people’s recyclable waste you may be at risk of contaminating the whole load.

Rot

Finally, the last R is Rot! Composting is nature’s way of recycling your food scraps, Pizza boxes, Coffee grounds etc.

Composting isn’t as hard or as smelly as you’ve been led to believe. Anyone can compost in any location, as long as they understand the basics of this all-natural process, Compost is just decayed organic matter that is left to break down naturally into nutrient rich fertilizer.

Composting if done right can eliminate or reduce the amount of times you need to put out your black bin each year, Therefore saving you money and at the end of it you will have an added bonus of nutrient rich soil in your garden.

To Help you on your Journey the team at EZ Living Interiors has put together an infographic you can refer to covering the topic of Zero Waste Homes.

If you enjoyed this article and want to read more please see our related articles on How to be Eco-friendlier around the office and Why is it important to conserve water.