Something I have been wanting to find out since starting my zero waste project back in February is this: has zero waste complicated my life, or simplified it overall? Advocates of the zero waste movement tend to claim that zero waste has simplified their lives. Bea Johnson’s book, Zero Waste Home, is subtitled The ultimate guide to Read More…
Category: Zero Waste
Zero Waste Sewing (at The Simple Year)
Today is a special day for me, because it marks my first guest post on another blog: I’m writing about zero waste sewing at The Simple Year. The blog’s current host, Trisha, is sharing her efforts towards a more zero waste home, and I’ve been a follower of her blog for a while now and really enjoyed the Read More…
Konmari: Food
It’s time to sort through the food! I decided to break this into three parts: pantry goods, tea/coffee, and fridge/freezer. Here’s my pantry before I got started. It has fared well since I reorganised it at the start of the year, but since I shop more from the bulk foods now, its contents have changed Read More…
Konmari: Electronics
Oh boy. I had to declutter the electronics. This was a joint category, so Mike had to be there for it and thus it took a lot of scheduling; and the sight of a pile of cables just makes my heart wither. Good me, I pulled out the vacuum cleaner even though of course I Read More…
Zero Waste in the Kitchen Update
I’ve been KonMari’ing so much lately that I haven’t written as much about some of my other topics, including my zero waste project. But that still continues, and I’d like to share how things are going in the kitchen specifically. My goal, overall, was to eliminate food packaging as much as possible in favour of using Read More…
Konmari: Linens and Gift Wrap
Here we have two miscellaneous household categories: linens and gift wrapping supplies. I decluttered them on the same day, and gift wrap seemed too minor to give a post of its own, so I’m grouping them together. Gift wrap: not a lot to say. I culled a lot of secondhand tissue paper and ribbon scraps. Everything Read More…
I Require More Receptacles for Recycling
I’ve recently been researching recycling. Say that three times fast. Since I’ve gotten into a good groove with my zero waste efforts in grocery shopping, I’ve been looking elsewhere in my routine for areas to improve. Recycling was one such area. Our city’s curbside recycling services are quite good, including plastics 1-7 among the usual cardboard, glass, Read More…
Zero Waste in the Bathroom
After the kitchen, the bathroom is one area of our home I wanted to tackle for moving towards zero waste. It’s where we use a lot of disposable consumables (baby wipes, cotton rounds, q-tips, razor blades), as well as a lot of plastic bottles and containers – shampoo, conditioner, hair products, deodorant, toothpaste, lotions, hand Read More…
Zero Waste Shopping: Whole Foods
I planned one trip to Whole Foods for the month of February as part of my zero waste experiment. My goal was to get some organic/free range meat, and some bulk goods that I couldn’t get from my usual supermarket. This trip took longer than I expected. I spilled flour on myself, had to ask someone Read More…
Zero Waste Shopping: At the Supermarket
I’ve now made three shopping trips to my usual supermarket trying to follow zero waste habits as much as possible. First I get my gear: Edith’s car seat, my shopping kit, and my canvas bags. I think that as soon as you start bringing your own shopping bags – per the norm many places now – it’s relatively Read More…