7 Steps Towards Zero Waste

Photo by Miriam Espacio on Unsplash

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission to fund my coffee drinking habit if you use these links to make a purchase. You will not be charged extra, and you’ll keep me supplied in caffeine. It’s a win for everyone, really.

I want to learn how to reduce our amount of trash, how to become, eventually, zero waste. Going along with wanting to teach my children to love nature and our earth. I also want to teach them how to take care of it. I am not completely clueless when it comes to not being wasteful but I have a ways to go before I can be zero waste so I am going to make steps. These steps will be my stepping stones on the way to becoming zero waste.

1. Start using all of the reusable bags I have stacked up so neatly.

I have so many fun and colorful reusable bags but I always forget them! I need to remind myself to start using these!

2. Stop buying bottled water

Our water tastes pretty bad, we have a small filter on the faucet but the taste still is not that great. For step two I am going to find a way to drink yummy water without the plastic bottles. I have seen people use activated charcoal sticks in pitchers of water before. I am ordering these and will update on how it went.                                              

3. Start recycling

Before moving we recycled everything, because the city we lived in made it easy, very easy. We now live in a town that does not have easy peasy recycling pick up and the idea of loading up four kids to take the recycling to the center sounds exhausting. LOL. But....this is the third step...so I will be figuring out the best way to store the recycling until we make our weekly trip to the recycling center. I saw these on Amazon and thought that they would work really well for what we are needing!

4. Use cloth diapers

This one is easy because I clothed diapered with my other children so transitioning back to cloth will not be a big step. I still have some and we still have soap and everything for them! 

5. Stop buying paper towels

I can't wait until we get to this step! My husband LOVES paper towels. I have slowly stopped buying them and he will still buy some and bring them home. My plan for this step is to ensure that the cloth towels and always washed and readily available for him so it requires no effort on his part! I just use plain old washcloths. They hold up really well and I can just pop them into the wash with our normal loads. 

6. Make my own bread

I also can't wait for this step! My girls really enjoy making bread, and the bread they make actually tastes really good! This will be a fun weekly family event to make bread for the week. Check out this

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/215378/classic-dinner-rolls/print/recipeType=Recipe&servings=12&isMetric=false

recipe! It was very simple and the girls really enjoyed making it. 

7. Start buying other grains bulk using reusable bags

This one for me will be tricky because I have yet to find anything anywhere near me that has bulk anything. As of right now I will be making a monthly trip to the nearest big city to visit Sprouts or Whole Foods.