Zero Waste, Sustainable Lifestyles.

[GwynnInTheHall]

Does anyone else practice zero waste, Sustainable Lifestyles?

We're not so much zero wasters, but minimal (as well as we can do).

We also strive to be paper and plastic free and as sustainable as we can.

If anyone else is try to live like this, how do you like it?

What are you doing to achieve your goals?

[Teenwolf]

Does anyone else practice zero waste, Sustainable Lifestyles?

We're not so much zero wasters, but minimal (as well as we can do).

We also strive to be paper and plastic free and as sustainable as we can.

If anyone else is try to live like this, how do you like it?

What are you doing to achieve your goals?

I've been vegan for 7 years. Carbon footprint from that alone gets cuts bigly, I think something like 70%.

Found this quote:

"Eating a vegan diet could be the “single biggest way” to reduce your environmental impact on earth, a new study suggests. Researchers at the University of Oxford found that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual's carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent."

Other than that, I dont do much, although cars idling the engines for no reason piss me off greatly and I try to avoid fuel consumption as much as I can.

Plastic is another thing where people think plastic straws and bags are the enemy. The reality...

"A survey by scientists with OceanCleanup, an organization working to develop technologies to reduce ocean plastic, found that at least 46 percent of the plastic in the “Great Pacific garbage patch,” a floating gyre the size of France made up of plastic, comes from fishing nets."

The most significant and easiest way to massively course correct one's carbon footprint is going vegan.

[Sour Masher]

I have tried to minimize my impact for years. Been a vegetarian, but now more flexitarian. Having two young boys makes things harder. My wife and I used to never use plastic cups, straws, plates. But we do resort to them for the kids sometimes. We try to carpool and be smart about waste, but our footprint has definitely gotten much bigger with the kids.

[GwynnInTheHall]

I have tried to minimize my impact for years. Been a vegetarian, but now more flexitarian. Having two young boys makes things harder. My wife and I used to never use plastic cups, straws, plates. But we do resort to them for the kids sometimes. We try to carpool and be smart about waste, but our footprint has definitely gotten much bigger with the kids.

Kids would make it tougher--We started a while ago, but just got serious about it over the past year.

Not a Vegan/Vegetarian, but we do work hard to eat healthy and buy local, bulk and minimize food wastes by planning weekly menus and prepping them on one day to minimize the need for single use plastics/paper.

We only use TP and Paper towels in the house (outside of printing paper) The Paper towels are use very infrequently as we have Dish/Hand/Counter towels for the kitchen. Cloth rags for household cleanup. Handkerchiefs instead of Kleenex and Cloth Napkins at hand.

We've reduced plastics by investing in lot's of wood, glass and ceramic kitchenware. It's hard to look into the kitchen and find even one bit of plastic outside of a couple of appliance housings Beeswax wraps instead of saran wrap. Pyrex/Glass jars instead of tupperware. Linneen, Glass and beeswax instead of baggies. It's pretty fun once you get into it.

There';s a ton of replacement items for paper plates and the like, they just require washing so as not as convenient when you have kids as kids take up so much time that just tossing a paper plate is very handy and frees up that much coveted time with the kiddos. But if you're interested, they do make quite a few different items to replace those things.

We also compost and recycle.

There's a ton of other little things we do, but all in all--we only have to empty our trash can (and it's not very big) about once a week if that much--everything else is recycled or composted.

More later, gotta hit the farmers Market! :P

[Teenwolf]

Glass containers, check. Beeswax instead of plastic wrap, check.

We switched to a washable reusable sheet to replace our parchment paper usage. Cut down tons of parchment paper used in a year (2-3 boxes, 500 ft per box)

[GwynnInTheHall]

Glass containers, check. Beeswax instead of plastic wrap, check.

We switched to a washable reusable sheet to replace our parchment paper usage. Cut down tons of parchment paper used in a year (2-3 boxes, 500 ft per box)

Parchment for cooking? Or are you using it for something else?

[Teenwolf]

Parchment for cooking? Or are you using it for something else?

Yep, we cover a baking sheet in parchment to roast veggies or whatever, so a giant 18"x30" sheet almost every night. It adds up to a lot of parchment. The re-usable one cost $10, same as a large box of parchment, so it saves money too.

I also switched from a weed distributor that used too much unnecessary packaging to a more economical one.

The government marijuana packaging is the worst. It's a pill bottle, in sealed plastic, in a box, in sealed plastic, in a plastic-wrapped bubble-mailer, and I'm pretty sure they individually seal every piece within the order. It would be nice to grow from the garden. Zero packaging waste with that. I'm too paranoid about my daughter finding it to grow my own though, so I just leave it to the professionals and keep it well hidden.

[GwynnInTheHall]

Yep, we cover a baking sheet in parchment to roast veggies or whatever, so a giant 18"x30" sheet almost every night. It adds up to a lot of parchment. The re-usable one cost $10, same as a large box of parchment, so it saves money too.

I also switched from a weed distributor that used too much unnecessary packaging to a more economical one.

The government marijuana packaging is the worst. It's a pill bottle, in sealed plastic, in a box, in sealed plastic, in a plastic-wrapped bubble-mailer, and I'm pretty sure they individually seal every piece within the order. It would be nice to grow from the garden. Zero packaging waste with that. I'm too paranoid about my daughter finding it to grow my own though, so I just leave it to the professionals and keep it well hidden.

I checked those bake sheets out, I think I'm going to add a couple to the toolbox.

As for weed, well cali is pretty cool in that we can grow our own (up to 6 plants) so there's that plus if we get it outside I have a couple of friends who run dispensaries so packaging isn't an issue. :P

keep em coming.

I assume you have canvas/linen/cloth bags for shopping and produce bags as well.