Myths about Zero Waste

It’s true that it can be hard for only one person to make a change, but it’s definitely not impossible. Every new thing in the world starts because of one small impact made by one person. As a first step, you can stand out from the crowd and be a good example, and eventually other people will follow you and your ideas. One by one, more people will be inspired with your actions and lifestyle, and they will join you, leading to your first small step in making a global difference.

At first, when this kind of lifestyle is new to you, it might take more time than your usual way of living, but once you have made it a habit you will do it automatically, and routine tasks will take much less time than before. For example, with your new habits you’ll go to the store less, clean your house less, have less to repair and definitely take out your trash more rarely.

Zero Waste is about reusing and repairing things instead of throwing them away and buying new ones, which results in saving money. Most of the time we are paying for the packaging more than the actual product inside. For example, refilling the shampoo instead of buying a new plastic bottle every time will avoid wasting resources. Considering your purchases, realising what you actually need and avoiding impulse buying will help you save a lot of money.

Research shows that several times more energy and water are needed for the production of paper bags than plastic ones. More toxic chemicals are included in the process of making a single paper bag than a plastic one, which clearly does not make them more eco-friendly. Paper bags are not very durable, and they are more likely to get wet, torn or destroyed, so people have to buy them more often.

That would be great, wouldn’t it? Just put the trash in the appropriate bin and it’s done: you did your part to save the world. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Recycling is a good start, for sure, but looking at the numbers, only 9% of all produced plastic gets recycled. Besides, the process of recycling is itself expensive, complicated and has a negative environmental impact. And last but not least, it results in products of lower quality. Another problem is that recycling makes people feel that they are actually contributing to protecting the environment, and therefore leads them to think that it is okay to buy potentially environmentally harmful products, as long as they recycle them later. However, a far better solution would be to simply buy less, to buy differently and to buy only what you really need. That way, we are more likely to stop the garbage stream from flowing.

Well, no. Obviously it would be wonderful to live your life leaving no trash at all, but that’s not necessarily what Zero Waste is about. While the goal may indeed be to send no waste to landfill, it is nearly impossible to produce no trash. Therefore, living the Zero Waste lifestyle is rather about trying to reduce, refuse and reuse as much as possible. You don’t have to deverything perfectly, and it is fine to fail sometimes. Just do whatever you can, and remember that