ZERO
Time to Waste With COVID-19 adding onto our mountains of waste, we can add drowning in trash and producing greenhouse gases to our list of quarantine activities. So how do we do better?
“T by MADISON DE CASTILLE
he zero-waste community is a cult,” notes Melody Dupré, an English major at Capilano University. “Or so I thought before starting this sustainability journey.” With her glossy purple locks and sparkly silver nose stud, Dupré perhaps already resembles the average post-millennial activist. And she’s decided to completely change her relationship with waste. Back in late 2019 and the early days of 2020, climate action was at the forefront. With climate activists like Greta Thunberg reaching bigger platforms, protests were popping up across the globe—including in Vancouver, where over 100,000 protesters marched in September 2019. The attention the climate action movement gained was pushing lawmakers and businesses to change how they interacted with the environment. “I regularly marched pre-pandemic and seeing the thousands of people honestly gave me some hope,” says Dupré. However, with the rapid spread of the
28 march
MAY 2021
COVID-19 virus, our habits have changed. Social distancing, lockdowns and sanitary protocols have resulted in a mountain of additional waste. “The pandemic has thrown us back so far in terms of waste, I see at least a dozen discarded masks or gloves when I walk to the bus stop,” says Dupré. “It’s a nightmare.” So, she started exploring what it would mean to reduce the amount of waste she produces herself. “It seemed simple enough, all I had to do was not produce as much waste,” explains Dupré. “But the more I researched, the more I realized just how much garbage was around me. It was hard to grasp.” From the bigger, more obvious forms of waste like packaging and single-use plastics used in the food industry, to the more hidden ones PHOTO: FAHIM KASSAM