Lets' Go Zero Waste

My bathroom and kitchen bug me, from a zero-waste perspective, due to all the made-to-jettison crap within them. But my bathroom is worse, because a) it is filled to the brim with over-produced and unrecyclable products that we've all been taught to believe are necessary, which b) may not even be safe to put in or on my body. I'm mostly thinking of synthetic dyes in toothpaste, lotions, mouthwash... makeup too, of course, but I fortunately have never been a regular make-up user. I was, however, raised on Johnson's baby powder, which I for many years incorporated into my AM routine, after my daily shower, as a way to speed up the drying process of my armpits and receive compliments from men (fine, a specific man) about how nice I smelled. I bought the lavender scented kind. But dude, Johnson & Johnson knowingly put poisonous asbestos in it for years. Asbestos which made its way into women using it on a daily basis, and women have died from various cancers as a resu...

I live in Portland, Oregon, a city so awesome that we even have a non-profit dedicated to reducing the stigma of menstruation - called PERIOD . This should serve as a caveat to any reader that I don't have any damn shame talking about a major event which happens to my body every four weeks. This week, I am celebrating the closest-to-zero waste period of my ENTIRE LIFETIME. For reference, I started menstruating at the age of eleven. I am now 41, which is... oh my god, thirty years THIRTY FRACKING YEARS In the beginning, my period meant pads the size and shape of a small fire log. Apparently "absorption technology" didn't exist in 1993, and it was all I had to survive by (my mom being very uncomfortable with the entire subject, to the point it was technically never discussed: boxes of pads appeared on my bed one summer after some weird, rust colored stuff began to mysteriously appear in my underpants. Welcome to puberty!). Lacking guidance and rather confused by...

I was born and raised in Oregon, so to consider going zero waste was perhaps inevitable. The best memories I have from being raised an Oregonian kid always involve the woods, trees, and the waters. Learning about trees in the forest which leaned over in a fairy's arch, spotting outrageous mushrooms sprouting from the strangest places, and losing my oar in the middle of a placid lake - I'm grateful for the nature-based education I received throughout my childhood. Recycling was a given, right along playing the Oregon Trail game on mono-chromatically green computer monitors. Being a kid who cared about the environment was a given. How could you grow up with surrounded by so much accesible natural beauty and not care about its welfare? I was the kid who insisted we cut every plastic six-pack holder before it hit the family's recycling bin, to ensure it could not possibly snare and choke a sea animal. (I was considered a weird kid.)  So it has been a major surprise, if ...

Parallel to the digital trash log exercise is an opportunity to reflect on alternatives to trash production. When I am home, my morning routine is fairly standard, and already reflects some of my zero waste efforts. For example, I typically have a bowl of grits or oatmeal every day. Both are grains purchased in bulk, either from my local Fred Meyer or Bob's Red Mill (which is the best place, ever). I also have a cup of coffee and a cup of tea. I've always thought these to be innocuous, but as it turns out... THERE IS PLASTIC IN YOUR TEABAG.  GreenChild has an article offering more on the WHY plastic is in our damn teabags, so I won't get into that. But this for me has been a VERY BIG DEAL. I drink tea like an English queen. I like it dark and milky, and I like it several times a day. And I've been very self-congratulatory about the fact that tea is quite renowned as a 'healthy' drink - green tea particularly, for its antioxidant properties. So y...

I'm siding with the wisdom of Amy Korst, author of The Zero Waste Lifestyle (and fellow Oregonian!) in that visualizing our own trash waste is a great way to reflect on your entire philosophy of consumption. However, I am unlike Amy in that I do not have time or the emotional fortitude to gather and bag all my trash, to weigh it per week. As mentioned in my manifesto, I gave zero waste lifestyles a valiant effort in 2018 - but suffered whiplash afterwards, feeling like I couldn't possibly do enough to actually help the planet. Still, I did develop several habits which have helped better position me to make a more meaningful and lasting shift. The Digital Trash Log Instead of noting, keeping and weighing my trash, I am opting to use tools I already use often to help me inventory. I use a free Evernote account in general to keep my life organized; and within it I already keep a Zero Waste Lifestyle Tips tracker. I simply created a "Trash Log" that I can add to ...