#practical zero waste

Besties there is so much you can do.

You got chores? Dishes one of them?

You can fill up the sink with water and wash with just that. Less water than constantly running

I find that gross but my grandma does it. When I do dishes I use a jar with a drop of soap, fill it with water, and dip my scrub brush in that so I'm not wasting soap.

Dry dishes with a towel

Air dry your dishes

You can also ask if you can keep a potted plant (edible plants are bonus points) or a garden

Also bonus points if you use food scraps for a garden. That's a whole topic for another post another day but seriously look into it

Or you can trade plants with friends and neighbors

Or steal cuttings

You can wash your clothes on cold, ask if you can hang dry your clothes

You can use eco friendly laundry detergent, or just start using the actual amount needed. That stuff is so concentrated it isn't even funny

Use reusables whenever you can

Try to eat less processed foods

Try to eat more plant based

Try to limit your car trips

Take walks and pick up litter

Go to the beach and pick up litter

Bonus points for separating recyclables

Learn to repair your clothes, a basic sewing kit should be all you need for simple mends

Shop at yard sales, thrift shops, second hand, or local

Shampoo bars

Soap bars

Yes including hand soap

Weave baskets out of toilet paper rolls. No idea how you do it but I've seen it and they look pretty cool

Learn an "old fashioned" skill, like spinning yarn, canning, gardening, basket weaving, wood carving, etc

First thing is we reuse everything. We have a portion of our shelves dedicated to holding plastic food containers we have washed and are waiting to be used to hold leftovers, dried foods, as seed starting pots, etc. We also save any and all jars to hold dried herbs and food products.

Actually reuse is a big thing for us. We shop at places that use paper bags, which I then cut up to use as scrap paper for grocery lists, etc and then compost after that. We also have a small container with rubber bands from products, bread ties, etc.

If you can afford the start up costs and have the space, preserving your own food is excellent. We have a really small garden that produces a lot of food every year. My favorites are dehydrating (using a dehydrator that is at least 30 years old from back when my grandpa was into making jerky), freezing, and canning.

Also, use every bit of food. Right now in the freezer I have bags of apple cores and peeling, pear cores and peeling, and peach peels along with bags of bones and veggie scraps for broths. The fruit scraps will go towards making big batches of jelly when canning season is over. I'll probably use the pulp leftover to dehydrate and powder to add to baked goods following a success with crabapple jelly pulp. I've also made spaghetti sauce out of tomato peels. Anything rotting or absolutely unusable gets tossed in the compost.

Reusables!! Obviously in today's world you can't avoid plastic but you can reduce how much you use. We use reusable produce bags that I made out of scrap Tulle, reusable grocery bags, water bottles, ziploc bags, etc.

If you have a yard or space, composting is a big one! My grandma says she never realized how much food we tossed until we started one. You don't even have to spend money on it! I know people who use totes they drilled holes into, just toss it In a hole in their garden, etc. The one I use is an old hose winder (one of those cube ones( that broke and my work was going to toss. All I did was cut out the hose winding part and paint it pretty and it's held up for 2 years and counting so far.

Hang dry clothes. In summertime we almost exclusively dry our clothes on a line or on a clothes drying rack I found at a yard sale.

Keep your heat or ac a few degrees higher or lower depending on the season. This helps save energy being used to heat or cool your house.

Wash clothes in cool or cold water. I've been doing this for years and haven't noticed a difference.

Repair. You don't have to be a sewing genius to quickly repair a small tear, especially if it's just for household wear. A great winter time hobby to pick up when gardening season is over.

Trade! This can be as simple as hosting a clothing swap all the way up until trading items u grew/made for items they did! I barter with my coworkers all the time, just talk to them! I never would have known my coworker kept bees if she didn't really like my jellies and proposed a trade. I also trade any of my soft produce I don't have time to do anything with to my coworker with rabbits in exchange for poop for the garden.

Try to be in season from local sources such as garden stands, or just a local grocery store. One of our local farms grew bell peppers and was selling then 2 for a dollar! So we stocked up and dehydratedand froze lots of peppers for winter stews

Blended pumpkin guts makes an excellent pumpkin puree, even if you're just adding little bits of it to your dog's food :)

You can freeze a lot of stuff! Leftover spaghetti sauce, pumpkin puree, etc can all be frozen in a muffin pan and then put in bags for future use!

Forage! I personally mostly forage for greens and a few mushrooms I am confident in my ability in but that still bulks up your food supply as well as medicine supply! I made a salve using bartered beeswax and spring purple dead nettle and summer plantain (and some tea tree EO) for cuts and scrapes and it works miracles! My coworkers love it as well as friends and family

Added an egg carton as a seed starting tray, covered in plastic from clearance orchids i impulse purchased. Currently sprouting two heirloom tomatoes, two heirloom cucumbers, dill, cilantro, and purple basil

Two celery ends I'm regrowing in an old cat treat container

Two clearance cacti i also impulse bought using peanut butter lids as saucers and an old aloe plant i found tucked away by a windowsill that we all forgot about (oops) also with a peanut butter lid saucer

My moss terrarium i dug up out of the woods once that had moss in it, watered like twice, and let keep growing. Going on like three or four years now

Found a sprouting onion in the fridge so like any logical person i ripped it apart, kept the usable parts, composted the rest, and am now rooting in oui jars

And then an actual update: got some carrot greens finally, once they all sprout I'll transplant them to more oui jars but with dirt

My favorite hair scarf that was my very first one and i already bought it old as shit got a stain on it, and my grandma was hand washing it for me with just water because it is Delicate and the water itself put holes in it it was that worn/old. However I'm a sentimental fool who loved the stupid thing and it was my Literal Favorite so we had a big picture frame with a piece of art my grandma was going to toss (it was mass produced not an original, she bought it off of QVC once upon a time) and i just wrapped the head scarf around the back of the old print and it actually looks really good we both love it even with the hole in the scarf. I'm also a sentimental fool who was thinking that maybe it'll get passed on one day as "grandma's/aunt's/sisters favorite head scarf" but idk I'm just a fool 😂

Here we have a little bit of everything lol. Heirloom Cotton seeds that I'm growing for my living history demonstrations as a spinner and to keep the breeds alive in a reused salad container greenhouse

Sprouted garlic for the greens in a bottle cap top (possibly from a small peanut butter? Not sure we keep all kinds of caps in a big jar)

Carrot tops from my last post in reused oui yogurt jars for salad greens, haven't sprouted yet and an avocado pit I'm trying to sprout for a house plant. I don't have hopes it'll produce any fruit but my grandma likes tropical houseplants, the peels from said avocado are in the freezer to use as dye and said living history reenactments

And sweet potatoes that started to sprout in reused fast food cups i save for greenhouses, also sprouting for houseplants for my grandma. I would plant them in the garden but they're so much hassle in my zone that they aren't worth the valuable space they'd take up

So I was scrolling through the Christmas tag and realized I could make a post about our low waste Christmas stuff

Make a pinecone garland. We collect ours from the alley behind the house but you can also collect them from the woods, parks, etc. All you do is take the pinecone and tie a rustic twine around them. You can also use this method for ornaments

Dried orange garland. Compostable and looks neat, you can reuse every year if done right but if you don't, bam compost. I recommend using a cotton twine for extra compost abilities

Same thing with food garland for the tree, use cotton for easily compostable.

Or make a garland for the birds outside! I recommend this link: https://www.thespruce.com/bird-garland-project-diy-385752

Please forgive me for the actual link i have no idea how to hyperlink on tumblr

Vintage! We have an antique store with a vendor who sells ornaments for 1$ no matter what. I've gotten so many cool and unique pieces from her.

Actually a lot of my Christmas decor is second hand, especially keep an eye out at summer yardsales

Thrift gifts! I went to a church sale on the last day so they had a fill a garbage bag for 3$ sale! I completely bought out their mugs and I'm going to fill them with baked goods for my coworkers that work with me on Christmas eve as something extra festive :)

Besties this is popular on TikTok rn but I've been doing it for a hot minute but use tree skirts as shawls or sew together for skirts! Super cute and can find second hand easily enough

Gift handmade items. I love receiving and giving items i made myself

We also reuse wrapping paper, gift bags, tissue paper, etc

You can also use paper grocery bags as wrapping paper along with cotton string

You can decorate packages with dried orange slices, cinnamon sticks (a little pricy though), pine boughs, etc for a little flare