We Want You to take the zero waste challenge.

For the past few months you’ve been working admirably through your waste in order to get your trash can to a svelte sized zero. Next month over 600 people are waiting to celebrate with you, taking part in a Zero Waste Week. The week takes place from September 3-9 and is in its fifth year.

Just for you I’ve kept the theme light this year and not at all overwhelming, dubbing it “One more thing.” I’m asking: “What one more thing could you recycle during Zero Waste Week to make an even bigger difference?”

The idea behind the week is to gather support, momentum and fun as we work together towards a common goal. By choosing something simple it makes the week inclusive. No matter where you are on your zero waste journey, there is always one more thing you can do.

Ideally we wouldn’t even focus on recycling; we’d look at getting to the root of the issue which is our love of consumerism. Most of us buy blindly, not really thinking about what will happen to the product or the packaging once we’ve finished using it. Worse still we buy stuff we don’t even want or need; but more on that another time.

If you’re recycling like a pro already then you can still take part in Zero Waste Week. Some participants are setting up wormeries or compost heaps. Others are decluttering their closets and taking things to charity shops. Other people are going to refuse to buy things in non-recyclable packaging.

My personal goal is eliminating food waste. Recently I’ve started to let things languish in the back of the refrigerator. Only this week I had to toss some ham that was hidden behind other things, black currants that were sporting blue furry jackets and pizza that I left in the oven instead of putting into the fridge. Who wants to waste pizza?

So have a think about that procrastination job you’ve been meaning to get around to – perhaps you’ve promised yourself you’ll find a local tetra pak recycling area or check out your local farmer’s market. Maybe you haven’t organized your reusable bags yet or have a pile of stuff to take to the textiles bank.

Whatever your goal for Zero Waste Week there’s no excuse – you’re going to get all the support you need. Come and sign up to our event on Facebook, share the twitter hashtag #zerowaste or if social media isn’t your thing come and tell us what you’re up to on the Zero Waste website.

The Facebook event is where most activity is taking place and people from all over the world are sharing wonderful advice and having great discussions – we’ve been talking about reusing cable ties (apparently you can carefully remove them for reuse; who knew!) along with ideas for reducing food waste and 101 uses for old glass jars.

What are you waiting for? Your challenge awaits and I know you’re ready.

Image: The Daily Green/Mark Langan

The post Do You Have What It Takes For a Zero Waste Week? appeared first on EcoSalon.

The author of the hugely successful UK blog My Zero Waste challenges people to join a waste-free week away from home.

I recycle so much trash it’s embarrassing. To show you the state of my bins would be to out me as a hard-pressed consumer whose attempts at not producing waste are at most futile.

Prior to encountering the Greens – a.k.a. Rachelle Strauss, her husband Richard, their seven year-old daughter and black-and-white kitty cat, who’s now deceased, I felt rather confident with my waste management skills. Overall, I’d give myself a seven out of ten. Until I saw this:

It was enough to make me shrivel. That, my friends, is what Rachelle, author of the hugely successful UK green blog My Zero Waste, was sending to the dump one month last winter.

A combination of albatross and sea turtle horror stories, plus a “traumatic” family vacation evacuation blamed on “strange weather” led them to embark on their zero waste experiment, which they now sustain as a way of life.

Let’s take a bottle of milk as an example. Silica-sand is formed into glass and then made into a bottle, which is filled with milk and sold to the consumer. A responsible consumer would toss that bottle into a recycling bin. A Zero Waste consumer would return the bottle to the original distributor to be washed, refilled, and sold to someone else. The only “waste” produced would be the water the bottled is washed with, but even that can serve its purpose.

Zero-wasting (or even nominally wasting), is all rather simple, and doable, particularly from the comfort of your own home. Controlling outside waste, however, is the real challenge. Like, I never remember to say no to straws while out and about, because they remind me of Shirley Temples. I would never drink a Shirley Temple now, of course, because of the “empty calorie” factor. Instead, I’m producing “empty waste.”

In their fourth annual Zero Waste Week, Strauss and friends are focusing on “Reducing waste away from home.” You can join them from September 5^th to the 11^th by participating in small, but impactful, acts of waste reduction. For example, use your own travel mug. Bring fruit peelings and cores accumulated on the road to compost at home. Avoid straws and disposable cutlery when eating out.

Also, chime in your efforts on My Zero Waste. Sign up for the Facebook event. Even tweet with the hashtag #nzww.

It might seem small or self-evident until we consider the milk bottle again. After it’s washed, refilled and resold, imagine if the consumer on the other end was a zero-waster like you. Now, that would be a veritable flash mob – one worth boasting about.

Images: ruminatrix; John Wardell

The post Shelter Challenge: Have a Zero Waste Week appeared first on EcoSalon.