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Items to Kickstart Your Zero Waste Lifestyle

Items to Kickstart Your Zero Waste Lifestyle

I have complied a list of items that are helpful live a zero waste life. Some are necessary to living a zero waste lifestyle while others are not. 

1. Reusable water bottle- We all own one, you actually probably own more than one. If you are not already using it this is an easy way to kickstart a zero waste lifestyle. The number of disposable water bottles used every year is astounding. Ban the Bottle stated that for 2017 "The average American used 167 disposable water bottles, but only recycled 38". In total "Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year".
Check out this video to look out what happens to three different plastic water bottles that are disposed of in three different ways.

2. If you are a coffee drinker purchase or continuing using a coffee cup or travel mug. To eliminate the waste that disposable coffee cups create, bring your own cup or travel mug to the coffee shop and ask them to use it instead.

3. Another item that you can purchase or make yourself is reusable grocery or shopping bags. Here is a link to Reusable Produce Bags on Amazon. An idea which incorporates the reuse side of zero waste is using t-shirts you no longer wear or left over material from other projects to make reusable shopping bags.



4. For those you can't give up drinking straws, don't worry there are a number of different alternatives to plastic straws. Simple Straws sells a number of different styles, types, length, and colors of glass drinking straws. From there website you can even purchase a cleaning brush and traveling case for the straw. Bamboo straws are another option. On Amazon you can purchase 12 Reusable Bamboo Drinking Straws; a cleaning brush is included.






















5. Biodegradable bamboo silverware is another idea for zero waste item to purchase. This is one of those items that is not necessary for everyone to own. If you already own metal or silver silverware continue to use that.













6. One of the most important items to purchase to kickstart your zero waste lifestyle is glass jars and containers. This is essential for shopping in the bulk section of the grocery store. If you choose to purchase your glass jars from the thrift store and they don't have lids or are not air tight, I would recommend purchasing these lids.


7. The last item I am going to include in this post is zero waste lunch boxes. You can purchase glass or stainless steel eco-friendly lunch boxes. As long as they are plastic free you are good to go. 


The reason for why you should consider purchasing biodegradable products compared to non-biodegrable products is because "Certain industrial products contain substances which, due to low degradability or even toxic characteristics, may build up in nature to levels representing a threat to humanity's future use of the natural resources – that is, drinking water, agricultural soil, air and so on" (Desmond, 2006; Menikpura et al., 2012; Troschinetz and Mihelcic, 2009)
The list for this post is mainly for suggestions on products that can be extremely helpful when you are first starting to live a zero waste lifestyle, but in no way are they entirely necessary to successfully live a zero waste lifestyle.

Sources:

Song, Qingbin, Jinhui Li, and Xianlai Zeng. "Minimizing the increasing solid waste through zero waste strategy." Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015): 199-210.


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