https://new.express.adobe.com/webpage/Z56a3yB4WSTvk
Here are some of my notes I took beforehand to make this project
NMD 200 – Project 3 (Produce No Waste) (750 – 1,250 words) (+10 images)
What is it?: Making sure to use all of our resources around us so nothing goes to waste.
Example 1: From https://permacultureprinciples.com/permaculture-principles/_6/
- When old clothes are the best clothes, Gerard has been wearing the same work pants for the past 10 years. They were a hand me down from his son. If his pants are ever damaged his wife Amanda just stitches the pants back up by hand.
- Taking care of what we have, many of our repair skills have been lost due to time. This is due to cheaply made mass produced items that aren’t designed to be long lasting. There is a repair cafe where you can go to learn how to repair so we can keep these products long lasting while still gaining some new skills in repair.
- Valuing what you have, David Cameron has had the same car since his 18th birthday, he’s been able to keep it running all these years, he even passed it onto his six children. It was long lasting with regular checks. A well done lesson of valuing and caring for what you have, not just waiting for it to break.
Example 2: From https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/how-to-reduce-waste
- No plastic bottles, 40% of bottled water that is sold is actually just tap water. Instead of falling for this marketing investment in a nice quality water bottle of your own, doing something as simple as that can make a big difference in how much plastic we see in our oceans.
- Invest in a set of cloth produce bags, plastic bags are another thing that leaves us with tons of plastic on our beaches, those flimsy plastic bags that are so easily torn into tiny pieces. Investing in something like a simple reusable bag can be great on both ends, you won’t have to pay extra for store bags and you can have way more space in some of these bags compared to store bags.
- Green up your closet, buying from your favorite expensive clothing brands can be risky. Instead, hitting up your local thrift store can be more worthwhile. You can get clothes for cheaper and you can be reusing old clothes as new, this could do good against things like fast fashion that has become more relevant in recent years.
- Plan your meals, meal planning can be a game changer. It can make grocery trips easier, save money on food costs, and reduce waste because this method will ensure you use all the food you purchased beforehand.
- Reusing old clothes, making cloth rags out of old clothes is an easy thing to do. It can replace paper towels even.
- Use digital instead of print, switching to digital documents to save paper and ink can come with good. This is even easier to accomplish now with the new rise in technology, most teachers in school have switched to completely online so papers aren’t the biggest need. With less papers and ink comes less toxins BPA and BPS too.
Example 3: From https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/how-to-start-a-zero-waste-lifestyle.html
- In this article we meet Andrea Kramar, she made a goal to live on a zero waste plan for one week and she says she barely made it. Kramar talks about her experiences and challenges but also adds on some of the pros of doing this method.
- For months she felt bad doing things such as grabbing plastic forks for meals, it felt like a daily routine “eat, waste, feel bad; eat, waste, feel bad.” That’s when she saw internet influencers like Lauren Singer and Jonathan Levy who were living a “zero waste” lifestyle.
- “In 2015, the U.S. generated approximately 262 million tons of waste..Americans individually generate 4.4 pounds of waste per day.”
- She made changes quickly like carrying a backpack filled with metal silverware, a washcloth, and containers. Andrea made sure to avoid paper receipts but she even went a whole day without water because she forgot her water bottle one day (maybe not do this).
- “Zero waste, it turns out, takes not only planning and extra time – but also gumption.” (Gumption means to be determined and full of courage).
- While exploring her new zero waste challenge the people around her were giving a bit of mixed reactions, she says she asked her server at a gelato place to put hers into her ziploc container from home. He did end up doing this for her but it can be an understandable reaction, you don’t see this everyday and in the U.S. it could even be seen as foreign.
- She says, “..the more I focused on reducing my waste, the more I felt like a dinosaur – awkward and out of place.” So it can be truly hard to take the first steps in a new lifestyle when the other people around you aren’t. It can be different to them, hard to understand but it’s important to try to understand why that person is doing what they are doing, maybe they shouldn’t see it as weird by giving a look but maybe ask, “hey, why are you doing this?”
- It’s been a struggle for her overall and reminder this is just for a week, one day she did give in and did order some fast food but should she be punished for this? It’s great that she’s even trying this in the first place, it can be expected for her to live this life everyday but the fact she is trying is a good enough effort compared to others and she still is for sure making a difference, so yes it is okay to have a cheat day.
- Andrea says she went from using about 10 single use containers to two a week and saved plenty on paper products as well.
- Grocery stores don’t make this any easier for Andrea, items are there glowing, attracting her wanting them to buy it in American stores. With lanes full of candy or soda it can be hard to say no, why is it our stores have a smaller portion of healthy foods compared to the other 75% of the stores filled with snacks such as that.
- At the end of her experienced zero waste week she realized how hard it was to live this lifestyle, it was a challenge. That is something that can make this task hard for anyone and it’s sad to say the better way to live life is the hardest method.
- She says the most annoying part of this week was washing things regularly, but that’s just another part people may not want to do, extra simple tasks that were once easy can be difficult for people.
- Plastics can take thousands of years to break down completely, with that knowledge you can only imagine how much plastic build up there is.
- In a recent study done by Columbia researchers they found that water bottles have more than 10-100 times more plastic bits.
- Some ways to reduce plastic use can be re-wearing clothes more often, washing them less often, and trying to fix them before replacing them.
- Taking part in neighborhood swaps, with this you can exchange items and materials you don’t want anything and can have something new instead with a quick swap.
- Stop using single-use plastic bottles, Americans buy 50 billion water bottles per year, using a reusable water bottle can save 156 bottles per person per year.
- Not all businesses do this but you can attempt to bring your own coffee cups to a place such as Dunkin Donuts, saving use on the business using one less plastic cup than before.
- Recycling can be a big help, but if you’re not sure if something can be recycled or not, it’s a better choice to throw it away. We call this not “wish cycle”
Example 5:
- Textile is a type of fabric or material which is made from fibers that are in different types of clothing and household items.
- Every year there is over 34 billion tons of textile waste that comes from the U.S. alone.
- Each person makes 100 pounds of textile waste per year.
- People and families that make a higher income per year make 76% more textile waste than lower income families.
- 66% of textile waste ends up in U.S. landfills where it is set to decompose, but as said earlier some of these materials can take decades to decompose.
- Even though landfills are designed to maintain harmful gases and pollutants it still poses health risk to nearby communities.
- Only 15% of used textiles are recycled, 50% of it is shipped to the global south.
- Many of these landfills in foreign countries cause environmental and health damage due to its poor waste management systems.
- Decomposing waste releases gases and chemicals that pollutes air, soil, and water.
- Clothing has clogged gutters which has led to more flooding and water diseases.
- Burning the waste has created severe air pollution which contributes to poor respiratory and cardiovascular health.
- Many people assume donating clothes to places such as Salvation Army or Goodwill will ensure it is reused locally for someone that needs it but the truth is excess clothing is often shipped abroad.
