If you follow my blog regularly, you know that I promote the idea that Zero Waste is an aspirational goal, a concept to build your life around and to provide guidance for minimizing the footprint you and your family are leaving on the environment. What Zero Waste is not is an unbending religion or an exclusive group of all-or-nothing adherents.
For individuals pondering the idea of adopting a Zero Waste lifestyle, I encourage writing out a Top Ten List (or whatever number you are comfortable with) of items you’re not ready to/or cannot give up.
In my view, if you’re going to stick to a Zero Waste lifestyle, you must be realistic.
Had I asked anyone in my life, three years ago, what they thought the number one item on my list would be? I know without a doubt that the resounding answer from everyone would have been, “NEW SHOES!”
In the beginning, my husband and I had individual “Mulligan” Lists consisting of a few can’t-live-without personal luxury items as well as a number of household essentials. Much to my own surprise, new shoes did not make my final cut! Over the following weeks, as we went about daily life we encountered several other necessary household items that we’d inadvertently left off our lists. As a result, our lists grew to 14 and 16 items. So the goal in our first year was to find enough alternatives to reduce each list to 10 items.
Here are our original lists with updates:
As you can see, we were able to eliminate items. We did this slowly; we didn’t stress out about finding replacements. Instead, we found alternatives such as stovetop popcorn bought in bulk, plastic-free ice cream bars, and coconut oil in bulk. Over time, by living our daily lives and generally keeping our lists in mind, we were able to achieve our goal.
Now it is important to define what terms dictate your list. How extreme do you want to be? For us, we kept the list exclusively for items packaged in plastic. While we aim to buy as much as possible in bulk, we realize this is not a 100% achievable — yet. We continue to purchase select items in glass bottles, cardboard boxes, and even a few tin cans. Keeping in mind our belief in Progress over Perfection, we strive to keep these packaged items to a minimum. And through our gardening adventures, we plan to reduce/eliminate our dependence on them.
Having a “gimme” list is useful for many reasons. In the beginning, it is a fantastic tool to help you navigate the grocery store. If the items are packaged with plastic and not on your list, don’t buy them. The list is also a reminder of the luxuries you can look forward to. If you are feeling down about not being able to indulge to the extent you did in the past, try focusing on the items on your list that you can still have.
We exist in an “on demand” society where we are used to having what we want, when we want it. Moving away from this way of thinking is going be difficult. The silver lining is that you will start to feel grateful for the times you CAN indulge in items that you no longer purchase for your home. For me, it’s, eating chips and salsa at a restaurant; for my husband, it’s going out for an ice cream cone. Now, when, our kids have something as simple as juice at a friend’s house or at a restaurant, they regard it as a treat. These are all things we used to purchase for the home (and therefore consumed without thought). Now that these items are no longer part of our daily life, we appreciate them in a special way when we have the opportunity to enjoy them. I love this!
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough” – Melodie Beatie
Great way to self reflect on your habits and analyze what you deem as essentials. Love the quote about gratitude you gave at the bottom.
Thanks Nadine! I have found it very useful – for my husband too, especially since he lives this lifestyle because of me and perhaps would not otherwise – so having concrete guidelines are helpful 🙂
What a great idea! I constantly cringe when my husband brings home bags of chips (zero waste was my idea, not his…) and feel guilty when I buy replacement makeup (which I can’t live without!) or a chicken shrink wrapped in plastic (because my local meat counter has issues with my own containers…). I’ll ask my husband and kids (who are also unwilling participants) to write down their top 10 as well and then maybe it won’t be mom ‘making’ them give up items they can’t live without.
Ahh our dearest husbands! I would love to do a vlog of commiserating spouses of Zero Wasters! But yes, having the list really helped both me AND my hubby! Good Luck!
Such a great idea! I’ll talk about it with my boyfriend but I’ll definitely do it for me no matter if he agrees or not.
Nice! YES, I found it really helpful for my husband (who was more or less dragged into this lifestyle). I am also the main shopper so knowing what to buy for him, to keep him happy, was really important to me. Good Luck!
… but why eliminating coconut oil? It is such a healthy and useful product?
We didn’t eliminate coconut oil, we just found it in bulk 🙂
Why risk dental health giving up dental floss – or did you find a replacement
Hi Lynda,
We still floss – I found a plastic free compostable version of floss made by Radius!
One thing I have never been guilty of is having too many pairs of shoes. With one foot bigger than the other and both an extra wide size, I’m happy just to find shoes that fit. When i do, I wear them into the ground!
I sympathize with you! I think it is one of life’s cruel jokes that we must love things that do not love us 😉 I too have very wide feet. And very short feet – people often joke that I have hobbit feet that are missing their second toe knuckles! So I often have to buy shoes that are a 1 -1.5 sizes bigger just to accommodate the width of my feet! Needless to say, open toed sandals look hilarious! I agree with you, never feel guilty for buying shoes that fit well! Buy two pairs!