45 'Zero Waste' Hacks For Anyone Passionate About Saving The Environment

We each have a responsibility to do what we can for the environment by producing less waste and minimizing our impact on the planet.

Stephanie

• Published in Interesting
• September 9, 2021

In this day and age, it's safe to say that most of us are at least somewhat concerned with preserving the environment. After all, global warming is a legitimate concern and a genuine threat to the future of our beautiful planet.

But, sadly, being concerned about it just isn't enough. We each have a responsibility to do what we can for the environment by producing less waste and minimizing our impact on the planet.

The r/ZeroWaste subreddit is doing its part in raising awareness about protecting the environment and providing the online community with valuable tips on how they can do so. "/r/ZeroWaste was created in 2013, and I have personally been a part of the community since 2016, back when we only had around 5,000 subscribers," said one of the group's moderators, Inasaba.

#1 Christmas Tree Rental.

#2 Instead Of Polluting The Planet With Confetti, Hole Punch Leaves! Fully Biodegradable.

#3 My Christmas Present To My Mother In Law. (It Looks Like Her Dog.) I Used All Donated Scrap Fabric. I Throw Away Nothing When Trimming - I Keep Even The Tiniest, Weirdest Pieces When I’m Quilting My Big Quilts, Because You Never Know When Something Is Going To Need A Shadow, A Collar, Or A Nose.

#4 Libraries Are So Vastly Underappreciated.

#5 This Awesome Moroccan School Security Guard Wasted No Quarantine Time And Restored, Free Of Charge, These Benches That Were Supposed To End Up In The Trash So That They Can Be Reused This School Year.

"The sub really started growing in 2018, hitting 100k subscribers by the end of that year. The growth recently has been amazing!" they said.

The subreddit has an expansive wiki designed to educate the community. "Our wiki is largely crowdsourced, especially the page with resources by city," Inasaba said.

"If you view the edit history of each page, you can see which users have contributed edits. There are a few users who have done a lot of work on it, and we are very thankful to them!"

"One of our moderators is also in the middle of some rewrites for clarity," Inasaba said. They also said the wiki is a project produced by the sub's community, for the community.

#6 Recycling Old Picnic Coolers For Stray Cat Shelters.

#7 Turkish Garbage Collectors Open A Library For All Of The Books Citizens Discard In Their Trash.

#8 Italian Brand Barilla Removed The Plastic Window From Their Boxes (UK).

#9 This Was Enough For Me To Finally Kick Starbucks For Good.

#10 Toothbrush With Replaceable Bristles So You Don’t Have To Keep Buying A New Handle.

A challenge that r/ZeroWaste often faces is the difficult task of coming up with new and valid content. "As with any large subreddit, it can be a challenge to keep content relevant, interesting, and fresh," Inasaba says.

"We deal with re-post bots, spammers advertising green-washed products, and a lot of other things that luckily our users never have to see. This is definitely not unique to /r/ZeroWaste, as these are problems that I see on every subreddit I help out with," they said.

"There has also been a bit of difficulty to expand some users' thinking with regards to their impact on the world outside of what they can directly see," Inasaba said. "The subreddit does focus a lot on packaging waste, but much of the waste in the food system occurs before the food reaches our markets."

"Much more impact can be made by shifting to a plant-based diet than to a local one, or a plastic-free one, for instance. But this is something that often faces harsh criticism when brought up in discussion," they explained.

#11 I Just Finished My Latest Art Made Solely Put Of Recycled Wine Foils.

#12 Sunnybee, A Farmer's Market And Store In Chennai, India, Has Begun Wrapping Their Produce In Banana Leaves. Makes Me Glad That My Country Is Thinking Forward Like First World Countries.

#13 My Shopping Bag Has A Printed Holiday Pattern So It Can Be Reused As Wrapping Paper.

#14 This Week I Will Hit My 8000th Bag Of Trash Cleaned Up. I Love My Life, And I Encourage Others To Try This.

#15 This Is Completely Out Of Season And I Did It Four Years Ago, But I Work In A Bakery In A Health Food Store And This Is How I Evaded Throwing Away Broken But Otherwise Perfectly Fine Cookies That Didn't Make The Cut For Platters. Injure Bread Men!

#16 A Few Weeks Back I Put A Box Of Empty Candle Jars Out On My Verge For Giveaway - I Didn't Want To Throw Them Away - And Today I Found A Lil Box Of Candles In My Doorstep With Some Of The Jars Refilled With Lovely Scented Candles.

#17 A Library That Rents Cake Pans!

So, how do you go about convincing someone to start living a more eco-friendly life?

Well, they need to be open to make a change. "If someone isn't in the headspace to want to accept the facts of human-caused climate catastrophe, it will be very difficult to sway them," Inasaba pointed out.

"As for people who are more ambivalent, I believe that exposing them to the realities that are being faced in parts of the world that are more vulnerable to the early effects of climate change can be very powerful. The imagery of landfills overflowing with waste is very powerful, as well as that of the extreme weather effects, desertification, wildfires, and displacement caused by accelerating climate change," they said.

#18 Picked Up A Used Cardigan That Turned Out To Look Much Better In The Picture Than In Person, So I Turned It Back To Yarn And Crocheted The Yarn Into A Cat Bed.

#19 We Need More Coffee Shops To Do This.

#20 You Can Grow Loofahs (They Are In The Cucumber Family), Dry Them And Use Them To Wash Dishes. 5 Plants Make Enough For About 2 Years In Our House. Fully Biodegradable When They're Worn Out.

#21 For Anyone Out There Who Has An Old Trampoline And Isn't Sure What To Do With It.

#22 My Dad Built A Green House Out Of Piles Of Random Stuff He’s Been Saving In The “You Never Know When It Will Come In Useful” Pile. Old Windows, Bits Of Flooring, Recycled Straightened Nails, And Off Cuts Of Steel Roofing. Only Had To Spend $40 On 8 Large Bolts. So Proud Of Him!

The r/ZeroWaste community has an abundance of knowledge to share on preserving our environment. Take, for example, the "5 R's."

"REFUSE what you do not need. REDUCE what you do need. REUSE by using reusables. RECYCLE what you cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse. ROT (compost) the rest," the subreddit says.

It's a step-by-step process, but ultimately, it's about decision-making. When making lifestyle decisions, consider what degree of impact your choice will have on the environment and act accordingly.

#23 Old Spice Has Plastic-Free Deodorant.

#24 Bulk Frozen Vegetables In Romania! First Time I've Seen Something Like This.

#25 Sometimes Junk Store Frames Don’t Come With Hanging Hardware. Tin Can Lids Get The Job Done. Learned This Trick From My High School Art Teacher.

#26 My Boyfriend Wrote A Paper On How Superworms And Mealworms Can Digest Styrofoam Into Biodegradable Waste At A Fast Rate. We Expanded It Into A Project At School This Year. This Is A Farm That I Started A Week Ago. It's Simple And Low Maintenance. Please Try It Out!

#27 Our Local Supermarket Makes Juice Out Of Unsold Fruits. Literally Zero Waste.

#28 As A Truck Driver I Am So Tired Of Seeing Garbage Everywhere Left By Other Drivers. So I Decided To Be The Change That I Wanted To See In The World.

#29 My Drugstore Just Got A Refill Station For Laundry And Dishwashing Detergent!

#30 Decorating My New Apartment My Updating The Furniture Left Behind.

#31 I Built This House Almost Entirely Out Of Dirt And Reclaimed Materials!

#32 Can't Believe A Zero Waste Shop Opened Up Only 15 Minutes From My Rural Village In Scotland!

#33 Today I Collected 8 Bags Of Garbage From Nature... We Try To Justify Our Ignorance In Front Of Ourselves And We Will Say "It's Not Mine", But We Are No Longer Entitled To That Nowadays. Nature Is Our Collective Responsibility, And This Sense Of Responsibility Motivates Me To Clean Up The Forest.

#34 Somebody Made Homes For Street Cats To Take Shelter In Out Of Water Jugs.

#35 My Eldest Daughter, 13, Started Doing Embroidery After She Saw Some Videos On Instagram. Yesterday She Surprised Me With This Beautiful Flower That She Stitched Over A Hole In My Favorite Jeans!

#36 The Paper Didn't Reach.

#37 A Friend And I Have Started Doing Weekly Trash Walks Around Our Neighborhood In La. This Week We Filled Two Whole Trash Bags Going Less Than Two Blocks. We’re Hoping To Keep Growing Our Little “Club” And Maybe Inspire Some Others To Start One Too!

#38 I Sell Clothing Online And Finally Mastered Zero Waste Mailers! Made 100% Of Discarded Plastic And Sealed Shut With My Sewing Machine.

#39 A Local Soapmaker Sells Miscellaneous / Broken Pieces Of Soap Without Packaging At A Discount. Perfect For Trying Out New Scents!

#40 George Kent Using His Own 64oz Nalgene Bottle Instead Of The Single Use Plastic Bottles Provided At The Impeachment Hearing Today.

#41 With An Axe And Two Knives, I Carve Spoons From Freshly Fallen Wood Picked In My Forest. Spoons Are Everyday Tools That Have Been Used Since The Beginning Of Humanity.

#42 Office Goes Zero Waste And Gave Everyone One Of These.

#43 Diyed A Soap Dish Out Of Unused Takeout Chopsticks, Glue, And Thread.

#44 I Used Bird Seed For My Graduation Pictures Instead Of Glitter/Confetti!

#45 A Knit A Sweater Made Entirely Of Old/Scrap Yarns I Had Lying Around.

Stephanie