It’s 30 days zero waste again people!! It’s been a year since I did the last challenge. I’ve grown and some things I still use and some things I’ve fallen off the wagon. So let’s try again for a new journey. Please give me your tips!
Day 1 - Water. Last year I started using a thermos as a water bottle to keep it cold. That fell away. Mainly because it was too big, and didn’t hold enough water and was very heavy. So! Today my client gave me a bottle of water and instead of grabbing another one I re-filled it up at their office at the tap before I left. Feel free to give me recommendations on what worked for you.
Day 2 - Takeaway! I’m mixing it up from last year a bit. Today we went to do the shopping (with our reusable shopping bags that are common place and not so shocking anymore) and we wanted some lunch out and had previously saved some plastic bowls from wokken at our shops because they were so sturdy and awesome! So I ducked home and grabbed them with our cutlery. The guy was so happy that we brought our own containers and cutlery that he threw in a free coke! (For Dez not me).
Day 3 - Toys! Unfortunately Elise loves kinder surprises which are the worst for Zero waste. I try however to make some toys. For example, she loves it when I make play dough. She asks me to make it and sometimes we make it together. We use normal kitchen ingredients so it can be composted afterwards and it doesn’t come in a little tub that will get thrown away after it is done being pummelled. I use cookie cutters so she can use them to play with the dough and she likes to make shapes too. If you have the ingredients on your shelf then there’s always playdough to make when requested! Other than that I have made edible paint for her before and we have a bunch of wooden toys too. She enjoys getting handed down toys from Cassie Rowlands and we sometimes make bikkies, cakes, muffins together.
Day 4 - shaving! I have a razor with replaceable blades. I have not recycled them yet but I hear you can. So far I have just kept them ready to recycle. I use shaving soap in a wooden bowl and the shaving brush is horse hair. Usually they are badger hair but I chose the horse hair because it’s more sustainable and comes from shaved horses not dead badgers. It takes a little longer to shave but I have the process pretty good now! There are YouTube videos I watched of how to shave as a girl with one of these things.
Day 5 - snacks. I have attached a whole bunch of options. Things like cut up veggies, fruit and boiled eggs so long as the remains are composted. I made the muffins from scratch on the weekend and I made a banana cake from dying bananas which is a little less heathy but yummy option. Also bulk stores are full of snacks which is where the cashews came from. These are the snacks I am preparing for tomorrow at work. I found today a bar of “chocolate” made from Mylk. It’s vegan but wrapped in recycled cardboard printed with vegetable ink and wrapped in a compostable “plastic”. It’s not real chocolate. But it was pretty green and an experience
Day 6 - kitchen cleaning. We have been using the brush on the left which was good but also not really environmentally friendly as the packaging said because of the plastic on the replaceable head. We got the one in the middle recently which you can compost or recycle the head and the bottle brush for Elise’s bottles since we were using a plastic one. The cloth I made myself out of an old towel and some cotton. Hopefully the new brushes work well! We usually clean with vinegar. I hear there is a soap bar you can get for dishes. I’ve not looked too far into it though. Also we use the Coles brand dishwasher tablets because they are the only ones with cardboard packaging and wrappers that dissolve.
Day 7 - pegs! We bought some new pegs that should last a very long time. Our plastic ones are basically dead. The sun has eaten the plastic. These ones will last longer and so should create less waste!
