How I Started Going Zero Waste

I wrote a more poetic treatise on this subject with lots of Kardashian references for another project. Until it's ready for publication, this will have to do. After reading the Sunset article about Bea Johnson, I decided to try zero waste for three weeks. The deadline wasn't arbitrary- I can barely commit to a new hairstyle, let alone new habits, and a month seemed like more than I could handle. This was when I still lived in a small suburb of Cleveland and regularly live tweeted issues of VOGUE, so I figured I could just stop after a few days if it was terrible. The idea was to attempt two waste-free days the first week, three the second week, and four days by week three. My main goal was reducing the amount of garbage created by using less, buying less, and wasting less. Barring that, I wanted to reuse whatever possible to avoid buying new things that would eventually go to landfill. Recycling was the last resort. I recorded everything I threw away for two days, as a baseline. I also tracked electricity and water consumption. Here's what I wrote:

Garbage / Consumption	2016 Thoughts
1 minute to run water to drink
2 minutes running water for green tea
12 green tea packet paper bags, non compostable. Eliminate tea bags by taking jar to Emily's and filling it with leaves. I don’t think I should drink so much, but I have such a high tolerance now and all tea seems weak without this many bags in it. The tea used to help my skin, but now my sebaceous glands must be inured to its antioxidant properties.	Who was Emily? I don't remember being friends with this person. Also who uses the word inured I'm so embarrassed
Cat litter bag. Instead of throwing it away, take it to my mom's and refill with litter	These were actually my private notes at the time: "Mitigation, no net loss in plastic waste. Like beating your wife and then making a donation to a women's shelter after."
3 hot chocolate packets
5 paper towels
Viviscal packet. I used to have really long hair and I miss it. I got gum stuck in my hair and had to cut a huge chunk of it out so the rest of my hair had to be trimmed to match. I don't need hair to my waist again but I do want it to be longer than all of my friends	Lol that I wanted it to be longer than my friends' hair
Cats are outdoor cats and wear flea collars so I never realize how filthy they are. Well my brother has been letting them in and insisting on sleeping with them (Kleenex needed, he’s allergic) plus he replaced their collars with NFL ones so they brought in, not fleas, but these weird mothlike creatures that populate wherever they sit	What does this have to do with garbage? Also my brother isn't allergic to cats?
Drycleaning bag, three hangers, and receipt	I probably drycleaned something from Forever 21
Jennie O turkey burger box	Originally written "Jennie O'Turkey" as if it were a character from The Dubliners
Plastic from Kirkland bacon package	Nobody had a Costco membership so where did this come from
Styrofoam from chicken
Local newspaper
11 pages of Paula Deen recipes that can't be made gluten free	:(
Two tea bag envelopes and tags	Where did the other ten go?
Skippy Peanut Butter jar	It wasn't even organic?!
Pasta Kids gluten free packaging
1 moldy muffin
Paper towel roll
Dairymen's milk carton
1 broken chopstick
Box from Starbucks K Cup pack	We didn't drink coffee, nor did we own a Keurig
Expired Ulta coupon
Grocery receipt
Bent staple I stepped on	I love my attention to detail
Lysol wipe
Avocado from Chile	I forgot to add I recorded my food too
Tomatoes from Michigan	They grew in the backyard so this seems pointless
Oranges from Chile
Lunch meat from Batavia
Stale corn chips	It's unclear whether I ate these or threw them away
Rotted onions	Hope this was garbage
Filled 12 oz and 1 quart saucepan / pots halfway with water, soaked pots after cooking pasta, dumped pasta water and dishwater in sink
Left water running while washing hands
Used sprayer to rinse sink
Plastic packaging of new batteries
Takeout soda cup and straw
Drove to school, mall, grocery store, home, friend's house, home
Drove to brother's school, went home, drove back, mall, home, mall, my school	I think I worked at the mall at the time I hope I wasn't hanging out
Headphones
Band aid
Izze caps (BPA lined)	This is a brand of soda you can get at Chipotle. I'm assuming I also made Chipotle garbage and just forgot to include it
Contact lens packaging	I don't even wear contacts
Debit card I reported lost, when in reality it was on the kitchen counter the whole time
Used Target gift card
23 sheets of school papers
1 Icelandic krona that I gave to my brother as a souvenir but the cats chewed
11 dry, exploded, or broken pens
7 Capri Sun foil packets
Plastic oatmeal bag
Two cat beds that they refuse to use except as scratching posts, shredded
Food bag
2 ripped t-shirts
Dryer sheets and dryer lint	We didn't have a dryer so again where is this coming from
Catalog
Ice cream spoons and complimentary cones	The cones had gluten so why didn't I just say no
Plastic tape from package
Plastic cap from milk

After establishing a baseline, I made a bunch of charts and calculations because Asian. This involved multiplying each water usage (minutes running or number of flushes / dishwasher loads / washing machine loads) by the appropriate flow rate (in gallons/minute) to determine the total gallons of water used. I used the number of gallons for standard (pre-1994) fixtures, even though they were newer fixtures, which presumably decreased water usage. For hot water, I multiplied water usage by flow rate (in gallons/minute) to determine total gallons of water heated. This assumes hot water heated to 140 degrees F, starting at 55 degrees. Raising the temperature of one gallon of water by 85 degrees requires 440 BTU, so to determine total energy usage, I multiplied gallons used by 440. For electricity, I recorded the hours each appliance operated and multiplied the number of hours used by the number of watts, then divided that number by 1000 to get kilowatt-hours (KWH). Each kilowatt-hour is equivalent to 3412 BTU, so I multiplied KWH by 3412 to find BTU. USDA National Nutrient Database and The Oil Drum data helped me calculate how much energy was needed to produce my food each day, which makes a lot of assumptions, but this was already nerdy enough without me harping on little details.

The only things I did to reduce trash were refuse things I didn't need and bring my own bags to the grocery store (including a lingerie bag for produce- I didn't know), or Pyrex for meat and cheese. I remember asking at the counter for stuff in my own container and they had to check with the manager if it was okay. The local ice cream shops were the nicest about putting vegan flavors in my jars. At first, people raised eyebrows I presented bags at the cash register, but they got used to it eventually. I ate differently too- mostly simple plant-based one pot meals, at home, no soda. Wrapping sandwiches in cloth instead of Cling Wrap helped. Lastly, this was the first time I tried flour sack towels instead of paper towels to clean. I was hooked. I still used synthetic chemical cleaners then though.

Note: This is summary data. I have exhaustive pdfs listing all my garbage, recycling, food (including the Ohio farms from which groceries were purchased) and steps taken to reduce waste each week- like taking cold showers, which I think I only did because Martha Stewart said she did that to improve skin tone- if anybody wants them.

DATA

Category	Baseline	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Garbage (# of items)	61.5	0	0	0
Recycling (# of items)	28	9	2.5	1
Water usage (minutes)	63.5	18.5	21.3	24.5
Water usage (gallons)	217.5	129.5	121.3	126.75
Water usage (BTU)	30,580	22,220	8213.3	11,000
Electricity (hours)	78.4	10.215	5.716	10.8
Electricity (BTU)	19,440.44	5944.3862	3290.679	2936.0593
Calories	5016.5	1487	1641.4	2361.05
Protein (grams)	133.75	89.8	54.4	64.46
KCal	5820.5	2005.5	2711	2792.67

1. GARBAGE

Baseline week: 61.5 items of garbage per day, 28 items of recycling

Week 1: Zero items of garbage per day, 9 items of recycling

Week 2: Zero items of garbage, 2.5 items of recycling

Week 3: Zero items of garbage, 1 item of recycling

Reduction in Environmental Impact: Baseline week vs. final week

61.5-0= 61.5  

61.5/61.5=100% reduction in garbage, 28-1=27

27/28= 96.42% reduction in recycling

2. ELECTRICITY AND WATER

Electricity

Baseline week: 78.4 hours of usage, 19,440.44 BTU

Week 1: 10.215 hours, 5944.3862 BTU

Week 2: 5.716 hours, 3290.679 BTU

Week 3: 10.8 hours, 2936.0593 BTU

Reduction in Environmental Impact: Baseline vs. Final Week

78.4-10.8= 67.6/78.4= 86.22% reduction in electric consumption

Water

Baseline week: 63.5 minutes of usage, 217.5 gallons, 30,580 BTU

Week 1: 18.5 minutes, 129.5 gallons, 22,220 BTU

Week 2: 21.3 minutes, 121.3 gallons, 8213.3 BTU

Week 3: 24.5 minutes, 126.75 gallons, 11,000 BTU

Reduction in Environmental Impact: Baseline vs. Final Week

63.5-24.5 min=39 minutes/63.5 minutes= 61.4% reduction in water consumption

3. EATING EFFICIENCY

Baseline week: 5016.5 calories, 133.75 grams of protein, 5820.5 kcal

Week 1: 1487 calories, 89.8 grams of protein, 2005.5 kcal

Week 2: 1641.4 calories, 54.4 grams protein, 2711 kcal

Week 3: 2361.05 calories, 64.46 grams protein, 2792.67 kcal

Reduction in Environmental Impact: Baseline vs. Final Week

5820.5-2792.67 kcal= 3027.83 kcal/5820.5- 52.02% reduction in energy needed to produce my food

Here were my reflections at the time:

I thought I was fairly good about living sustainably—no meat, no plastic containers, and I’m almost always in the dark, so I was shocked to see the breadth of my environmental impact on paper. Zero waste project days required advance planning and creativity, but now that I'm accustomed to carrying around glass jars, laundry bags, and reusable shopping bags to the grocery store, it’s not difficult at all to avoid plastics and excess packaging. There is an anecdote in “The Story of Stuff” in which the writer recounts living in Bangladesh and getting a garbage can for herself.  As the weeks passed, she started noticing her garbage resurfacing around the neighborhood.  Her Pantene shampoo bottle became a toy car, with holes drilled in the sides and rods and wheels attached, and a little boy dragged it around the neighborhood with a string.  A similar incident happened while I was staying in Mongolia—I got a little bag for my garbage, and put an empty lip balm container in it.  An Altaic family used the top as a thimble, and they also used the magazines I brought to insulate their yurt.  This showed me that for some people, there truly is no such thing as “away,” and everything can be repurposed in a useful way.   

Eating vegan and locally helped me meet zero waste goals. I started sourcing foods from local farms, which meant less packaging and more reusable crates and jars. Although I did end up driving around more often to source bulk gluten-free flour, milk for my roommates (2016 note: That meant my brother and sister, that's cute), and package-free vegetables, I feel that's less of a pernicious danger than petroleum derived plastic sitting around in a landfill for thousands of years leaching chemicals, not to mention the enormous resource input used for package production.  Instead of being disconnected from my food sources, the quest for package-less food put me in touch with producers.   I developed relationships with the people giving me food, who all remembered the girl carrying apples in rags and juice in a Worcestershire sauce bottle.   

Zero waste seemed radical to the people I encountered at first— my boss thought I was drinking vodka in my glass bottle (2016 note: Ok, now I remember. I wasn't working at the mall, I was working for this evil developer. So I was hanging out at the mall that much?)— and everyone said avoiding plastic was impossible. After reminding them this was the way people had done things for centuries (2016 note: I've always relished telling people when they're wrong which is probably why it's hard for me to sustain relationships), they started seeing how it made sense. Girls at work began bringing lunch in glass containers instead of plastic ones, and forks they could wash instead of disposables.  They also brought me vegan recipes, books on adopting vegan diets, and vegan burgers they made themselves.  While I don’t think I can sustain a perfectly zero waste lifestyle forever, I can definitely live without taking trash out every week, and I can absolutely stick to the vegan diet. 

Over the past two weeks, all the garbage I made fit in a little grocery bag, and I successfully managed to bypass using plastic or disposable products on the plane ride (2016 note: Wait, where did I go? Mongolia? Actually I think the lip balm story wasn't even Mongolia it was the Russian border bc that's the only visa I have) by bringing my own food and canteen. Though I thought the drastic decrease in caloric content would leave me wan and drained, I ended up feeling a lot lighter and more energetic. My cooking improved, and whereas my siblings dreaded eating my food in the past, they asked me to make vegan dishes by week three (2016 note: Almost positive this was a lie). There was a surprising variety and color in the recipes I tried during this project, and there are many more recipes I have yet to try.  In the future, I would like to focus more on eating locally, because I have only scratched the surface when it comes to the abundance of food available in our region (2016 note: Ugh how basic is my writing here. The journals of Anais Nin these are not).

I took cold showers to reduce my energy consumption these past few weeks, which aren't something I’ll ever try again (2016 note: Little did I know I'd be loving these during la canicule), and while I don’t think I’ll be timing my showers regularly, I am more conscious now about my water usage. I learned to shut the water off while washing my hair (2016 note: LOLZ now I never wash it), collect water while the shower is heating for watering plants, and use 2-liter bottles filled with stones in the toilet tank to add volume, thereby conserving water. To cut my electricity consumption, I will never go to bed without turning the smart strip off again. In future iterations of this project, I think a category on chemical usage, such as those used in cleaning products and personal care products, would be an interesting exercise, as would a clothing category in which I try wearing sustainable clothing and accessories—no leather or cotton, for instance.

It's so weird to think I'm still doing the same stuff I started as a college project, except now I have to pay bills and I'm uglier. Reading through this old journal felt like reading the first romantic texts you send during a new relationship (no green bubbles), conjuring up all these emotions and memories of excitement, anticipation, and triumphant happiness experienced in my early days of zero waste. As the title implies, this exercise helped me ease into the lifestyle, and I think it might help others too. Just try a few days a week. Don't let anyone tell you zero waste won't affect your carbon footprint- even the limited data here suggests reduction, to say nothing of the EPA's estimate that US municipal solid landfill waste was the third largest methane emission source of 2015. Also, the picture here has nothing to do with zero waste. I just like how my hair looks and how it shows the hose from a sustainable water conservation system and that I'm wearing thrifted clothes.