Hello Friends!
As always, thank you for your continuous love and support of Josh and I as we turn everything we used to know about running a household on its head.
Many of you have asked me how the transition is going, so I wanted to send out a little status update. Going Zero Waste has been quite a challenge, but already more rewarding than we could have hoped.
Even now, I see the ways our day-to-day attention to reducing waste is impacting how much trash we send to the curb. It’s really remarkable.
We’ve seriously cut back on our use of single use plastics – such as plastic baggies and plastic wrap. And our efforts to reduce food waste by getting more creative with leftovers and composting the unusable bits have made a huge difference.
Where We’re Struggling
So far, our greatest struggle has been wading through the excess in our home.
The marriage of our two independent lives together, plus the generosity of friends and family who gave us gifts at our wedding (not to mention my eagerness to put together the “perfect home”) means we have more than we need.
Beyond this, I find myself cringing at all of the packaged and processed foods still sitting around in my pantry, or that huge roll of XL garbage bags in the cleaning closet. Our mindset may have changed, but remnants of our former wasteful life still linger.
That said, my next goal for our household is Step #2 in our Zero Waste Rules: “Reduce.”
This week I intend to:
- Eat down the pantry by cooking a number of freezer meals and freeing up space for waste-free goodies.
- Host a crafting party with friends to lighten up my incredible stash of scrapbooking paper.
- Sort through the linen, cleaning, and storage closet to reduce their contents to exactly what we need and no more. Anything deemed genuinely useful for the future will be stored outside the main living area in the basement.
- Use a critical eye in the kitchen and reduce to the essentials. Do we really need four spatulas?
Anything that doesn’t make the cut will be sold on Craigslist or Facebook, donated to local charities, or gifted to our base’s thrift store for incoming military families.
Hold us accountable! And stay tuned for my upcoming posts on reducing, decluttering and what minimalism really means.
