“Waste not, want not” has long become a quaint saying with no apparent relevance to our lives. After all, the American economy has depended on wastefulness since the end of the Second World War.

But now we’re awash in trash. Zero waste, along with its less radical cousin zero waste to landfill, has become a serious goal for many companies and families.

Zero waste to landfill allows for incineration, pyrolysis, gasification, and other “thermal conversion technologies,” usually for some kind of waste to energy project. The whole idea remains controversial.

The concept of zero waste, with no further qualification, still recognizes certain residuals will be neither reusable nor compostable nor recyclable. It aims to keep them to less than 10% of anything discarded.

Large corporations like Walmart, Xerox, BMW, and Amazon have been working for years to eliminate waste. They redesign products to use more interchangeable parts from one model to the next. They redesign packaging, preferring recyclable cardboard, say, to plastic clamshells.  They strive to use less plastic, water, and other resources in the first place.

No matter how much large corporations accomplish, society can’t achieve zero waste without the active participation of ordinary people. The headings in this post represent the 5 Rs of waste reduction.

Many of the ideas presented here for achieving zero waste will seem radical. I don’t do all of them myself. What I do, I have adopted gradually. Pick some ideas that seem attractive. When they become a habit, pick some more.

Refuse whatever you don’t need

I’ve known impulse buyers who come home with armloads of stuff. And then, when they decide they don’t really want it, they put it in the trash, unused! Zero waste begins with buying less.

We probably don’t deliberately buy trash. But we buy stuff with lots of packaging. Then put the packaging out at the curb. If you’re trying to decide among different brands of something, prefer the one with the least packaging.

Refuse bills. Well, the kind that come in the mail. As much as possible, receive and pay your bills online. For that matter, refuse catalogs, magazines you don’t read, and other junk mail.

Next, avoid single-use, disposable products. Here’s where refusing can get radical.

• Use washable table service instead of paper and plastic. Even when you have company. Even when you go on a picnic.
• Take you own washable cutlery to fast food places so you don’t have to use their plastic. If any place gives you the option of buying one of their permanent drink containers, take advantage of it.
• Break the habit of using drinking straws.
• Take reusable bags to stores. And fast-food places. You won’t have to discard the bags you refuse in the first place.
• I have even heard of people who refuse to buy toilet paper to avoid anything disposable after a single use!

Reduce your idea of what you do need

The 5 Rs add one to the front and one to the back of the earlier and perhaps more familiar 3 Rs. With that formula, “reduce” encompasses much of what I have written under “refuse.”

The two concepts are not redundant. Refuse means not to get something at all. Reduce means get less. Here are only a few ideas for how to do that.

The cleaning aisle has so many products intended to clean one thing. Some only work with a particular brand of gadget to apply it. Consider the cost of convenience. Buy products like baking soda, vinegar, and salt instead of heavily advertised products. You won’t need the special gadget.

Buying groceries in bulk reduces packaging. But keep in mind what you need, especially when it comes to perishables. A great deal on some kind of produce isn’t such a great deal if it spoils before you can eat it all.

The world would produce enough food to feed its burgeoning population if we didn’t waste nearly half of what we grow. Food waste isn’t an American problem. It’s an international problem that cuts across all societies. But we’re huge contributors.

Some activists recommend refusing paper towels entirely. As for me, if I’m wiping up a paint spill or something like that, I don’t want to ruin a cloth towel. Paper towels also come in handy for microwaving the chicken, hamburgers, etc. that I cook in batches. But I recommend that you prefer cloth to paper for most uses. Also, you can compost paper towels instead of putting them in  the trash.

Reuse what you can

You can reduce your use of paper in plenty of other ways. For example, use envelopes and the back side of paper for notes and lists. As a librarian, I rescued lots of 3 x 5 cards from the trash. I used to make my shopping lists from top to bottom. But now, I write as many items on a line as I can and scratch them out as I shop. Then I keep the lists on my refrigerator and use them until they’re full.

It may be impossible to avoid plastic bags entirely. I have a diabetic dog, and the needles I use come in little plastic bags. I put chicken bones and other bits of uncompostable wastes in them and put them directly in the outside trash container. That way, my trash inside doesn’t stink up the house. I have to take it out less often.

I have part of a carton of garbage pail liners that I’ll have to find some good way to use. When I donate to Good Will for sure. I don’t use them in my indoor trash can. I use empty dog-food bags instead.

You can refuse plastic bags from the store and reuse the ones other people have littered.

When I go for walks, I often notice plastic bags and other recyclable among the litter. So I reuse one of the plastic bags to pick up the recyclables. When I get home, I rinse it and use it again.

Reuse also includes giving someone else the chance to use something you don’t need any more. Donate unwanted clothing, toys, small appliances, etc. to thrift shops. And shop there, too. You can reuse someone else’s discards. Thrift shops keep perfectly good items out of the landfill.

Recycle most of what you can’t reuse

Some people are proud of how little they recycle. And many of them deserve to be, because they put out even less trash.

Recycling takes last place in the traditional 3 Rs of waste reduction because it is the least effective. The more you refuse, reduce, and reuse, the less you’ll have left to recycle.

That said, recycle everything you can. That doesn’t mean just putting recyclables out to the curb. Putting out what doesn’t belong there is how so many of us do recycling wrong. Some things you can recycle take a little more effort.

Plastic bags and other plastic that can’t hold its shape don’t belong in your municipal recycling program. Take them to a store that accepts them.

Styrofoam™ likewise doesn’t belong in your municipal recycling. It breaks into little pieces in the sorting machinery and contaminates everything. See if your community has a drop-off center that accepts it.

Obsolete or broken electronics don’t belong either in the recycling container or the trash. Some communities have drop-off centers for it. Otherwise, take it you your hazardous waste recycling center, along with paint and other toxic materials.

Visit Earth911.com to find out what opportunities you have in your community to recycle what you can’t put out at the curb. And what to do with it if you have no local opportunities.

Rot (compost) most of the rest you can’t recycle

Even if you cook all the food you buy and eat all you cook before it spoils, you’ll have waste to dispose of. Most of us, I suppose, put our corn cobs, banana peels, and such in the garbage. It goes to the landfill. Or maybe we run some of it down the garbage disposal.

Why not compost it?

For people who don’t garden, or who live in apartments and have no place to compost, you may still be able to compost. Check to see if your area has any opportunities for community composting.

Unless you have special equipment, you can’t compost bones or other meat products at home. Or dog poop. But you can compost any other organic matter. Besides the obvious bits of fruits and vegetables, you can compost egg shells, coffee grounds, hair, nail clippings. Oh, and whatever paper towels and wax paper you wind up using. You’ll need a pail to collect it in, like this one:

If you don’t like the looks of that one, there are others. They have filters, so they don’t stink. A family might fill one quickly. Someone living alone, like me, won’t empty it as often. It can grow mold. That’s no problem. Toss in a little borax from time to time to kill it.

Outside, you can construct a compost bin, or just build a pile in a shady place. Mix yard waste with the kitchen waste. You’ll need to turn it from time to time and make sure it gets watered. But when it’s ready to use, you won’t have to waste time and gas to bring home compost in plastic bags that have to go to the landfill.

Remember: the concept of zero waste recognizes that you won’t achieve literal zero. Let’s all see how close we can come. Let’s send as little to the landfill as we can.

Photo credits.
Plastic bags. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Groceries and packaging. Some rights reserved by Phillip Stewart
Goodwill clothing drop-off. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Grocery store recycling. My photo.