It was a watershed moment for me – I realised that to make less rubbish I would have to have less stuff.
I’ve gotten to a place now where every time I re-use something, or avoid a piece of rubbish, I’m getting what I believe is a major hit of dopamine. I’m basically semi-addicted to not producing rubbish. But my other great passion is diverting rubbish from landfill – meaning the rubbish disposal system in our house resembles a game of tetris. We have bins for recyclable soft plastics, traditional recyclable material, three different types of food scraps and normal rubbish. I shred paper for chook bedding and re-use most cardboard boxes.
Not long after I met Jordan I was cruising through my Instagram feed when I stumbled upon my next massive inspiration. It was this incredible photo of another mum’s rubbish for the whole month. Katie from @The Little Grey Cottage was a long, long way down the path towards zero waste when I started. She posted a flatlay photo of a tag from an item of new clothing they’d been gifted, pill packets from her dog’s medication, and a concert ticket, among a few other items I can’t remember. But it twigged something in my mind that it was possible to live like that. To be free of all the rubbish. I needed to know more about her journey. So I stalked her on Instagram for a while and finally plucked up the courage to ask for an interview. She backed up my mindset theory – not making rubbish takes brain effort.
“I think the hardest part of living zerowaste is being prepared,” she explains. “It does take some extra brain space to be able to plan and think through your day’s activities to make sure you’re not caught out needing to rely on disposables. For example, I make all of our snacks from scratch so I’m not relying on packets. I always have reusable cutlery in my nappy bag, I carry around my water bottle.”
Katie pointed out quite rightly that, despite how it may appear on some pretty high profile zero waster Instagram accounts, it’s not a very glamorous lifestyle.
“We have a lot of washing and washing up, I spend a lot of time cooking, we don’t buy many new things. We don’t always eat what we want because we can’t find it not in plastic, we don’t eat out much, we muck around with compost, we don’t get a coffee if we don’t have a Keep Cup with us.”
As far as getting started, Katie recommends a nifty exercise called a month-long bin audit to identify where your family might be able to make changes.
“It might be food packaging, food waste or disposable nappies, for example. Once you start, don’t get overwhelmed! Pick one thing and start with that.”
The secret to change is first understanding what’s holding us back. Reducing waste requires us to live slower in all aspects of our lives. The convenience of disposables has enabled us to put our day on fast forward and live at breakneck speed. But there is a lot to be said for living slower, and filling your day with meaningful, fulfilling actions. And Katie summed it up best when she said, “We give up convenience at times, but there’s nothing convenient about single use plastics for the environment and our kids’ future.”
Hear, hear.
Virginia lives off the grid in regional NSW with her husband and two kids. After finishing up as a journalist with the ABC she turned out her hand to freelance writing and mummy blogging. She’s also an Instagram enthusiast and can be found at bush_bambinos or www.bushbambinos.wordpress.com.
