25+ things that are NOT zero waste but are sustainable 🌎🌱☀️ 

Love this idea!

Yes! This is such a sweet idea 🥰

This!! The old folks at my nursing home are so thrifty and they love to talk about it

Also talk to boomers, encourage them to take fewer cruises and be just slightly less wasteful

Love this ❤

I never thought of that. Thank you for the idea!

I’d love to see how you do this!

I'm officially inspired. I've been holding on to one because I love the pattern on it but haven't figured out if I can repair it. Reusing the fabric is now my backup.

i dont think i have had a broken umbrella for a decade? so, how much material do I save here? that said as first reaction, if you love sewing, I love the idea 😊

I use them to make skirts! They are great, it fits many of my oufits and are super super light and flowy (sometimes too light, i recommend using shorts). Plus they are good for parties and rainy weather because of their impermeability. Many of my friends loved the idea and brought me their umbrellas to turn into skirts too, even some of my male friends, who were absolutely thrilled by owning their first skirt, with the added bonus that you can make it to fit your exact proportions.

What even was the trash jar? I don’t remember this

@@RangeGleasrypeople were attempting to fit all of their trash into a mason jar

@@eightstarsI searched it… I didn’t realize that was a thing 😅 thank you

it also isn't representative of how much waste and pollution you actually caused/helped fund

The idea of reducing your waste is great, but it is really hard to get to such a small amount if you don't have access to the right shops for example. Like, there are bulk grocery stores, or "fill your own jar" stores, but they are not near me, or they don't deliver to me. And the videos I've seen were very judgy towards people who do not reduce their waste like that. (admittedly, I didn't watch a whole lot, and I might have just seen the few bad ones) The most impactful thing is voting tbh. Because while consumer driven pollution/waste etc is certainly a thing, it's much smaller than the industrial and commercial driven pollution and waste. I try to do what I can, and voting is certainly a part of that, but I will never be able to fit all my waste into a jar.

A stitch in time, saves nine. Thank you for sharing this list!

This is an awesome list!! I’ll definitely screenshotting this for future reference. These tips might be are obvious to you but I didn’t know a few of them.

That is great strategy. Combine it with seasonal eating and you can really start to save money on your low waste method of cooking.

Canteens would be a nice project...

This! Meal planning and prepping and freezing leftover ingredients. If I've got celery, carrots etc left over, I just chop them and freeze them and they're ready to be thrown into a soup or a stew. The same with herbs. They can be chopped and froze and then there's no waste. I feel that food waste is possibly the easiest thing that we can all eliminate with minimal effort.

Planning is the biggest there, I think. Prepping can be a part there, but isn't quite as important as really planning what meals you eat and only buying the ingredients you need. It also helps to buy the non-perishables in bulk, but the veggies, dairy, and bread every few days, so they don't spoil. We did that anyway, but we've since switched to a grocery delivery service, so we aren't as tempted by promotions etc. I follow a writer who writes about saving money on food mostly, meals for 4 people for about 1 dollar per person. She focuses a lot on things like buying a whole chicken to get 5 meals out of, filet, wings and legs, back, shredded leftover meat, and broth from the carcass, and lays out 5 meals with all the nutrients you'll need. She grew up with a single father who struggled to get her and her siblings fed, but always managed to give them a full meal rather than fast food or prepackaged meals. So she really cares about good meals. Often the cheapest options are also food that's in season, eating with the seasons is not only great for the wallet, but also the environment. If you eat things that are produced locally, in season, they won't have to get you your summer vegetables from the other side of the world.

One of the biggest tricks is to keep it simple. Does everybody really need that much variety? So can I get away with a few great meals that my ravenous hordes will happily devour for leftovers? And of course, fried veggie rice or noodle to clean out the bits and bobs. think about it. ... lasagna tastes great on Monday and it taste just as good on Thursday. You can microwave/reheat smaller portions so you don't even have to slave away at that oven and thus, reduce energy consumption. Same with pasta sauce. Make a base pasta sauce and then, throw veggies and whatever else your family enjoys and you have a low effort meal that can be easily assembled and customized. same goes for stir fry or things like that. also, knowing the time a vegetable will last in your fridge. For example, herbs tend to be short lived. Root vegetables like carrots or parsnips...they can last as long as you don't peel them. Just a brown paper bag/newspaper to keep things a bit dry and airy. Also.. cleanouts. Maintaining a clean fridge means less chances of a spoiled apple ruining the rest of the food. So things that are looking like the might go, will be on the top of the list to be cooked or chopped a bit to remove that soft spot. remember, the food rules for restaurants are meant for restaurants. If it smells good, feels good, it is going to be safe most likely. There is this hysteria around food with Americans where they look at the sell-by date and throw something out. The think is that if you bought it, kept it chilled and stored properly, you probably have some lee way if you're not freezing it or doing another long term storage method. (I use those reusable hot cold packs in my insulated bag/cooler. My cold food products stay cold. so it moves from cold supermarket to cold insulated bag to cold refrigerate/freezer. pro -tip if you buy bulk potatoes or onions or things like that. I spread out my produce to air dry it out. (Same for herbs as well because supermarkets spray water over this stuff). this way, the excess moisture is removed so you delay herbs going off so quickly. It also allows me a chance to visually inspect and remove suspect vegetables that I may have missed when they were in that 20 lb bag. (I like to sniff.. you can smell when there's something wrong in a potato or an onion bag. The nose knows.)

I get really sad when I see my neighbours' gardens. Several of them have built many sheds/overhangs/veranda type things. One of them built all of those, so they have almost no open air in their garden left. The rest of them have mostly pavement with a few plants. Barely any green at all. I don't like to garden, so I don't want to spend all my time doing that, which has led to our very very very low maintenance garden. Ferns that sew themselves, geraniums that are hardy and will spread out themselves as well, some rosemary, sage, and thyme for the kitchen (no parsley 😜), some hostas, some hydrangeas, climbers such as grapes and wisteria on the fences, so even the vertical space is green, a few hedges, an almond tree, etc. None of these plants require much, no extra water, no moving in winter, and because most of them cover the ground without me doing much to help them, I have very little weeds to pluck out. I deliberately picked the kinds of plants that require almost no input from me to thrive.

Keeping veggie scraps in a “broth bag” in the freezer is also really handy.

That is so interesting. I'm hoping to move to the Netherlands. Sustainability being one reason for that

​@@shelbylengwenat3774 Bring your own house if you plan to move. There is a major housing shortage.

@@lunayen Oh no. I cannot afford a house in my "low cost of living" country right now either. 😆I will up my savings goal before I move. My BF is handy though so we could live in a hovel and fix it maybe? Is that an option?

​@@shelbylengwenat3774 Not sure where you live right now, but the housing prices here are insane, depending on where you want to live in the country. I don't think we would have a lot of available hovels. Maybe some fixer upper homes but those could still be very pricey.

Fast Nuclear is actually far more efficient and sustainable that solar and wind. It uses up way more of the radioactive fuel than older reactors, leaving waste with a very short halflife that eventually becones innert led. The reactors are also safer and smaller. Look into it. We need to reinvest into the newer nuclear technology. Oh, and the way fast nuclear works, it can't have a mentdown like older systems. Solar pannels require a lot of rare warths from China that produce extreme polution and human suffering, and wind turbines have a short lifespan and produce huge amounts of unrecyclable waste when decommissioned. These technologies have their place in back yards and small rural comunities, but to do them on a scale needed to sustain mosern cities and technology would be extremely wastefull and destructive.

Not only that, but EV batteries are horrifically bad for the environment, and a massive fire hazard that can burn for days when they are big enough for motor vehicles. They aren't the 'green solution' virtue signalers make them out to be.

Thank you for sharing this. I seriously had no idea...

I have driven a 1998 Camry that got ridiculously good gas mileage, and now have a 2015 CRV that costs me $20/month to fill the tank. If I ever get to travel again, it will cost more. I don't live in an area with good mass transit, and moving costs money, too. My rule is do what you can until you can do something else. What the jar did was make me think about my purchases and consumption habits, and work to reduce where possible.

I work in DC and walking 3/4 miles on Connecticut one way (even after driving) in the summer was a nightmare 😭 and i don’t even get hot!!! just so many bugs and the humidity. but there has been so much construction already that the bike lane may not happen

No issue here biking in Texas. Sweat won’t kill you.

I have friends and family asking me to do this for our local area. So many people are starting to grow their own food in the US and it is wonderful.

Check out the AG education department in a state school you're nearby, or the AG state dept :)

Oh thats a cute idea, I like that!

But they have no flex so will either get caught in the machinery of the USPS or will just break and fall off during handling...leaving your mail open. Sealing wax is a different formula so these don't happen.

Oh! And another way to make cords last longer, is to make sure you loop them smoothly without twisting. Look up "over-under cord wrapping" to learn how sound techs and movie set grips wrap cables to keep them tidy and in good repair. (I'm gonna write this as a main comment too.)

When mine start to fall apart I use a couple inches of heat shrink to stabilize them Not the prettiest but definitely gets more wear out of them

I would also love to see this!

just an auntie/tita here, but i saw that people do buy the things if it has been a while! so you can tell it’s also an actual interest and not a quick trend.

I use two strategies for my 5 yr old. 1) we take pictures of things he wants and if he keeps asking about them months out then they get added to a birthday /holiday wish list. 2) if something is poorly made I am honest with him about why he can't have it. He understands that in our household we don't buy things that won't last. We also help him understand how upset he would be if his new toy broke because it was poorly made.

Oh yeah and utilizing my local credit union! (My pretty cool parents already had me using one, but I got my husband to keep using it for our shared finances instead of a big bank)

From grocery stores specifically

Oh yes. From retail stores, from residential units and even thrift stores. However, it would help if there was some policy to limit grocery stores to throw away perfectly good stuff

Collective transport is generally better than driving a car, and the bus would go anyway. People often need to get around so I dont think we should blame people too much for that. Just try to avoid unnecessary driving trips, but I do drive (or more exactly let other people drive me since I cant drive) for activities so Im not perfect there. Also live around 3 kilometers from the food store and really prefer someone drive me, especially in winter

I think this is a really good example of how environmentalism and other social issues intersect. so taking action on socialissues can also have an impact on environmental stuff for example campaigning for rent control so that existing housing is affordable to those who need it, supporting legislation that means landlords have to maintain properties and properties that have been left unoccupied for X amount of time get acquired by the city to house people, etc etc this all not only means that people who need homes can access housing but also means that we are using existing housing stock instead of building new. (It's common for there to actually be a lot of empty houses in cities even during a housing crisis because that housing simply isn't accessible to those who need it). And sometimes it's about compromise or less obvious solutions. For example in our city it's common for students to live in former family homes which have been converted into shared student accommodation, but by supporting developments that are converting existing disused buildings (office blocks and factories) into specific student housing or building on brownfield sites it theoretically frees up that housing stock for families to be able to move back into without having to build on green spaces or expand further out of the city. Which is made easier with support of legislation as discussed above. So obviously that's housing specific and is going to vary by city and region, but the same sort of thinking can be applied to all sorts of issues. And like Shelbi says it's not about being perfect, sometimes there's compromises and we accept "better" when "ideal" isn't available.

Additionally, if one (who doesn’t already have) is looking into caring for hens please consider adopting them as opposed to buying them. Often there are hens will need homes, additionally male waterfowl and roosters often are in need of homes because people don’t want since they can’t lay. (This is what Shelbie did)

the only state where it's illegal is Colorado and even then you just have to get a permit in most cases. Have you checked with your municipality specifically?

also I am now following Berk Nature, a local non-profit conservation organization.

Please use it to promote fast nuclear technogy! It is by far the lowest impact, highest output option available, but people just hear 'nuclear' and think of bombs and the melt diwns outdated models of power plants are capable of. Fast Nuclear is so efficient that spent rods from old nuclear can be used to fuel them, allowing us to reduce existing nuclear waste, too!

While there are advantages to being in a walkable/bikeable place in the US there are disadvantages. Finding locations where you can access most of your needs locally is hard to do in the US and not wind up in a food desert or unsafe neighborhood. Finding affordable places like this in the US very hard. I have done it and lived without a vehicle for 11 years. We intentionally moved out a walkable neighborhood to a place 15 minutes away where we could have a large garden and enough space to install solar, We are a one car household by choice and we are slowly making improvements on the house and property to be more sustainable and be able age in place once we retire.