Know what the date on your food means.
“Sell by,” “best by,” “use by”… the terms and dates on groceries like dairy products, meats, and packaged foods can be confusing—and cause an estimated 20 percent of food waste in the home. Different manufacturers use different language to inform consumers that a product’s nutrition, quality, and taste is promised until that date—but not after. What these dates do not mean is that the product will immediately spoil or become unsafe to eat once that date has come and gone. In fact, to clear up this confusion, the FDA is currently supporting the food industry as they work to streamline the language used across all products, so that in the future you might see only the words “Best if used by.”16
How to Tell When Food’s Gone Bad
The Foodkeeper app, developed by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, Cornell University, and the Food Marketing Institute, offers item-specific information on how long foods stay fresh in the refrigerator and the freezer, as well as the proper times and temperatures at which to cook them. You can download the app to your mobile phone or find it in your browser. Beyond that, your senses can tell you whether a certain food has taken a turn for the worse, sometimes more accurately than any date on the packaging.
IT SMELLS FUNNY. If your uncooked meat or fish has an odd or sulfuric odor, don’t take a chance. Sour milk is another smell you don’t want to ignore.
IT’S GROWING THINGS. Green mold on your shredded cheese or bread, an odd white substance on the top of your salsa… in many instances, bacteria can penetrate far beyond what you see.
THE TEXTURE HAS CHANGED. Separated, curdled-looking—or, worse, lumpy—dairy products indicate freshness has long past. Slimy deli meats or vegetables are another indication of food that’s been kept for too long.
TWO Create an (Almost) Zero-Waste Home
Americans generate a lot of waste: 4.48 pounds per person per day,1 according to the most recent EPA figures (from 2015). And while some of that is surely discarded on the go—at work, at school, while running errands—most of it is likely tossed at home (especially when you consider that “waste” includes anything we throw away after use, including old couches, broken dishes, used notebooks, worn area rugs, etc.).
Clearly, there’s a lot of room for improvement—and that’s great news, because it means that many of these ideas will be easy to implement in your own life. It’s not about making sweeping changes across every room in your home, or getting your family to stop all their superconsumer habits and live like our pre-retail ancestors. Instead, as with all things (almost) zero waste, it’s about making thoughtful decisions in your everyday life and planning carefully for bigger decisions in the future.
Your home should be the easiest place to start working toward an (almost) zero-waste lifestyle. Here, you don’t need a to-go cup with a straw, or fourteen shopping bags to carry groceries, or sample-size shampoos to wash your hair. Unlike when you’re at work, at school, at a restaurant, or out and about, you’re not at the mercy of anyone else’s decisions—you can choose recycled paper goods, control the thermostat, and decide for yourself how to manage your home and the life you’ve built there so that your impact on the planet is as comfortably small as you’d like it to be.
Make your own all-purpose cleaning solution.
Want to eliminate a shelf full of household cleaning products in numerous plastic bottles and jugs? Many professional house cleaners swear by a water-dampened cloth and some muscle—yes, even to clean grimy windows. But if you’re the type who likes to spritz a solution on counters, porcelain, and other surfaces, repurpose an old spray bottle and fill it with one part water to one part white vinegar. You can use the mixture as is or create a custom blend with a few drops of lemon essential oil or your favorite natural scent. For tough surface stains—even on granite—a paste of baking soda and water is also highly effective.
Use cotton cloths instead of paper towels.
Many cloth rag materials have environmental knocks against them. Microfiber towels are excellent at grabbing and holding dust and dirt particles—but they can shed microplastic fibers when washed (which then end up in rivers, oceans, and other bodies of water—and potentially in the digestive systems of the seafood we eat), and are not universally recyclable. Even cotton, a natural fiber, has come under scrutiny for its heavy reliance on chemical pesticides, large amounts of water, and vast farmland.2 But when you reuse cotton that you already have in your home—an old T-shirt, a cut-up bedsheet or bath towel—you’re offsetting the environmental burden created when that item was made, and sparing rolls upon rolls of paper towels in the process.
Ten Household Areas You Can Clean Using Just a Damp Cloth
Windows
Mirrors
Woodwork trim (baseboards, windowsills, wainscoting)
Blinds and shutters (wood and wood-look)
Picture frames and glass
Kitchen cabinets
Countertops
Porcelain sink
Kitchen and bath tiles
Stainless steel
Use 100 percent cellulose sponges.
Typical synthetic sponges are plastic-based, meaning they come with all the microplastic-shedding and live-forever baggage other plastics are known for. Considering that most experts recommend replacing your bacteria-laden kitchen sponge every two weeks to a month, that’s a lot of waste going straight to the landfill just so you can clean your chef’s knife. Instead, buy plant-based cellulose sponges. Made from wood pulp, these sponges are biodegradable and even compostable. To further reduce waste, look for cellulose sponges that are packaged minimally in a small paper or cardboard sleeve, rather than sealed in plastic film.
Kill weeds with boiling cooking water.
Why use water once when you can use it twice? Not only can cooking water be repurposed in other recipes (see “Eat and Cook (Almost) Zero-Waste” for ideas), you can also use it to kill weeds in sidewalks, driveways, and other places you don’t want them to grow. Once you’ve removed your pasta or vegetables from the water, make sure it’s still boiling before carefully taking it off the stove. Head outdoors and, taking care not to splash your feet or legs, pour the boiling water over the weeds. This method works best for standalone weeds growing in cracks in cement or asphalt; if you pour boiling water on weeds that are growing in the middle of your garden or grassy lawn, you’ll kill both the unwanted plants and the good ones.
Get a rain catcher.
Indoor and outdoor plants can thrive on collected rainwater, even more so than tap water. Unlike the tap water in many areas, rainwater doesn’t contain fluoride, chlorine, or other chemicals and minerals that can inhibit plant growth. Rain barrels can vary in size from thirty to one hundred gallons and are used to collect rainwater from gutter downspouts so you can use it to water plants and even to wash your car. Aside from providing a natural, untreated drink for your plants, collecting rainwater also helps conserve tap water, save money on your water bill, and reduce potential flooding of your property. You can find barrels made of upcycled plastic, stainless steel, ceramic, or wood; just be sure to check your state laws regarding rainwater collection, as some states have limits on residential water collection. For example, Colorado allows homeowners to use no more than two rain barrels, with a combined capacity of 110 gallons, to capture rainwater from their rooftops.3
Using Rainwater on Herb, Fruit, and Vegetable Gardens
There is no definitive, unanimous verdict on the safety of using collected rainwater on plants you plan to eat. Though some experts and home rainwater collectors worry that contaminants like lead, zinc, total coliform bacteria, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and even E. coli (from animal excrement) can accumulate in roof runoff and end up in rainwater barrels, a study conducted at Rutgers University4 found that the rainwater collected from asphalt-shingle roofs contained low or no levels of all of the above contaminants (except E. coli). The recommendation, however, was that with the following proper care and w
ater treatment, rainwater could be safely used on gardens harvested for food. Here’s what they suggest:
TREAT YOUR RAINWATER BARREL WITH BLEACH. Before you start collecting water, the research team advises cleaning the barrel with a 3 percent bleach solution. The formula they recommend is to add ⅛ teaspoon of unscented household bleach with a 5 to 6 percent chlorine solution per gallon of water. Once your barrel is clean, you also need to treat the water you collect with bleach; the study suggests that water in a typical fifty-five-gallon rain barrel should be treated with approximately one ounce of bleach, and that you should wait about twenty-four hours before using the water in your garden in order to allow the chlorine to dissipate.
KEEP COLLECTED RAINWATER OFF THE LEAVES AND FRUIT OF THE PLANT. The study’s authors suggest using drip irrigation, which delivers the water directly to the soil.
WATER YOUR GARDEN IN THE MORNING, AND HARVEST LATER IN THE DAY. This will allow the leaves to dry and ultraviolet light to disinfect the plants.
Make the switch from disposable plastic zip-top baggies.
It’s hard. They’re so convenient, and for many of us, they’ve been a part of our lives for so long. But in the ranks of single-use plastics, disposable zip-top bags (snack size, sandwich size, quart, gallon…) are right up there with straws. Luckily, there are other great options for when you need to stash snacks, meals, toiletries, or even phone chargers. Metal tins, Mason or other glass jars, and bamboo containers are all useful. But when you truly want a zip-top bag for your lunch, leftovers, or small household items, a reusable silicone bag is a good, eco-friendlier option. While silicone isn’t biodegradable, it is nontoxic, it doesn’t break down in extreme temperatures, and it’s extremely durable. So if you need to decide between going through a box of forty-five plastic bags a week or buying one silicone bag and keeping it for decades, know that getting the silicone is better and less wasteful. You can find leak-proof and washable zip-top silicone baggies in different sizes to fit all your needs.
Use recycled, compostable paper napkins.
How many napkins do you use during a meal? Even if you limit yourself to just one, over the course of a year you would use 1,095 napkins. In ten years, that’s 10,950 napkins. In a seventy-five-year lifetime, that’s 82,125 napkins. (You know napkins come from trees, right?) If you’re not already using paper napkins made from recycled paper (ideally, 100 percent recycled paper) and not whitened with chlorine bleach, it’s a good idea to start doing so now. While paper napkins—like tissues and paper towels—aren’t recyclable, they are compostable, as long as they aren’t greasy or contaminated with chemicals from cleaning products. (One more reason to make your own all-natural cleaning spray—and use washable cloths for cleaning.)
Better yet, switch to (upcycled) cloth napkins.
By making napkins from scraps of cloth you already have—bed linens, denim, terry cloth, or frayed or stained cotton dish towels—you’re not only cutting your reliance on paper napkins but also giving fabric a second life, thus reducing its environmental footprint. (Cotton, for example, is an incredibly resource-intensive fiber to grow and produce, zapping water and land and relying heavily on pesticides.) If you can sew a simple hem, by hand or by machine, you can make cloth napkins that you can use again and again—and even take with you to restaurants or when you eat your weekday desk lunch.
Repair, don’t replace.
If you want to go (almost) zero waste, try channeling your inner handyman whenever something breaks. The towel bar fell off the wall? You don’t have to get a new one; learn how to repair it (you might want to use a wall anchor this time around, for example). Your coffee table is a little wobbly? Don’t start shopping for a new one; grab a screwdriver, turn it over, and tighten the legs. Tired of staring at your dated, hand-me-down bedroom set? Some nontoxic paint stripper (or even just plenty of sandpaper) is all you need to prep the wood and get it ready for a new, modern (nontoxic) finish. Before you decide to replace any household item, do a little research to see if you can fix it or refurbish it first. Search for how-to videos on everything from using a drill to stopping a toilet from running (without buying a new part).
Repurpose everything.
Get in the habit of looking at an unwanted item in your home and asking yourself What else could I do with this? Remove the top from a baby’s changing table to create linen storage in a hallway. Repurpose an old side table as a useful nightstand. A chipped cereal bowl can make a pretty planter for succulents or a catchall for bangle bracelets. Cardboard gift and jewelry boxes make excellent junk-drawer organizers. Roomy, attractive out-of-season beach bags can hold spare bath towels in a guest bathroom. Scraps of fabric, wrapping paper, or wallpaper can be framed and hung on walls as art. Line an empty picture frame with sheet cork for a stylish home office corkboard. Once you start looking at objects with a fresh eye, their possibilities become endless.
Get crafty with food peels.
Dye fabrics (and Easter eggs) naturally with food scraps from beets (for shades of red and purple), avocado pits (pale pink), red cabbage (blue), onion skins (orange), and spinach (green). In some cases you can use a juicer to extract the colorful liquids, or simmer the scraps in water to release their color and then strain and reduce to concentrate the hue. (Compost any food solids that get strained out.)
Buy a house that’s been lived in before.
Tear-downs and new-construction homes are the opposite of zero waste. In just one year, 169.1 million tons of construction and demolition waste were generated, according to 2015 data from the EPA.5 While cities and building manufacturers are implementing new procedures and policies to save more demolition materials for reuse and employ more environmentally friendly practices, the easiest zero-waste way to buy a home is to purchase one that’s already been lived in by at least one owner. It’s reuse on a large scale.
Renovate responsibly.
Apply the “repair, don’t replace” and “repurpose everything” filter to any home improvements you take on, large or small. Can you repaint the kitchen cabinets to suit your personal taste, rather than gutting the room and starting over? Can doorknobs be polished instead of changed? Would the chandelier that looks ostentatious in the dining room look fun and whimsical in a bedroom? Cast a creative eye on your surroundings and see how you can make use of existing materials to create a home that reflects your style.
When you can’t renew items in your home, look for secondhand materials that might be perfect for your project. From bathtubs and sinks to flooring and cabinetry, there’s an entire industry devoted to reselling pre-owned home supplies. There are companies that remove and resell entire kitchens—from the cabinets to the appliances—for less than retail, meaning you might score better-quality secondhand materials than you would have been able to afford otherwise. Not only do you get the benefit of a custom, new-to-you look but you’ve also saved these materials from the landfill.
Where to Source Secondhand Home Materials
Garage sales
Resale auction sites
Live auctions
Flea markets
Online and live swap groups
Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore
Junkyards and salvage stores
PlanetReuse.com
ReuseWood.org
Choose low-impact flooring.
Putting down new floors? Reclaimed hardwood makes for an eco-friendly and unique choice. Natural flooring like linoleum, wool or jute rugs, bamboo, and cork all make for more environmentally friendly choices as long as the adhesives, backing, and sealants used are low-VOC (volatile organic compounds). If you’re going for newer materials like vinyl plank flooring or carpeting, shop for versions that have been made using recycled materials. Another option: instead of wall-to-wall carpeting, choose floating carpet tiles that connect to one another to create a unified look but that can easily be replaced one tile at a time in case of damage or staining.
Make waste separation easy and convenient.
Des
ignate a centrally located spot for your paper, glass, metals, plastic film (like grocery bags, thin plastic packaging wrap, and dry cleaning bags), light bulbs, batteries, and any other materials that your community recycles. If you already own plastic containers, by all means keep using them. If you need to buy or obtain containers, look for ones made of 100 percent recycled plastic, or get creative with some of the ideas below. Whatever you choose, make sure your bins are large and easily accessible so that it becomes habit to place waste in the proper receptacle, rather than defaulting to throwing it into the trash bin.
Five Alternatives to Plastic Recycling Containers
Wicker or woven grass baskets
Galvanized metal buckets
Laundry sacks
Reusable shopping bags (the kind with flat bottoms)
The (Almost) Zero-Waste Guide Page 3
