Zero Waste: a hype or a necessity of our era?

For several months, I hear every day about "Zero waste". I watched videos of people, and sometimes families, who produce only a small jar of waste per year. I discovered books offering a whole bunch of tips to replace daily disposable products in order to reduce the corresponding amount to waste. In addition, DIY tutorials offering various ways to recycle old sweaters or old isolated socks are also in order, together with plenty of other things.

While I was writing this article, I thought the expression was pretty self-explanatory. But as always, I wanted to know more about it... and I finally do learn several new things that I will share with you!

I discovered first that what I took for a simple environmental movement or a philosophy of life was actually much larger than that.

Zero Waste is a holistic strategy that aims to reduce and sustainably manage waste everywhere. Such an approach can thus be both useful and necessary, and must be thought off starting from the design of an object to its primary purpose, as well as with the aim for reuse it in one other way or the other. Both manufacturers and consumers have a role to play as we are all actors in our society.

Those who defend the Zero Waste are both individuals, groups and associations. They are everywhere in the world and fight to change mentalities and habits of life. Their goal is to raise awareness about the urgency of reducing the waste we produce. Even at the end of its life, a product may find a new use and be given a second life. If not, we can ask the question about the real necessity or usefulness of the product. Would have been other, less polluting, alternatives?

Zero Waste defenders also suggest concrete alternatives that can be adopted by governments, industry and individuals.

We can summarize the strategy in three main points

1. Changing the production methods

The idea is to produce less stuff, but more efficiently, so that one could preserve the natural resources of our planet and energy. Among other things, sorting our waste to ensure a more efficient recycling is one of the key points so that one could limit the usage of incineration.

Advances in ecodesign already help to modify the production methods to make them less polluting, promoting along the same lines the usage of recyclable materials.

2. Maximize the use of goods

Many goods are thought as obsolete because of a hype instead of because they are really unusable anymore. In the Zero Waste movement, there is a philosophy of sharing and pooling the goods so that one could use them as much as possible. The packaging of the goods is also important, and one can target systems that allow reusable rather than disposable stuff.

Among the examples we can give here, we can imagine buying unpacked goods, used stuff and donate used, but still usable, objects. We can also use packages made of fabrics, covered or not with beeswax according to the use, and so on.

3. Preserve and value the material

We must encourage the recycling of not usable objects and to repair what could be repaired (instead of replacing it). We can also focus on the production of "new" stuff from “old" used stuff, both at the level of individuals and the industry. This comes in pair with the necessity of saving energy and the natural resources of our planet, not only at home but also everywhere else.

Some examples: find other usages for goods whose primary use has reached its limit, drink tap water rather than bottled water, make your own household cleaning products and cosmetics, and so on.

Zero Waste experts

Some people have decided to live their belief at the 100% level and have become experts in this field. They hold lectures everywhere in the world, publish books about their passion and sometimes blog about their experience.

This is the case of Béa Johnson and her family who live in California. She published a book in 2013. In France, the star is Jérémie Pichon and his family, with their blog An almost zero-waste family.

You can find in their book or on their blog tricks and tips to produce less waste in the everyday life. It's often amazing to realize how much useless stuff is being thrown away, which can also be seen as sending money straight to the bin, whereas other alternatives, sometimes very simple, exist!

Conclusions

Zero Waste can be a real source of inspiration. Although some actions may not be suitable for everyone, there are still a lot of simple tips that can be useful.

Even without adopting this philosophy, I believe that everyone can find things to change in their daily live to take a step forward in the reduction of waste. And that, without being very binding!

But what do you think?

Is the Zero Waste being too extreme? Or, in contrast, is it a necessity connected to our time? Do you pay attention to the waste you produce, or are instead a little fed up about the ecology questions?

References

1: Wikipedia
2: Zero Waste France
3: Family almost Zero Dechet
4: Something a day