I don’t pretend to be an expert on “Zero Waste” practices. I’m just as guilty as everyone else when it comes to consuming single-use plastics, and stabbing a plastic straw through the lid of my frequent Starbucks beverage. I try to be prepared with my reusable coffee cup, but when the dirty hydroflasks start piling up, my motivation to clean them and bring them with me plummets. Over my summer road trip, the task of reducing waste became even harder. Small town coffee shops called my name and little gas station bags of snacks did too, and the trash just piled up in my car. In the trunk, my six hydroflasks clanked around with the remnants of the cold brew I brought along in an attempt to not buy coffee. For the first week, I fell victim to this, but after cramming all the trash from my car into a can outside a gas station, I decided something needed to change. When you and all your belongings are crammed in a small space for long periods of time, you become aware of how much you use and waste. Did I really need five half-empty Frito Honey-BBQ twisty bags? Nope. At one point, we were in Colorado and there was a coffee cup that had been in the cupholder since our very first stop on the road trip. Gross.
The amount of trash we gathered on the trip, and really the amount of trash we as individuals produce in everyday life is ridiculous. It’s true that it’s very hard to avoid single-use plastics beyond the metal straw and reusable water bottle trend because they are ingrained in everything we do. Groceries, cosmetics, cleaning products, everything is packaged and its usually in plastic. It takes a lot of effort for a single person to significantly cut down on their waste production, but in my experience, the first step is to take account of what type of and how much trash you produce in a single day or week. Seeing this trash pile up in the car really made me think about how I could cut down on it. At the next grocery store we stopped at, we skipped produce bags for our veggies. We found a visitor center where we washed out our hydroflasks and vowed that if we didn’t have and remember to bring them into Starbucks, we wouldn’t get coffee. We looked for oat milk in cardboard containers instead of plastic. Little steps can be taken everywhere.
My call to actions for my readers is simply to start paying attention to how many things you use once and then throw out, and how much unnecessary packaging is a part of our every day lives. If you can, keep your trash and then look at it at the end of the day or week, and figure out what you produce most. Is your trash bag full of paper towels? Think about using a cloth for your next spill. Is it full of plastic smoothie or coffee cups? Pick an extra mason jar and keep it in your car. Stick your produce in your shopping cart and make sure to give it an extra rinse later. Try your hardest to reduce your intake of processed foods, which will do good things for both you and the earth. A little effort will start going a long way, and the first step is to take inventory. So I challenge you, as weird and kinda gross as it sounds, keep track of everything you throw away in a week, and figure out what categories your waste falls into so you can think about ways to reduce it. This happened to me by default on the road trip, but you can make it happen in your own home too.
Happy Trails!