A Day In The Life of a Zero-Waster: Part 4

11.00am

My stomach is telling me it’s time for a snack. For this I’ll either have homemade hummus with carrot sticks (hummus ingredients can all be made or found zero-waste, and I usually make it in bulk and freeze the rest), a piece of fruit, or a chocolate and nuts mix; the nuts I buy in my local zero-waste store by weight and the chocolate I get either from Real Food Source online, which comes in a biodegradable packet, or from Nu+Cao (love, love, love!) or I have a closer look at what’s available in other local shops and buy whichever chocolate comes in recyclable or biodegradable card and/or foil. Research is key here!

1.00pm

Not long later it’s time for lunch – as you can probably tell by now, food is a big part of my day…

If I went into the details here then this blog would be twice as long, so let’s keep it as brief as possible. I buy everything zero-waste, of course, and I eat a fully plant-based diet too. I make all my meals from scratch, which I think I do purely because it’s what my mum and her mum and so on have always done, plus I really enjoy recipe development. I buy things like rice, pasta, lentils, beans, oats, nuts and seeds by weight in my own reusable bags (often old dry-food packets that I can reuse until they break, or reusable mesh bags, or tote bags) from the zero-waste store in town during my lunch breaks as it’s often closed after I finish work. I buy fruits and veggies from the market on Friday mornings/afternoons and bring my own bags, or loose/by weight from supermarkets. I sometimes make my own tomato sauce for dishes that need it, or I buy it in glass jars which I reuse for my overnight oats or for storage (hair ties, make-up, rice, quinoa etc.). I make my own tomato puree, I’ve found balsamic vinegar in glass bottles, miso paste which I use frequently comes in a glass jar, and we grow a lot of herbs and vegetables ourselves. For dried herbs, spices, baking ingredients, lasagne sheets (random I know but clearly important to me, haha), salt, black pepper, nutritional yeast and quinoa, I look online for zero-waste shops and can always find something. I also buy those ingredients in bulk when ordering online to save on frequent shipping costs and carbon emissions. For bread, I go to the bakery section in supermarkets or buy it at the market on Fridays, and for tofu or tempeh I buy it in glass jars from a small store in town. I’ve had to cut out the majority of branded meat-replicant/replacement products because they come in plastic packaging, but I still buy a few frozen ones that just come in a recyclable card box, or I make my own. It's worth noting here that recyclable plastic can only be recycled once before it then has to go to landfill, hence why I avoid plastic entirely.

Sometimes I’m not in or near a kitchen that I have access to when it comes to lunchtime, so I’ll usually bring my food with me (in a reusable food flask if it needs to be kept hot) as well as a metal straw and a cutlery kit. These are easy to find online or in zero-waste shops.

6.00pm

I can usually go from 1-6pm without food, so it’s then time for dinner and the zero-waste lifestyle is the same as it is for lunch. I pre-make a lot of my food in bulk so that I can either freeze a few portions or make enough to last a few days. If I’m eating out, I always order a vegan option and make sure to tell the waiter/waitress that I have my own straw for drinks, so that they don't give me a plastic one. I could search for zero-waste restaurants and cafes but unfortunately, they’re few and far between, and I think that if I adopted that rule as part of my lifestyle then I’d be missing out on creating good memories and having fun in my social life! This is where I draw the line with zero-waste and am less strict. However, if I’m taking food away with me then I will always bring my own pot or flask, and if I know of a fully vegan café/restaurant nearby then I’m always up for going there and exploring what they have to offer. And of course, taking aaaall of the photos for the 'gram.

7.00pm

Washing dishes and clothes (and cleaning in general whilst we’re on the topic)... We have a dishwasher in our house so most of my washing up can go in there as well as my family’s, using tablets from Ecoleaf (the only option I've found!), but I wash a lot up by hand. I use an eco-friendly sponge that I found in my town’s zero-waste store and I buy washing up liquid from Ecover which I can refill, again in the zero-waste store. For washing clothes, we use pods from the brand Smol and most of my clothes we air dry on a rack (usually because they’re made of more eco-friendly materials that can’t be tumble-dried, which also saves energy).

Anywhere between 8.00-10.00pm

Removing make-up and getting into my evening routine. I use micellar water that comes in a glass bottle as my make-up remover from Flawless Vegan Beauty, with a reusable cotton pad from Tabitha Eve. I love the cotton pads and can’t see myself ever using anything else, but I will be trying out other brands for make-up remover as I think I could find one that removes make-up more effectively – Aesop, BYBI, Conscious Skincare and Face Halo to name just a few I’m currently considering. I brush my teeth again with the same routine as in the morning and will then sometimes have a bath, meditate, dance for a while and write my gratitude list or journal for the day. Everything I need for those is easy to find sustainably online or at vegan festivals and trade shows. I often have candles lit in the evening too, which I make sure to buy from sustainable and eco-friendly brands like The Naked Candle Co.

I think that’s just about everything!

If you have any questions about certain products and how/if I use a zero-waste version, fire away! I’m crazily passionate about this topic and am absolutely determined to go at least a full year with having only a mason jar as my new non-recycling bin – I’m looking forward to being able to fit that year’s worth of waste into just one pot.