I’ve decided that I’m going to start #WW, or “Waste-Free Wednesday.” Regardless of how green we are, we are still consuming at a rapid pace. The Zero Waste Home added a 4th R to the mix: Refuse. Refuse an item, refuse a purchase, refuse to drive, refuse to bring it into the house. If we refuse first, then it gets a lot easier to reduce, reuse, and as a last resort, recycle.
To celebrate #WW, see if you can go an entire day without creating trash. Not one scrap. And that doesn’t mean that you put off an activity or purchase until Thursday. See if you can truly refuse to create trash for one day. However, I’m not about to go without toilet paper, so I’ll give you a free pass on that one 
Tough, isn’t it? Well, you gotta start somewhere, right? How about the mail.
The simple act of getting the mail creates trash. I will bet all the money in my pockets (26 cents) that right now, today, on #WW, there is junk mail sitting in my mailbox just waiting to be discovered. There might be a bill or two. There might be a letter. There’s probably a circular or advertisement of some kind. There’s usually SOMETHING in there. Even if it’s necessary communication, the piece of mail still creates waste. There’s an envelope, paper inside, stamp, gasoline for the truck to deliver it, etc…
So here’s my challenge to you for the inaugural #WW:
Stop your mail. No, I don’t mean you should refuse your postal delivery. Get in touch with companies who solicit you and tell them to STOP. I signed up with Catalog Choice a month or two ago, and I have noticed a significant drop in mail to our home. I had been calling Pottery Barn for two years to ask them to remove me from their mailers to no avail, but it only took Catalog Choice one month to get me off the list for good. I sprang for the $20 deluxe “mailing list removal service” and you know what? It’s the best $20 I’ve spent in a long time. No longer is my mailbox cluttered with crap. They even got me off the list for those stupid ValPak coupons and pizza delivery mailers. Neato! You can even unsubscribe to the yellow pages.
By the way, what’s up with the phone book? Who even uses a phone book anymore? This isn’t 1978. What a colossal waste of paper. Does anyone even have a home phone anymore? Ok, back to the topic at hand…
Secondly, pay your bills online. Most banks offer online bill-pay, and the majority of your larger bills like utilities, mortgages, and credit cards and loans can “e-deliver” your bill straight to your bank account bill pay service. Voila! No more bills in the mail. Not only does this help you go waste-free, it also adds a layer of security to your accounts. Thieves can’t steal your mail if it’s not in the box.
So there that is. Two easy steps to help you go waste-free. Yeah, they’re small steps, but imagine the impact if everyone did this? How many trees would be saved? And then there’s the impact from mail production, printing, delivery, etc. That’s a lot of savings.
I plan on making #WW a weekly installment. Hit me up if you have some great ideas for going waste-free.
Happy Hump Day!
Going waste free is hard – pretty much impossible when you have pets (I have two cats). I tried Catalog Choice and while it helped, I found calling each catalog directly also significantly lowered the mailers. I realized all the internet shopping I had done LAST YEAR automatically meant my name/address was added to every Tom, Dick and Harry’s list. Never again.
One thing we started doing is bringing our own take-out containers (glass) whenever we eat in restaurants. Sure, they look at me a little funny, but I don’t mind. I’ve managed to cut our waste/recycling down considerably. Even though an item can be recycled, I’d rather have no waste at all.