The Beginner's Guide to Zero Waste: Important Things to Know (2022)

“Zero waste”...

It’s a term, movement, and lifestyle that’s gaining major traction in 2022—and for good reason.

If you’re interested in living a less wasteful life, then you’re in the right place. In this article, you’ll learn what zero waste is, its importance in society, when this movement started, and how you can begin incorporating small habits into your day so that you, too, can live an (almost) zero-waste lifestyle.

Alrighty then, let’s get into it…

What Is “Zero Waste”?

In a nutshell, a zero-waste lifestyle is living in such a way that eliminates waste altogether.

That avocado peel you have? Throw it in a compost bin. That shampoo bottle you have? Invest in a shampoo bar when it runs out. That latte you get every day? Bring your own travel coffee mug so you can skip the single-use cup.

The concept of zero waste takes into account the entire lifecycle of a product—from how it’s made to when, where, and how it ends up.

With 146 million tonnes of plastic packaging being produced every year, this lifestyle is more important than ever before (1).

And the question that many of us forget to ask is, “Where will this plastic end up?”

Well, here’s your answer: Only 10 to 12% of it is recycled (2). 8 million tonnes of it ends up in the ocean (1). And the rest of it goes to landfills where it takes up to 500 years to break down.

That’s the reality we live in. And because of it, we’ve been dubbed the “throwaway society”.

Over the past 40 years, many major cities have created their own definition of zero waste (3)…

San Jose, California

“Zero waste is a perception change. It requires rethinking what we have traditionally regarded as garbage and treating all materials as valued resources instead of items to discard. Zero waste entails shifting consumption patterns, more carefully managing purchases, and maximizing the reuse of materials at the end of their useful life. Achieving zero waste entails encouraging San Jose, its residents, and its businesses to reevaluate what we view as waste.”

County of Hawai'i

“‘Zero Waste’ is a way of life that promotes the goal of reducing the amount of material we throw away and instead reincorporating by-products of one system for use for another system. There is no such thing as "waste" in Nature. In nature, the by-product of one system is feedstock for another system. Only humans have created this thing like "waste." Ancient Hawaiian culture lived this way before the term "Zero Waste" came to be. We can live this way again through small shifts in our daily activities. In this way, we greatly reduce our impact on Hawai'i Island's natural environment, and how much rubbish we generate, protect Hawai'i Island's natural environment, preserve our resources for future generations, and save our community tax dollars.”

Pasadena, California

“Zero Waste is a philosophy and design framework that promotes not only reuse, recycling, and conservation programs, but also, and more importantly, emphasizes sustainability by considering the entire life-cycle of products, processes, and systems.”

Click here to read more zero-waste definitions for cities like Austin, Texas, Middletown, Connecticut, and Asheville, North Carolina.

8 Core Principles of Zero Waste

According to the United States Conference of Mayors, the 8 core principles of zero waste are the following (4):

Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Redesign
Reduce Waste, Toxicity, Consumption, and Packaging
Repair, Reuse, and Donate
Recycle
Compost
Down Cycle and Beneficial Reuse
Waste-Based Energy as Disposal
Landfill Waste as Disposal

When Did the Zero Waste Movement Start?

The term “zero waste” came about in the 1980s by a guy named Daniel Knapp. Through his salvaging operation, Urban Ore, Knapp proved that numerous types of waste could, in fact, be kept out of landfills and upcycled in the community.

To know why the zero waste movement started, we have to go back to when waste became a problem…

Waste management and sanitation weren’t a priority for hundreds of years. People would simply throw their trash out the window, or bury it—adopting an out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality. This negligence eventually led to the bubonic plague in 1346 (5, 6).

And 400 years later, the Industrial Revolution began. From 1760 to 1840, large-scale waste became the norm in society. As Susan Strasser—author of Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash—puts it, “Industrialization created waste on a previously unimagined scale. It added up to a seismic shift in the individual’s relationship with the material world. People who once made things now bought things” (7).

This rapid rise in waste quickly brought on a number of issues…

Which is why, in 1824, the “Age of Sanitation” began. The United Kingdom released a report linking disease to filthy environmental conditions, and thus—the infrastructure for sewers and water treatment began (8). Refuse and garbage were also addressed, but to a much lesser extent.

And then in 1907, the world’s first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was discovered by Leo Hendrik Baekeland. This marked the beginning of the global plastics industry, or the “Polymer Age” (9).

Fast forward to 1950—this is when plastic production began to skyrocket. During the Second World War (from 1939 to 1945), plastic production quadrupled from 213 million pounds to 818 million pounds (10). Plastics were used for a variety of purposes, including combs, parachutes, aircraft components, antenna housing, helmet liners, and more (10).

And from there, plastic’s popularity soared. Going from 2 million tonnes in 1950 to an astonishing 381 million tonnes in 2015—a 200-fold increase (1).

Is Zero Waste Really That Important?

In short, yes. Here’s why…

Every single year, humans generate a whopping two billion tonnes of waste (11). 1.3 billion tonnes of food waste (12). And 146 million tonnes of plastic packaging (1). Yikes.

If we keep going on like this, global waste is expected to increase by 70% by 2050 (11). That is unless we start making small lifestyle changes. My philosophy: Small changes done by ~8 billion people add up to massive change.

So how can you start doing your part? Keep reading—the answer is in the next section…

Simple Tips to Starting Living (Almost) Zero Waste

Once you make one aspect of your life zero waste (say, your cleaning supplies, toiletries, or showering items), you naturally want to make every other aspect of your life zero waste, too.

It’s like a domino effect. (A very addicting domino effect.)

That said, to start living an (almost) zero-waste life, here are some steps you can take…

1. Finish what you have. Don’t go out and buy a shampoo bar when you still have a bottle of shampoo left! Use that baby up, and then buy a shampoo bar.

2. Choose one area of your life to make zero waste, and start there. Rather than trying to tackle everything at once, choose just one area. It can be your cleaning supplies, grocery shopping, toiletries, showering items, or coffee shop visits. Or you can even start a compost bin.

3. Be easy on yourself. Let’s be real, we live in the 21st century. Which means waste will be around us till the day we die. If you’re out and about and forgot your reusable grocery bags, don’t beat yourself up! Progress over perfection, always.

The Bottom Line

Instead of being a part of the 2 billion tonnes of waste produced annually, try adopting a less wasteful lifestyle (11).

Zero waste is accomplished by rethinking, reducing, reusing, or recycling resources.

So instead of relying on single-use items like plastic water bottles, coffee cups from a coffee shop, and shampoo bottles, invest in a water bottle that you can refill thousands of times. Take your own travel coffee mug to the coffee shop. Buy a shampoo bar.

Now it’s time to put knowledge into action. Tell me, what’s ONE thing you’re going to do today to live an (almost) zero-waste life? Comment below.

For People & Planet