I first found out about the Johnson Family while browsing treehugger.com. They are attempting {and succeeding} at generating only about one quart of waste per year. Let me tell you Bob, I was totally fascinated by their story. In a nutshell, they were living the standard American lifestyle. Then, they decided to downsize, from their 3000 square foot home to a 1400 square foot home. They sold 80-90% of their possessions and were left with only the bare ESSENTIALS. They each own enough clothing to get by, but still, it would all fit into a suitcase. They shop primarily in bulk and take their own bags and jars to the store with them to cut down on any packaging. When I watched the video, I couldn’t help but envy the clean look of their house. It’s not like they tidied up before shooting the film–they just didn’t have anything to tidy.
Obviously, it is possible to live a low to zero waste lifestyle, and it is a super cool concept, but in the age of Costco shopping and hectic lifestyles {I am thinking of the convenience factor here} is it really realistic?
I mean, do you think you would start to lose your mind after awhile–on one of those days when you are out and about, starving, and really just wanting to grab a quick packaged something to tide you over? It seems like it would almost take someone making it their goal full time to ensure you don’t create waste. Someone would have to prepare all of the bulk foods right? Someone would have to make all of the cleaning products…am I crazy here, or would that be a full-time job keeping up with everyone in the family’s needs?
What do you think–does the lure of no waste speak to you?
Or do you think it would even be sustainable long term?
~Mavis
Heidi P says
I would love to think that I could sustain our lives in a similar fashion but I know over the long haul I couldn’t keep up. Maybe if I take baby steps?
Pauline Petros says
Fascinating – they are doing it so it is possible!
Madam Chow says
What do you think–does the lure of no waste speak to you? No. Reasonable waste does, however.
Or do you think it would even be sustainable long term? No. This is like a crash or fad diet.
Dor says
No waste, well that would largely depend on the manufacturer. Many products we buy come in excess packaging and excess plastic. Unfortunately we may remember the 1982 poisoning of several people in Chicago by Tylenol Capsules that had been tampered with, then the 1986 copycat Excedrin capsules in Washington State, resulting in Tamper Resistent packaging – EXCESSIVE packaging. So what can a manufacturer do? Kind of like that rock and a hard place theory we want our foods and drugs safe but we have kearned the hard way that less oackaging is not only better. Buying in bulk can be accomplished by some people in some arrears and for some items, but definately not for everyone and everywhere Would you buy rice that had been sneezed on by the customer before you? We used to have plastic Eggs for pantyhose that now come in recyclable cardboard boxes. That innovation in earth friendly packaging should be promoted. How about going to the grocery store and buying 5 oranges and NOT putting them in a separate clear plastic bag from the produce section. We can promote less packaging merely by monitoring ourselves. And don’t get me started on plastic water bottles!!!!!
We have to Stop Buying and Drinking from plastic bottles. We have to learn to reuse and reuse and then recycle. And for those items we no longer can use Free Cycle is great or donate to a charity. Our hectic lifestyles today do not permit us to live waste fee. To do so would take away from family time. Teach our children to recycle, use cloth napkins and stop using styrofoam products and plastic products and you have given the gift of a cleaner world to the next generation. Trying to do it all will just drive you nuts do what you can and teach your children well.
Mary says
I think we could all cut back on the amount of waste we dispose of, this would eventually have a better impact on our environment, if not for us then for our children’s, children.
elizabeth says
It is simple if you are one person, but if your husband and or family do not have the same goal, I find it very difficult.
Ann says
This is exactly my problem also, Elizabeth. It is now just my husband and me at home, but I SWEAR he fights me on everything. If it were up to him, we would eat on paperplates EVERY MEAL!!!
Denise says
My husband would too! I don’t understand…I need to just quit buying them instead of buying them and asking him to save them for times when we are in a real pinch for time.
Peggy Stenglein says
It’s a lifestyle, and good for them! I have felt pretty good at only putting out one bag of garbage per week for our family of four, and have been trying to remember to bring some containers to the store for bakery goods, etc…I haven’t remembered yet, but will, and I’m trying to decrease the amount of recycling we put out. My recycle/garbage ratio is about 3:1, but I would like to figure ways to decrease that too.
Missy Homemaker says
I agree with you and my family of 6 is about the same. One bag of trash and a full recycle bin. We could definitely reduce our amount of recyclables by finding alternatives to those products though.
Lisa says
This totally depends on where you live. It is not possible where I live. There is not many options for bulk purchasing.
Belle says
Im not sure if this counts as zero waste or not, but we have not had a trash or garbage bags in over a year. Everything is recycled in our single stream town recycling program or it goes to chickens, worms or compost bin. We dont eat meat so no bones to throw out. When an item breaks, it gets fixed. Right now i am changing the worm gear on kitchen aid mixer. Even the broken part can be recycled. If we dont need or use an item, it is donated to thrift shop or put on freecycle. I shred all newspaper and junk mail, except for shiny paper. The shredded paper goes into compost pile. I even tear the plastic windows out of mailing envelopes to shred the rest of the envelope. I have many composting piles in out of the way spots in the yard but i also have great soil.
Wynne says
That’s awesome!
Practical Parsimony says
I love the idea of no-waste and work towards that end. I buy no paper products, including tp. My hens get food scraps. I have a compost pile. I throw nothing away. Either it is recycled, given away, sold, or taken to the salvage yard for a few dollars. However, I am not perfect and have a way to go.
Cotswoldsrose says
How do you avoid toilet paper?
yas says
probably small washcloths that get laundered just like you would baby diapers.
Carol says
If the plastic shrink wrap on TP is the issue, I order Seventh Generation TP in bulk. It comes in a cardboard box of 48 or 60, if I remember correctly, and the rolls are individually wrapped in paper. (This does seem unnecessary.) The TP is a recycled paper product, and all the packaging can be recycled.
Carol says
P.S. You can always go the European route and have a bidet installed.
Vicki says
I’m curious…how do you dry yourself after using a bidet? Doesn’t it just spray water, leaving you dripping?
Mavis says
Most bidets have dryers. Crazy, right?!
Lisa Millar says
I read about a couple who grew loofahs (before that I didn’t know they were a plant!!) and used those in lieu of toilet paper. They happily disposed in the composting toilet.
carrie says
If you are interested in this topic my favorite non fiction book of all time is:
Garbology by E. Hume
http://www.amazon.com/Garbology-Dirty-Love-Affair-Trash/dp/1583335234/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395231256&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=garbiology
It changed how I do many things. I am in no way zero waste. But with a few small changes I have reduced my garbage in half for my family of five.
Carrie
Alison says
Thanks for the great link Mavis!
Just when I thought I couldn’t think of any new ways to do that little bit more…*WHAMO*.. Another fab resource! This is why I love your blog!!! Keep ’em coming 🙂
Melanie Homburg says
I read her book. The lengths she goes to to ensure zero waste is far beyond my capacity. I think it’s inspiring and some of her methods realistic changes we can all make, however taking glass jars shopping with me and not using tp are not in the cards for most Americans. But being mindful of my family waste, taking our own bags to the grocery store and using reusable containers for lunch prep and freezer foods are ways I cut 3 people and 2 cats down to 1 garbage bag a week – including cat litter. So I’m happy with that.
Jupiter says
I think we do pretty good but not as well as I’d like to be. I have a family of 8 (or more when step-kids stay for long periods). For awhile, we were averaging only one bag of actual trash about once per month. The past several months ,it’s been more and the weird thing is, I think it’s because we’ve had more money to spend & haven’t had to be as thoughtful as usual about purchases. Being low income could definitely be an obstacle for some people (especially depending on where they live) but for us, not having a lot of money has made us super-frugal, which creates less waste….and we’re able to do so,thankfully.
Cee says
I’ve followed Bea and her family’s blog for a few years now. I think, and she recognizes, that zero waste is not doable for a great many people. It helps that she works in the home and that they have options for bulk buying in their area. Some areas are not so well stocked or the places to get bulk are not nearby (especially for people without access to transportation). What I think is great about her blog, and she has gotten better at communicating this over the years, is that it can be used as an inspiration. Take what you can use from it, leave the rest. I find sad when other people look at what one person/family has done and say…well there is no way I could do all that! Then use it as an excuse not to do anything. Since when did a lack of perfection mean we shouldn’t do anything at all, shouldn’t even try?
Kristina says
Yes! I guess we can also ask ourselves about how realistic it is for us to keep on the way we are. There are so many things a person could cut out painlessly (Dollar store and Oriental Trading Company junk come to mind for starters), so why not try to reduce our “stuff” footprint? Recycling is all well and good, but a lot of it is unnecessary, and manufacturing of the products we recycle has an environmental impact often greater than the waste created at the back end. I mean, come on — it’s hard to believe that we actually *pay* to buy bottled water from another city’s municipal water source (“springs” on the label notwithstanding) and then feel like we’re eco-warriors for throwing the plastic bottles in the recycling bin! Penn and Teller have done a couple of great shows about both recycling and bottled water. The restaurant scene in the bottled water one was especially funny. Actually, Mavis, their series “Bullsh*t” has got a couple of great episodes relating to environmental issues. Providing you have a relatively high tolerance for four-letter words, it might be worth looking into for your Friday movie-fests.
Elizabeth says
I am partway through her book and am loving it. I was super intrigued and inspired by her bringing her own jars to the store for meat and dairy but my husband thought I was certifiable when I mentioned it. His reasoning was “because that is not what people do.” Here’s the thing, what if it was? Real butcher shops would once again open like they have in Europe. (They probably have them in big cities too but we don’t many near us.) On a personal note, I don’t think it would take anywhere near the effort that you would think. If you owned less stuff, you would have a lot less to clean. We buy everything we can in bulk and it takes almost the same amount of time to transfer it to our glass jars for storage as it does to put the same about of small bags of the same product away. Convenience food takes the same 30 minutes that putting together a fresh meal can take – I know, I do it every day with at least two, if not three courses.
I think the hardest part is cleaning out our things and not going back. Once you are there, I bet it would be a lot easier than you think.
Michelle says
I’ve been following the Zero Waste blog for about a year or so, and I’ve read her book. I think it’s important to remember that she made all these changes over a couple of years. She just took one “thing” at a time, researched and made the changes she could. It’s very inspiring.
sclindah says
I have always thought that a big environmental point should be to grow your own food and cooking from scratch as a way to eliminate waste and garbage and should be heavily emphasized. We have moved to that over the years and I have noticed how that one thing alone probably cut our garbage by over half. We only take a couple bags to the dump once a month or so. If we get plastic containers from the store, we always try to find another use for it before throwing it out. That’s a question I always find myself asking, how can I reuse this!
Julie says
There was a family in Europe who did this years ago – I can’t find the information though. They did a special on maybe history or animal planet (or such) – it was awesome! Their only trash for the month was a plastic tag from a shirt and a broken wine glass.
Sharon Rafter says
Very cool. Thanks for sharing, Mavis. I would be all for this, but I think my hubby would have a hard time. 🙁
Mavis Butterfield says
My husband as well. 😉
sheila says
I’ve been pondering this concept lately. My husband grew up without trash service and we’ve continued to go without since getting married. We live on a farm and it’s fairly common to just burn what can burn then store everything else in the barn to go to the dump or recycle until the yearly trip to the dump. This takes a heck of a lot more effort than just putting it all in a dumpster once a week where it magically disappears. Since I have to store my trash for a year, i’ve been trying to reduce it as much as possible. Right now my focus is on the food packaging which is the bulk of the trash. It’s amazing how many condiments are “combine ingredients in saucepan and simmer 15 minutes”!
KAte says
The thing with burning your trash is that you have to deal with all that stuff being in the air that you breathe. There are things you definitely shouldn’t burn, especially if you live around other people in a suburban setting. Our neighbors downhill burn their trash once a week and we have to leave our house. It smells so terrible I don’t even want to think about all the little toxic particles I’m breathing in. We’re right uphill from them so the airflow come right to us. It’s awful.
sheila says
Like I said, I live on a working farm. Since I’m a quarter mile from my closest neighbor, it’s a non-issue for me. I’ve pondered the danger of putting chemicals into the air but if I don’t burn, then a trash truck has to drive by my house every week (if we can even get service) to haul to a landfill where it will eventually leech into the soil and groundwater. Until I see a scientific study on the issue, I will consider it a wash. Plus, if it doesn’t “disappear” every week and I’m forced to manage it, I’m more aware of what I’m wasting. That being said, I can’t imagine burning anything in an urban setting just from the fire danger standpoint.
sheila says
Correction: I can’t imagine burning in an urban or suburban or non-rural setting.
Vanessa says
I threw away a brochure inside a plastic bag that was hanging on our mailbox. it was for a children’s school… we don’t have any kids. All the mailboxes on our street had the brochure/plastic bag ads hanging from the mailbox. I’m trying to minimize using plastic bags and unrecyclable plastic products and my last thought before I closed the lid on that useless plastic bag was that it’ll be around forever. It’s so irresponsible of that school to package a brochure in a plastic bag when they can just slip the brochure in the mailbox.
cptacek says
I think it is illegal to put anything in a mailbox that isn’t mail.
yas says
I believe that is correct – mailboxes are for US Postal mail deliveries only. Even the FedEx envelopes we get sometimes are slipped inside our screen door if we aren’t home.
Lisa Millar says
I didn’t know that! I am glad that rule doesn’t apply here in Aust. We have a (half sized) wine barrel as a letterbox and its great… especially when cousins want to drop off stuff like relish! 🙂
Tracy says
This is great inspiration! Do I think I could do this 100%? Not at all! However if every household could use this inspiration to make a few small changes, imagine the impact that would have on the environment.
Michelle says
i would love to live less wasteful. I don’t know if what they are doing is zero waste, but they are definitely to the extreme. what I don’t understand is, how is it now waste if you transfer your ;puchases to your own containers to bring home. its still waste, you just don’t have it in your own garbage can. its in your wholesale clubs can instead!
Nancy says
Thank you Michelle, that was my thought as well. I know in many European areas you are to remove all excess packaging before leaving the store before you leave the premises as a way to force people to recycle.
Cheri says
I just finished her book and found it very inspiring, although I think my motives seem different from hers in some respects. I plan to buy my own copy and do as much as I can with it. Some of it is too extreme for me–rejecting gifts and taking my jars to the store. However, I am being more mindful of waste, now, and looking for ways to cut down. I have transitioned to her jar idea already, using wide-mouthed, quart canning jars, as well as pint canning jars. I find that it is a cheap and practical way to buy and store food.
Shirley says
We’re a family of four with the smallest waste can available through the city and it’s probably 3/4 full each week. Recyclables and paper go in a different bin. What popped in my head is as a child in the ’70’s we had garbage pickup twice weekly and my family of three had two cans we could fill!
jestjack says
I watched this a while back and it was very inspiring. Our family has cut way back on trash by donating unwanted items instead of trashing, composting, agressively recycling and buying items with less packaging. Our family of three produces a small plastic grocery bag of trash….per week. We have so little trash we don’t have trash service. But we do have a “compost tumbler”…it rocks…
Lisa Millar says
This is amazing… hats off to them.
I am not sure I would get to that level of zero waste!
Still, in the 2 and a half years since our move to the country we have cut down on a staggering amount of waste.
Growing your own food immediately helps.
Chickens and compost are marvellous with the scraps, and we can burn ‘burnables’ as we are not near other homes (and its just paper and cardboard anyway)
I am not sure what our local butcher would think if I trotted in with glass jars to put the meat in! 🙂
Jill says
I read her book over the winter and found it very inspiring. We have already been doing some of the things she writes about, but I have been working on making small changes in our family since reading the book.
Rachel Steward says
I see “zero waste” as being an extreme lifestyle choice; similar to being vegan or amish. Zero Waste may not be so practical for an entire society to put into practice.