The zero waste movement was started as early as the 1980’s as a means to encourage people to limit and reduce plastic usage. Before the industrial age, people naturally used their items for longer or reused goods from others.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret…. a zero waste lifestyle isn’t really ZERO waste. Zero is just a goal – something that can’t be reached because we don’t live in a perfect zero-waste world. Trash is like an iceberg. What we see is only 30%. The other 70% is lost in manufacturing.
Zero waste is about moving to a circular economy. We’re highlighting areas that need improving, and it’s another reason WHY it’s so important for us to be doing more like asking businesses to improve sustainability initiatives, asking for policy change, and educating our communities.
I wish it were that easy, but China, the largest global buyer of plastic for recycling, stopped accepting it, and other countries are turning it away too. We just have too much plastic to deal with. So it’s vital that we reduce plastic, not simply recycle it.
rePurpose has a handy calculator where you can calculate your plastic footprint and then offset it. For as little as $3-5 a month, rePurpose will intercept & recycle an amount of plastic waste equivalent to the footprint calculated above.