Trash is for Tossers

Last week I had the opportunity to attend an amazing community discussion in Healdsburg California at The Shed hosted by Lauren Singer from trashisfortossers.com. Lauren is a young woman who has been living in New York without creating any garbage! That’s right, ZERO WASTE. Pretty impressive if you ask me. She runs her blog and also a small natural house cleaning supply company called The Simply Co.

Raising awareness on this topic is of utmost importance in a time where everything is plastic wrapped, ready to go and disposable for ultimate convenience. Another great blog to check out on this subject is ZeroWasteHome.com by Bea Johnson in California. She has INCREDIBLY  useful tips and links on her site.

The idea of sustainability isn’t anything new, we are actually going back to the basics. It’s not about just bringing your own bag to the grocery store anymore or recycling our plastic water bottles. We have forgotten that there is a chain of commands here and we have been putting them all out of order. Here is a brief overview of where to begin..in the most effective sequence from Bea 🙂

Refuse – What you don’t need.

Reduce – What you do need.

Reuse – What you consume.

Recycle – What you cannot refuse, reduce or reuse and Rot (compost) the rest.

On a final note, Tim and I are implementing these 5 R’s to the best our ability as we’re currently living in a family members home and a little thrown off our usual groove. Once we are in our tiny house we will be adding in more and more of these values to our daily living and we will definitely do an update of our progess on limiting what we put into landfills!

What are some ways you have been successful in reducing your waste?