Our family has always strived to limit our environmental impact, but in the past few months we invested more time and resources into reducing it even more. We try and follow the zero waste philosophy – which, despite the misleading extreme name, aims at reducing waste as much as possible. I have written here about why this is essential and how much household waste impacts the environment in Finland specifically. In today’s post I want to list a few changes we implemented in our family life to further reduce our impact.

Important disclaimer

In this post I will present some products we have purchased to replace single-use items. Reusable products are great, but when trying to reduce impact, the most important step is behaviour change. Some of the items I have listed in this post required us to make substantial changes in our routines or habits, and some adapting from the whole family. It was a great investment and we would never go back, but I want to set your expectations. No product will “save the day”: the biggest change has to happen in how we consume.

Composting

We have started composting! We have a tiny yard and we opted for a compost tumbler, but nowadays there are composting solutions for all house situations, including apartments without a balcony. Finding the best setup for you will require some research (reviews on Youtube are a great resource). This blog post contains an overview of different composting solutions and a decision tree that will set you in the right direction.

Our compost tumbler was expensive (but we wanted a sturdy and durable solution) and it took us a few weeks to learn how to balance our compost, but it has been great. I made a list with drawings to help the kids learn what to throw in it and what not. Our compost bin has reduced our household’s bio-waste roughly by 90% and our paper and cardboard waste by 70%.

Freezing temps forced us on a break from composting because the tumbler door does not open easily, but we are looking forward to resuming it soon! Before winter I “harvested” our first compost load and I am looking forward to observing how it will nurture my garden plants.

Zero waste cosmetics

It’s fairly easy to find natural or even organic cosmetics nowadays, but it’s not so trivial to find them zero waste. We were already largely using soap bars instead of liquid handsoap, but now I am careful to buy soap that is not packaged in plastic and possibly locally made. Our family has permanently banned liquid soap from our household (despite the kids’ initial protests).

I have cut plastic packaging by opting for shampoo and conditioner bars. I won’t lie: it took me a while to find a brand that worked for me. I tried the Lush shampoo bar in the past and it left my hair very dry. Several friends recounted that it took a while for them as well before finding the shampoo bar that worked for them. Personally I have fully adopted the locally handmade products of small business Catteco.

From Catteco I have also purchased my deodorant cream, fully packaged in aluminum and cardboard, thus eliminating plastic-packaged deodorant sticks. I alternate that with my mineral deodorant stone (which lasts forever).

From our initial waste audit (which it’s step one and sooo insightful to guide you in reducing your waste) I had noticed cotton discs and cotton buds were part of my daily waste. I replaced them with the corresponding products from LastObject and they work great.

At the store…

We made several changes to how we shop during our weekly grocery buying. We were already using reusuable shopping bags, but we also eliminated plastic bags for fruit and vegetables by purchasing drawstring cotton bags (I recommend this set: they work great, have several size combinations, and are among the lightest I could find).

Beside that, we are now very observant of how things are packaged. For instance, in the past I might have grabbed the “paprika mix” plastic bag, which included 3 differently coloured peppers; now I opt to buy the unpackaged red peppers to avoid the plastic packaging. Similarly, salad cheese is sold either in a plastic package or in a glass jar with metal lid. I pick the second, as the packaging material is fully recyclable (remember plastic can be recycled a couple of times max before ending up in the landfill and not decaying for centuries).

We slowly and gradually got to the point where we privilege products and recipes that create less (or better quality) waste. I started making my own granola bars and chia seed crackers to avoid buying plastic-packaged bars. I know the idea of cooking most things yourself sounds unattainable: let me underline this has been a slow and gradual change. One week I tried making my own crackers, found out it literally took 20 minutes and continues. Sometime I don’t have much time for cooking for weeks and I revert to the store-bought products and that’s okay. This is not about aiming for perfection, but about exploring alternatives and reducing impact.

What’s next for us

Our journey on this path continues. This year I am focusing more and more on educating the children on climate change and more generally on how our daily choices impact the environment. Last year we started getting involved in community environmental initiatives (to learn more read about ParkPals). Moreover, I would like to associate with some activist organisation to start making pressure on decision- and policy-makers. Individual change is great, but we also need collective action.

I am also looking more into upcycling as a mean to prevent waste. I have already started cleaning and reusing everyday objects like glass jars, but I would like to find ways to upcycle our old damaged clothes, of which I have a huge box in storage. Last year I made face masks out of old t-shirts: it felt so good to make something necessary out of an object that would have gone to the trash instead.

I will keep documenting our journey in my blog. If you are reading this and it feels daunting, don’t be scared: what you see summarised in a couple of posts took us months to patiently and gradually change. I felt the same terror every time I saw a zero waste video at the start of my journey, I remember thinking “I will never be able to live like that!”. Yet one small step at a time we made dramatic changes in our family life. Break down your goals and change one small thing every week. You won’t believe where you end up in a few months!