What Can your Household do to Achieve Zero Waste in the Months to Come – Read Here!

 As an admirable, accomplishable, and controversial goal, ‘zero waste’ is something we’re very passionate about achieving in the City of Toronto. The ultimate goal of ‘zero waste’ is to reduce landfill waste to nothing. To some, this might seem impossible. To us, we see this as something that we can achieve within the next decade.

Just think of the kind of waste we create. Every household has the opportunity to use compost organizers to reduce their food and drink waste to nothing. Every business has the opportunity to either compost, contribute to a waste management company with a composting relationship, or to donate unused food and drink items.

The various building materials we throw away can be recycled and reused. There’s plenty of ways to recycle paper, plastics, metals, and more. To put it simply, there are few things that we cannot recycle or reuse in some way. That said, the infrastructure and recycling facilities may not necessarily be built to accommodate that level of recycling just yet.

As individual households, there’s a lot each one of us can do to achieve a zero waste future. In fact, you’re likely already doing some of the things we’ll mention here. If you separate your waste into ‘recyclables’ and ‘non-recyclables’, that’s a huge benefit to zero waste. The other thing is limiting single-use items, such as plastic straws. Any disposable, single-use products can usually be limited or eliminated altogether in residential households.

Next, there’s packaging. Small businesses and corporations need to step up if we’re going to achieve a zero waste future because they are the ones using single-use, wasteful packaging that goes straight to our landfills. As independent households, if it’s possible not to buy products with wasteful packaging, we would recommend trying this. As long as we continue to support, manufacture, and buy single-use non-recyclable packaging, zero waste will be impossible to achieve.

There are a number of smaller things we can do that can make a sizeable difference, including switching out plastic bags for reusable bags when going to get groceries, choosing healthier foods over pre-packaged foods, going with paperless billing instead of receiving paper mail every month, donating any household items you don’t want instead of throwing them to the curb, and shopping at local, second-hand shops.

Consumer power is something that we need to remember we have. As individual households, where we spend our money sends a clear message. Every dollar we spend on products and services is an investment. For companies that are unwilling to adapt to fulfill a zero waste future, they’re going to have a tremendous time getting through government regulation, distributing relevant product, and marketing to an increasingly savvy Canadian population.

In terms of what we can do as individuals to mitigate climate change and limit the garbage we put out into the world, this is the answer. As a Toronto waste management and recycling company, and supporter of a zero waste world, we believe zero waste to be the future of the environmental movement and the next step we need to take to achieve our green dreams. For consumers, what you buy, how much stuff you buy, and the attention paid to product’s recycling potential is already sending a message to governments, corporations, and the world.