Has it ever crossed your mind that a lot of waste is not needed? Well, obviously it’s not needed; that’s why it’s waste! I don’t mean that. What I mean is that it wasn’t really needed in the first place.
Take tea for example. Loose or bags. It comes in a carton, but when we get it home from the supermarket, we pour it into a caddy and throw the carton away. It’s served its purpose; it is of no more use to us. It doesn’t even have cards for us to collect any more.
Or liquid soap – and other cleaning products. When empty, we replace with a new bottle, and throw the old one away. OK, we’re careful to put it in the recycling bin, but that still uses energy. And you can’t recycle the trigger mechanism.
Wouldn’t it be so much better if we could just refill our tea caddies and soap dispensers, and cut out the unnecessary packaging? [Read more…] about Reducing Waste – local zero-waste shops