Reducing waste

Ever since I heard about the mason jar girl, I've been thinking about ways to reduce my waste as well.

Some things I've found easy (and also fun)

1. Swapping liquid body and hair shampoo for solid soap and shampoo. The first time I bought solid shampoo from Lush, half of me was excited because it smelt so good, looked gorgeous, and of course, didn't come in plastic packaging. However, the other half of me was aghast that a little bar of soap would have cost twice as much as I would spend on shampoo normally. 3 months on from buying that shampoo, I'm a firm solid shampoo convert. It has lasted all this while, and I've probably used just a quarter of it, and so it's definitely going to last me till the summer break at least. And so while it was a big spend initially, it's definitely worth it. This Sunday I went back to Lush and bought body soap, to replace my usual liquid body shampoo.

2. Buying local fruits and vegetables from the market. In Cambridge we have a market every day of the week in market square, and when I have time I often frequent the vegetable stand. In each pile of veggies they write where the vegetable has come from, and I buy what I need from local sources. (In Singapore you can go to the wet market!) For fruits and veggies that I can't find local in the market (like bananas) I go to Sainsburys and get them - and purposely choose the loose ones rather than the ones wrapped in plastic. I don't even understand why fruits and veggies have to be wrapped in plastic.

3. Bring a bag. During fresher's week they handed out quite  a few free tote bags, and now I use those regularly when I shop to pack my groceries into them. Most retail and grocery shops here charge 5p per plastic bag you use, and so there's a financial incentive to use your own bags too! I wish they'd start that in Singapore.

4. Buy a bamboo toothbrush. This is a little but easy thing to do. Certainly, a bamboo toothbrush is more expensive than a plastic one, and lasts the same amount of time so it definitely is more expensive in the long run, but as a present it's quite a sweet gift. I bought mine from this website, since the postage was free in the UK for a certain amount bought. I basically bought enough toothbrushes to last me my whole university life through. And as eco-friendly oral hygiene goes, it certainly beats oil-pullling (which feels so gross eugh)

5. Takeaway in your own containers. Going to the college cafeteria and putting 2 baked potatoes, rice and curry into my old-ice-cream-boxes-turned-into-tupperware was a little awkward when I asked the server if he could spoon the curry into them rather than on a plate or into the styrofoam takeaway containers the college provides. However, after a couple more times, I've gotten used to it.

6. Recycle recycle recycle. Recycling should be the last resort, since the aim is to not accumulate any trash at all, but I admit, its really tough and inevitably you will generate some sort of rubbish. I keep a cardboard box under my bed, where I stuff any recyclable trash I have, and at the end of a week I take it to the college recycling bins and sort it into them.

7. Make soup with food leftovers and over ripe vegetables. It sounds slightly gross but I'm pretty sure it's what mothers everywhere have been doing for all of time, plus soup is always great. (Especially now when it's so cold)

8. Be creative and do research! There are so many other ways to reduce trash, starting with figuring out what trash you generate and then creatively thinking of ways to reduce/remove that. I have so many other areas I need to improve on as well, but maybe one day I'll finally walk the earth without leaving a trail of mess behind me.