Zero Waste Lifestyle

 Have you heard of this lifestyle?  Bea Johnson who writes at Zero Waste Home and lives in California seems to be at the forefront of the movement but there are many others who have also worked towards the goal of producing Zero (or as close as possible) waste.

     I admit I find this concept quite fascinating. And if you didn't already think I was a little unique or radical you quite likely do now. 😛 I would probably be all in deciding I would never create trash again if I didn't have my family who I am pretty sure would do a lot of feet dragging (and by the way - I'll take my family any day over some concept like that). However I do think that I can work my family into it gradually. 😊 Little by little we can create less and less trash.

   I think this concept resonates so much with me as over the last few years I have become more and more aware of the beautiful way that God designed things to all work together. Joel Salitin's books really left me in awe of our God who created the food chain and just made plants and animals to work together so well and be mutually beneficial to one another. And God made us as part of that wonderful plan. He put us in charge of the animals and gave us plants and animals to eat. Truly He gave us so much. I want to be the best steward of this gift that He has given us that I can. I also realize that my time here on earth is only for a little while and then it will be enjoyed by the generations yet to come. I want to do my best to take care of things so that they can fully enjoy it too.

  So with those thoughts it makes sense to me to create as little as I can of the kind of trash that doesn't decompose and cannot be made easily into something else. Though I am very thankful for plastic and the many wonderful uses it does have I really like the idea of trying to majorly limit my use of it especially with single use items. Plastic doesn't decompose easily and I have heard about a variety of issues that the plastic trash can create in our world. Yet we use it all the time with single use items: straws, plasticware, plastic cups, packaging on new items purchased, grocery bags and the list goes on and on and on.

  I have found this fun to think on and figure out new ideas for dishsoap (without the plastic bottle), Salad dressings (though I have made them myself many times in the past this is something I have gotten "lazy" on and have tended to buy quite a bit recently), buying animal feed without throwaway bags, and simply seeing what I can do without that is going to create trash. It is pretty fun to be able to have the internet at our finger tips and so over and over again I can search for things like: "How to make iced starbucks coffee (something I intend to find out as Ken likes to drink that in the summer), "How to mix your own chicken food", "How to make dishsoap", "How to make toilet bowl cleaner" (I usually use baking soda which works just fine but we recently had some water softener issues and I ended up with orange in my toilets and so I am looking for a way to get rid of that) and many other things. It is so neat!

   This post I actually wrote (but didn't feel like I had finished) earlier this summer. I have been mulling this idea over in my brain for quite a while now. And when I was thinking about joining in to the Write 31 Days in October I knew that I would like to try seeing if I ("we" to an extent) could go Zero Waste for one month and write about it. So that is what we are going to do. It won't be done perfectly, I know that, but I think it is fun to stretch my thinking a little. To make me be a little more creative and think outside the box and I think this will do that.

   Just another thought.... Though I do think it is important to take care of the creation that God has made I don't ever, ever want to get so obsessed with that to the point that I am actually worshiping the creation rather than the creator. Also, I know that I will need to make some exceptions to going fully zero waste out of respect and honor for my husband and his wishes. Honoring my husband is far more important to me than living perfectly zero waste.

   But overall I think this will be fun to try and to blog about. I have not done so hot at blogging regularly/often in the last few years so we will see if I really can write a post for every day in October. Even if you aren't into this idea of zero waste at all I hope you follow along because I plan on sharing a lot of projects, ways you can save money and just tid-bits of life at our homestead.