14 ways the Zero Waste Movement has Changed in the Past 14 years

I’ve been reducing my landfill waste since 2008.

Back then I was seen as a bit weird. It all felt pretty lonely to be honest.

The only other person I knew was Karen Cannard. She started her ‘rubbish diet’ in response to a challenge set by her local council in January 2008.

It was Karen who kept me sane when I began blogging about my own Zero Waste journey later that year. I mean, there are only so many people who will understand your excitement about being able to shop for something without packaging! My motivation came from being caught in a flash flood, where 100 people had to be air lifted to safety. That was my cue to do something to preserve resources and help secure a safe, healthy planet for future generations.

Bea Johnson arrived on the Zero Waste scene in December 2009 with her compelling minimalist lifestyle. And apart from us three, there were few people talking about this topic.

But gradually things have changed, and now there are a whole host of people worldwide blogging about their adventures into a sustainable and Zero Waste future. Nowadays you can’t help notice  Zero Waste influencers on social media, stuffing their rubbish into mason jars, sharing hacks and being activists for the planet.

What I’m most pleased about is that so many of the things I’ve spoken and campaigned about for over  a decade are now commonplace. I’m not for one minute suggesting, it’s because of me – nope, my ego isn’t that big! But because it’s so easy to focus on what still needs to be done, where the problems lie and what isn’t working, I wanted to give attention to some of the significant positive changes that I’ve seen happening.

I think it’s also worth noting that many of these ideas are not new – we’re simply coming back full circle to a ‘waste not, want not’ style of living…

Disposable Carrier Bags are Not Cool

When I started out, supermarkets had boxes of disposable carrier bags available for free at every checkout. You were encouraged to take as many as you needed and to ‘double bag’ breakable or heavy items, such as a bottle of wine. I admit, I even used to take extra bags to use as bin bags! Since 2015, we’ve seen carrier bag charges come into place and disposable bags are no longer available in some stores – you have to purchase a ‘bag for life’ or take your own with you. As a result of the charge, usage has reduced by 97%.

Reducing your Paper Footprint

I remember being offered a PayPal debit card and being wowed when – after making my first purchase in a store – I received an email receipt before I’d walked back to my car! I knew this was the future of helping us all reduce our paper footprint. In 2010, I did a little experiment and kept my receipts for a month. I ended up with 90gms of paper. That could mean every year I was given over 1kg of paper, just to throw away after purchase!

Fortunately, there are many shops that now ask whether you want a receipt before printing it. Sainsburys print their receipts double-sided in all their new stores, and many supermarket delivery services send a pdf rather than give you a paper copy. You can reduce paper waste in other ways too. Train tickets and bus tickets can now be downloaded onto an app and you can even partake in your favourite Charity Lotto at Lottoland without a single piece of paper being wasted, because it’s all done digitally!

The Uprising of Refill Shops

My mum remembers going to the shop once a week and taking home loose biscuits from a large barrel, wrapped in grease proof paper. She says they were nearly always soft, but everyone was just used to it. As a child I remember going into a shop that had great big barrels of flour, seeds and breakfast cereals. There was no ‘health and safety’ involved. Kids could put their hands in, we all leaned over them, shedding hair, and putting scoops from one container into another, but none of us came to any harm.

These shops went out of fashion for a long time, but have gradually re-appeared on the high street. This time with shiny decanters which are free from any risk of contamination from licked fingers! There are now hundreds of ‘Zero Waste’ refill shops where you can buy pasta, rice, laundry liquid and even cooking oils in your own containers and bottles. With the current cost-of-living crisis under way, it makes sense to only buy what you need. Check out this list of over 100 UK refill shops.

Local Recycling

When I first started recycling as much as I could, the only kerbside collections I had access to was glass, tins and newspapers. Everything else, including food waste, was put in your landfill bin, which was collected weekly. You could have as many dustbins as you like – we had three (embarrassed face); and it wasn’t unusual for us to generate two and a half bins every week of landfill.

Now the only things we CAN’T recycle at kerbside are cartons and most plastics. Three miles away we have a bring bank for cartons and some supermarkets, now collect soft plastics  including some of those hard-to-recycle items such as pet food pouches, crisp packets, fruit and vegetable nets and confectionery wrappers. You can see what some co-operative stores will recycle here.

I think the most significant thing is that what was once a fringe activity, is now pretty much mainstream. Every household in my street puts out their recycling each week and landfill bins are not over flowing. When we go to the recycling centre, there is always a queue of people sorting and diverting their waste. Recycling is commonplace and has been normalised.

Bagless Deliveries and Reduced Packaging

Another childhood memory I have is of three cardboard boxes kept in the garage. Throughout the week, these formed my dens, desks, houses and space ships, but on a Thursday afternoon, they were bundled into the car along with me, and were used to bring the weekly shop home. Fast forward a few years and my now-delivered supermarket goods invariably arrived in numerous carrier bags. As time progressed I was charged for them, and then my supermarket bought them back off me to encourage recycling. Now I’m encouraged to have a bagless delivery. Everything arrives in a crate and I decant it into my own containers before carrying through to the kitchen.

There is also a trend among many retailers to reduce packaging. Sure there are still some howlers, but in the main, companies are thinking about their packaging and eliminating excess waste.

 

 

 

Carrots or Sticks – Which Works Best?

In 2008, when I was starting out as a Zero Waste fledgling, Starbucks offered users of reusable cups a discount of 25p. I thought this was a brilliant idea and shouted it from the rooftops. In 2016, they doubled this to 50p, but intriguingly uptake was so low that they put it back down again! Sadly it would appear that humans are motivated away from pain, more than towards a reward, as a recent trial shows that  ADDING 5p onto the cost of any drink purchased in a paper cup was successful and has been rolled out into all Starbucks stores across the UK. I guess this is in line with findings that introducing a carrier bag charge has reduced usage by 97%

Best Buy or Eco Buy?

Founded in 1957, Which? promotes informed consumer choice in the purchase of goods and services by testing products, highlighting inferior products or services, raising awareness of consumer rights and offering independent advice. I remember pouring through editions of their magazine in our local library and being mesmerised by the sheer volume of products they tested.

Recently, I noticed a new category – Eco Buy. The idea is that they score products on their sustainability credentials, including ease of repair and end of life disposal. As an iconic brand, Which would only be doing this if consumer demand was high for this information. I think customers are getting wise to built-in obsolescence and want their money to support the environment too.

Renting Clothes and Buying Pre Loved

As a child, a charity shop was to be avoided at all costs. They had a negative stigma attached to them – they stank and you had to be over 100 to even want to look at the clothes. Oh how things have changed! You’ll hardly see me shopping anywhere else these days!

My daughter has grown up in the disposable fashion era. It’s cheaper to buy new from a sweatshop-made outlet than buy in a charity shop in some cases. But the tide is turning again and consumers want more traceability and they also want their clothes to wear and wash well.

Charity shops are now places to get a unique item, they’re clean and are full of bargain hunters of all descriptions. Students, parents-to-be, people setting up a new home and anyone who wants to support charity by donating or buying.

Some clothes retailers are changing too. One online store that I like now accept returns of  clothes of theirs you no longer wear and resells them as a pre-loved item. They also hire out some of their lines for two weeks so you can borrow something for a special occasion. What a brilliant and fun idea!

Wonky Veg

Whether it was too big, too small, too nobbly or had the wrong angle of bend, the food we have rejected over the years has been phenomenal. Thankfully, campaigns and education has helped us realise that underneath these ‘less than perfect’ exteriors, lie perfectly good, edible food. In 2016, ASDA launched their ‘wonky veg’ box and other supermarkets have followed suit. Ocado have their ‘less than perfect’ range, Lidl have a ‘waste not’ range, there are dedicated veg box schemes which sell only wonky veg and innovative companies make products from waste food such as beer, freeze dried snacks and condiments. Whereas ‘ugly’ food was once shunned, it’s now enjoying a bit of a cult following.

The Flower Pot Men

Gardening can be such a great way to reduce waste – you can reuse so many things from your home and even recycle your food scraps into compost. But one of the things that used to really concern me was the amount of plastic pots that were wasted and thrown away. There are only so many pots you can reuse when you’re buying new plants from a garden centre. I discovered that around half a billion plastic plant pots were going in the bin every year due to lack of recycling facilities. Thankfully, Dobbies chain jumped on it and in 2019 launched a plastic plant pot and tray return centre. Customers can return old, washed, non-polystyrene plastic plant pots and trays. The centres will take them for free and then ensure they will not end up in landfill.

TYO Box, Bag or Bottle

In 2008 I realised there was a lot of non recyclable meat packaging in our bin. At that time, we had an elderly cat who was fed the BARF diet (bones and raw food). I really wanted to buy meat in my own container but was far too embarrassed to ask. In the end I called my local butcher because I could remain anonymous if he laughed at me for such a ridiculous idea. It was more straight forward than I thought. “Of course you can!” he said when I asked if I could rock up with my own container. “I’ll just pop it on the scale, then tarre the weight. No problem at all!” I then tried my luck at deli counters and fishmongers. In some places it was fine, in others they said it was not acceptable. I lived and learned and became more courageous in asking. I soon realised other people were curious about what I was doing and wanted to try it too. Nowadays it’s ok (and often welcomed) to take your own bags, boxes and bottles. Only this week I found a ‘vending machine’ for milk at a forecourt when I stopped to fill the car up! Again, it’s one of those things where we’ve come full circle. My husband remembers taking all his own containers to the shops when he was growing up in the ’50s.

Ink Cartridge Recycling

In my first office job, we got through masses of ink and toner cartridges. I was in charge of ordering some of the office supplies and spent cartridges went straight in the bin! There was nothing else to do with them. Mind you, everything went in the bin, including vending machine cups in those days. Recently I bought new cartridges for my printer and was sent a pre-paid envelope with them to send my old ones back where they will be refilled. Offices can receive a large cardboard box as a collection point for cartridges and toners. It’s great to see that we are now beginning to value things we once saw as a waste item.

Closing the Loop

Talking of reusing things, there is little point in us recycling, if we don’t then buy the recycled products. It used to be very difficult to find recycled products. You’d be lucky to find a dusty grey ream of paper that got jammed in your printer. But now there are products galore. Not only can you buy great quality recycled printer paper, but you can find plastic bottles, mouse mats, clothes, children’s toys, stationery, garden furniture, trainers, blankets, bags… the innovation out there is increasing all the time. Some companies are deliberately using plastic found in oceans to create impact and raise awareness of the harmful effects of plastic pollution.

Doggy Bags

Once upon a time it was not the done thing to ask for a doggy bag. It was seen as a bit rude, or cheapskate. But why when some portions are so huge you’re never going to be able to eat it all? The tide has turned now in the UK with more people asking to take home food they have paid for. At my mum’s birthday the staff came in to clear uneaten buffet food and I asked if I could have it. They were DELIGHTED! It was less work for them, and less money too – as they had to pay to have it taken away. After that experience, one of the themes for Zero Waste Week became ‘Fill Bellies, Not Bins’ and it became one of the most popular topics we ever did!

There are many more improvements and impactful changes that have happened in the past 14 years. Yes, it can feel painfully slow at times, but the tide is turning. More and more people care about the future, about preserving resources and living a more sustainable lifestyle. We can recycle items that we couldn’t before, manufacturers are meeting consumer demand for better packaging and product design and we’re seeing more and more innovation. Sure there is lots more to be done, but it’s good to look at what we’ve achieved too. Because that helps motivate us to do even better.

What about you, what would you add to the list? What positive changes have you seen since you started your Zero Waste Journey?