Sunday 17 May 2015

A Very Quiet Weekend

This weekend has been a very quiet one, not that I'm complaining. Little Bird spent Friday night and most of Saturday sleeping over at her friend's house, then her friend came back and stayed here on Saturday night, but apart from this we didn't go far or do much of interest.  Sometimes, however, when there's not much going on you find your own entertainment, and on this particular occasion, the weekend has been productive in a whole other way.

Today, whilst watching one of the regular YouTubers that I watch called hannahyep, I was guided to to a couple of really interesting channels that I've not seen before, so I spent a while catching up on past videos that have been uploaded on these channels.  The main subject of many of the videos was Zero Waste.  I've mentioned it a few times here on my blog and been intending to reduce our waste for over a year now, but you know what, I've not really succeeded so far.

After watching quite a harrowing video I then found on YouTube about how plastic is changing the face of the world and particularly the oceans, called Inside the Garbage of the World, I've definitely found more resolve to tackle the zero waste issue in our household.  This video almost brought me to tears, to think about the damage that is being done in the oceans by plastic waste, that is affecting the wildlife and getting into the foodchain.  If this doesn't make you think about reducing your waste and use of plastics in particular, then I don't know what will.  It's a long video, but if you have the time and inclination to watch it, it is so worth it.

Thankfully, after watching this video, I started looking around at other videos about zero waste and was pleasantly surprised about how much information is out there on YouTube.  Some of the channels are relatively new and haven't really posted many videos on the subject yet, but I've subscribed to a few and will hopefully be able to pick up lots of tips on how to shop/live more zero waste than we are doing at present.  I feel ready to really start to tackle this issue now that our dietary changes are taking hold and becoming more a routine part of daily life.

If anybody is interested, here's the names of a few channels with Zero Waste videos that might interest you.

Trash is for Tossers
Andrea Sanders
*All Things Homespun*
Love Raw Vegan
Zero Waste Home - This is Bea Johnson's channel and although she hasn't uploaded for a while there are some interesting videos to watch here, which illustrate how a zero waste lifestyle works in practice.

I also like Christine's Kobzeff's channel.  She lives in Hawaii and talks about her slow living, vegan lifestyle and vegan beauty.  Her beauty and makeup decluttering video was very informative about who is and isn't actually cruelty free, in relation to some of the big cosmetic companies.

I hope you enjoy watching some of these videos and find them as informative as I did.

10 comments:

  1. Interesting post, we are trying to avoid packaging, there is far too much plastic around our fruit and veg, I love paper bags but never see enough.

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    1. I must admit that we have a very good fruit and veg shop here where I can take a reusable bag and just put everything into it without hardly any packaging at all or with paper bags for small loose things. I must go more often.

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  2. very thought provoking post. I suppose the charity shop is all about recycling but having said that, we have to take a lot to the dump.

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    1. I can imagine that you do, but you do your best to rehome it, so I wouldn't be too hard on yourself Until people start to think more before purchasing things and ask themselves if they really need what they're buying, not a lot will change. I'm as guilty as the next person, but I'm hopefully finally starting to shop more mindfully most of the time.

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  3. I have worked very hard at getting my waste down over the last few years. I have managed when it is just the two of us to cut down to one trash bag a week. When our son's are home it is a bit more.

    Recycling goes out to the curb once a month since I have managed to get away from lots of packaging or reuse some of what I do have for different purposes.

    Very interesting articles with some thought provoking insights.

    God bless.

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    1. We too have got our waste down to one bag of trash and two of recycling most weeks, but I would like to try to get it down further if I can. I think with a bit of thought and careful shopping it might be possible to get it down to a half bag a week and just one bag of recycling, which would be better. I don't delude myself that I could get it down to a mason jar full!

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  4. If cruelty free is a subject you're interested in, if you look at http://www.gocrueltyfree.org/ you can download/view/send for a paper copy of companies that have the leaping bunny mark.

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