Go Zero and Be a Hero

Happy V-Day!! It's the month of love and there's no other excuse not to include our planet on your list of loved ones!! Let's continue with our 2019 Zero Waste Cleaner Slate plans. Click here for details.  If you've completed your trash audit last January you should have a good idea where most of your trash is coming from. For my family it was from taking out food or getting food delivered to our home.  So we've put in some effort in reducing the number of times we get take out or get something delivered. If it can't be avoided we request for less packaging. A burger doesn't have to come in a plastic bag with a butt load of tissue paper and three to four ketchup packets. If you don't need the extra stuff, give it back. WE LOVE PIZZA! Who doesn't!? So you can just imagine the amount of pizza boxes we have at home. We upcycled ALL OF IT! Because we're doing the Konmari stuff at home I made boxes out of these pizza boxes (we kept...

You read right. But before you completely dismiss the idea, hear me out. It’s easy to say “Let’s do this” and then end up not knowing where to begin or beginning without a plan. That’s exactly what I did last year. Out of excitement I just started swapping out items for something that came in less single-use packaging. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I realized I could have done it better. I started by refusing straws only to realize after that we didn’t really consume much to begin with. So last week I did a trash audit. This allowed me to see what we sent to be land filled the most. We all have different purchases. Doing a trash audit will really help you determine what you need to swap first by seeing what you consume the most. Here are the different steps I took to complete my trash audit. 1. Get a big paper bag to put your DRY trash in. I used those big paper bags from the grocery store. You can also use a mid sized cardboard box so it’s easi...

Do you have NETFLIX? If so, then you’re probably hooked on Marie Kondo’s new show, Tidying Up, by now. The KONMARI method has 5 lessons: 1. Clothing 2. Books 3. Paper 4. Komono 5. Sentimental Items To keep up with the trend I’ve divided our 2019 Zero Waste Cleaner Slate plan into 12 categories for the twelve months of the year. January - Planning and Baselining (Click HERE for the details) February - Refuse: Zero Waste Starter Kit (Click HERE for details) March - Dry Kitchen Trash (Click HERE for the article) April - Envirotech Waste Recycling Inc. (Click HERE for the article) May - Rot: Wet Kitchen Trash and Composting the Bokashi Way June - Cleaning Product Swaps July - Bathroom August - MORE SWAPS and DIYs September - Reduce the JiRi Method Way (credits to E, for the name MWAH!) October - Zero Waste Travel November - Office and School Supplies December: Zero Waste Holidays Whew! Just looking at the list is making me very excited!! BUT.. and this is a...

I know it’s not really day 1 of the year but due to holidays hang over I had to delay this for a few days. First days usually bring so many things. One of those is the feeling of starting over on a clean slate. 2018 has been a good year for our family in terms of being healthy and being more environmentally friendly (hey that rhymes!). Last July 2018 was a huge jolt for us and that pushed us to start being more conscious about how much single use plastic we consume. See that post HERE . Admittedly though, we could have done a better job. I don’t feel bad about how we tackled our first attempt at a more zero waste life. We were able to sustain doing the following: 1. Refusing single use plastic from straws,water bottles to grocery and produce bags 2. Composting our food scraps 3. Swapping SOME products that come in a plastic container such as shampoo, conditioner, lotion, all purpose cleaners and detergent by looking for a product that doesn’t come in a plastic packa...

Since I posted a picture of my newly purchased tooth powder some of my friends are asking how it’s working out for me. So here’s the skinny on that. Last month I went to The Good Trade PH Lawn Party with the intent to buy a new scrub for the kitchen and nothing else. Of course, that didn’t happen. I ended up buying a reusable razor, a deodorant in a refillable bottle and a tooth powder. Great buys! I have been doing some research on how I can replace our toothpaste and haven’t really made a decision yet when I chanced upon the solution at the Zero Basics booth. Please note that this is not a paid review in any way, shape or form. According to their FB post , the tooth powder is: 100% natural, handmade and effective Absolutely preservative-free, vegan, cruelty-free and has no artificial ingredients It has minerals to help strengthen your teeth Photo from Zero Basics FB page. Our honest review? We love it! It’s SUPER affordable and, of course, DOES NOT COME I...

Did you know that 291,241 plastic straws were collected in the 2018 International Coastal Cleanup in the Philippines? Read about it here and find out more about them in the Philippines. In the US a little over 500 MILLION straws are used EACH DAY! That’s 1 BILLION in two days and a lot of ILLIONS in a year. It won’t solve the plastic crisis. But it’s a start. I’m not going to scare you with a lot details on how bad plastic straws are to our environment but here are some just to get you curious enough to do your own research. Most plastic straws are too lightweight to make it through mechanical recycling sorter. When they make it to the ocean it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called micro plastics. We all know where these end up.  Plastic straw is the 11th most found ocean trash  They do not biodegrade and never fully degrade. Here’s some good news though - the simplest way to reduce plastic pollution is to REJECT the use of single-use plas...

Over the weekend my family and I stayed at a beach resort in Subic. I had every intention of not leaving anything behind and was so happy when we saw this at their restaurant during dinner after we dropped off our stuff in our room. Yehey!! They did serve everything in reusable ceramic plates, stainless steel utensils and glasses. When we ordered fresh coconut juice, they used a paper straw.  After dinner, though, we had a chance to look around our room and found some items in plastic packaging. Hopefully they are trying to use up existing stock. We ended up bringing these home so we can stuff them in ecobricks.  Here's another item on my to do list. Maybe I can convince these hotels and resorts to switch to shampoo and lotion bars and bamboo toothbrushes.