Reducing your waste is also a great way to save money. Part of our frugal minimalism journey includes being low waste (and just buying less in the first place). Some of the zero waste “swaps” that we’ve made over the last few years have proven to save us money. But there are also some that cost the same or a little bit more. Oh, and before I forget… my favorite zero waste swaps are the FREE ones! Yes, by using things you already own, not only can you reduce your waste but also save money at the same time.
The most sustainable, zero waste thing you can do is use up what you already have. Buying pretty, aesthetically pleasing things to help you along your journey to sustainability and zero waste is very tempting. Trust me. Every time I see a “zero waste” home that is Instagram worthy I am so tempted to add all the pretty storage containers and bamboo brushes to my Amazon cart and click “buy now”!
While that zero waste, sustainable aesthetic is very visually pleasing, it can also be pretty unattainable. The majority of us don’t have the time or money to make our homes light, airy, and filled with bamboo cutlery, metal tiffins, glass jars filled with food from the bulk grocery store, and a drawer full of Stasher bags. This is why I advocate for using up your existing products, making do with what you already own, and not purchasing a “swap” until you’re ready.
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Big retailers suck us in with their bright lights and shiny, well organized displays. That’s why there are memes all over the internet of women walking into Target with one thing on the list… and walking out with a cart full of things they didn’t actually need.
While that could happen at any store, you’re far more likely to shop intentionally when you shop secondhand. Secondhand shopping allows you to not only save money, but save unwanted items from ending up in the landfill. Better yet, most thrift stores don’t have any type of packaging on used items other than a small tag.
Shopping secondhand and finding things that you need/want/actually like can take time and practice. There have been many times that I walk out of a thrift store empty handed because they didn’t have what I need. Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and other resale sites allow you to browse before you buy – but they still take time to find what exactly you’re looking for.
See more on secondhand shopping >>>
I love our local Buy Nothing Group. Not only have we received so many wonderful things for free, we’ve also been able to give our unwanted items away to neighbors and others in our community. The key is that a Buy Nothing Group is a free gifting economy. Whether it’s goods, time, or talent – money doesn’t exist.
This is one of the zero waste swaps that we almost unknowingly made – putting food into reusable containers rather than using a disposable one or zip-top bag (see below). For some reason, it never made sense to me why people would purchase a whole package of sturdy (but not the name brand!) plastic food containers only to use them once and toss them. I get the whole “take-and-toss” convenience of them. But even as a busy family, we find the time to pack lunches – yes, even our son’s lunch! – in reusable containers and wash them afterwards.
Our favorite containers are the 2 cup, 4 cup, and 7 cup Pyrex bowls. Pro tip for keeping the lids from breaking – do not microwave them and hand wash them whenever you can.
When I first thought to ditch single use plastic baggies, my initial reaction was “This will save us so much money!” But then reality hit – these reusable bags are expensive. Stasher bags cost more than four or five boxes of disposable bags. However, creating a stash of 5-10 reusable zip-top bags will last you much longer than all the boxes of disposables you would buy.
Now, I’m not saying go out and buy Stasher bags. If that’s what you want to do and it’s in your budget – go for it. Test out other, less expensive zip-top bags to see if they’re a good fit for your family. That’s what we’ve done, and they’re great! (Comparable ones found HERE). Maybe your kids are prone to losing things or throwing them away on accident. That’s okay! Try washing the disposable bags to eek out one or two more uses before throwing them away.
It doesn’t take Hulk strength to snap a plastic fork in half while you’re trying to eat. So why bother with them? My husband and I always bring our regular forks, knives, and spoons with us whenever we pack our lunch for work. It makes eating a sack lunch at work just a little more enjoyable!
And whenever you do encounter plastic disposable cutlery, save it for next time! Just give it a proper wash and bring it home with you or stash in your work desk.
Cloth napkins are better than paper napkins – this is a hill I will die on.
Three years ago I made my very first set of cloth napkins for my family and we were hooked! They are two poorly measured 12″ x 12″ squares sewn together from fabric I already had on hand. They’re absorbent, they’re cute, and they keep a whole heck-of-a-lotta paper napkins out of the landfill. This zero waste swap was really the first one that inspired me to keep going and see where else I can reduce my waste.
Myth busting time – using cloth napkins and other cloth options will NOT increase your laundry time. We rinse out any bad stains, then toss in the washing machine to wash with whatever load I do next. Easy peasy.
We used to go through rolls and rolls of paper towels every month. Whenever we first started really looking at our budget, household products was right up at the time as the most expensive! This made me try out alternatives to paper towels and reserve the paper products for gross messes.
Now that we have swapped paper towels for rags and cloths, not only are we saving money, but we’re throwing less away! We currently only use paper towels for cat and dog messes that I just can’t bring myself to use a rag for (and then wash it). To wipe counters and tables off, we use microfiber cloths (like Norwex and eCloth) or use old wash cloths and cut up t-shirts.
I can’t be the only one grossed out by wet, messy sponges! The disposable sponges can’t easily be cleaned. Reusable, washable sponges can be tossed in the wash with just about any load! We use these eCloth scrubby sponges as well as microfiber sponges.
I found concentrated, more natural cleaners in 2017 when I was pregnant with our tiny human. I love concentrated cleaner because I 1) don’t have to purchase cleaner as frequently and 2) less packaging!
Concentrated cleaners (like this one) only needs a separate spray bottle that can be used over and over again.
Call me cheap, but my favorite foaming hand soap is 2 tablespoons of dish washing liquid in a foaming hand soap bottle and filled the rest of the way with water. This zero waste swap does still involve plastic, but I’ve been able to use Bath and Body Works foaming soap bottles over and over again for three or four years now!
Read More >>> DIY Foaming Hand Soap
Sensitive skin drove me to find an alternative to disposable makeup remover wipes and remover liquid. This zero waste swap can be as easy as using old t-shirts cut into squares, small flannel pieces, or purchasing makeup remover cloths. I personally use Norwex remover cloths, but no longer recommend them (because, ya know, MLMs). However, I will use them until they fall apart! That’s part of makes zero waste, less wasteful.
Menstrual cups aren’t for everyone and this zero waste swap takes a good bit of getting used to. The good news is that this zero waste swap comes with lots of YouTube tutorials from the manufacturers!
The major reason I switched to using a cup was that it started to bother me to think that my very first pad (over 15 years ago) was still in a landfill somewhere and would never decompose! I still use disposables at times, but my consumption is far less! I personally use (and love) the cup from Saalt.
There are so many items that we consume everyday that come in bulk sizes. While small, individual sized packages are handy (like when you have to bring a snack for your kid’s soccer game), shopping in bulk can reduce the overall packaging of an item.
Bulk for “hard core” zero wasters means the bulk section at Whole Foods where you scoop the exact amount you need of a product into your reusable jar or bag. But for a lot of us, finding a bulk store to fill our own containers can be cost prohibitive (i.e. the store is far away or the store’s prices are much higher than a regular grocery store) and it just doesn’t work for our grocery budget.
Instead we opt to buy larger packages of what we need. A larger sized product package (even if it is plastic) is less packaging than the smaller sizes if you bought them separately. The easiest example to picture is a bottle of dish soap. A small 8oz size may only be a dollar but a 120oz size may be ten dollars (cost savings). Over the course of buying 15 smaller bottles of soap to equal the 120oz, you not only save money per ounce but also reduce packaging waste. Fifteen small bottles of soap have more packaging than a jumbo one. So if a larger product size is available, it’s cost effective, AND you’ll use it – this is a great zero waste swap to make.
Several years ago, my skin was constantly itchy. After asking my dermatologist what to do, fearing that he would prescribe some fancy (expensive) cream, he simply suggested switching from a fragrance-filled body wash to a simpler bar of soap. My skin immediately improved and I now exclusively use bar soap for my body and face!
Body washes generally have more fragrance and additives than a bar of soap does. Soap is easy to find from local makers or on Etsy. If you can’t shop small, consider doing some research on what store brands would be best for your skin (Sprouts Farmers Market has a store brand shea butter soap that is less than $3 with tax and feels great!).
Switching to bar soap was one of my first zero waste swaps that happened as a result of a small lifestyle change. I now look at ingredients in products that I put on my skin and opt for things that have fewer ingredients and less packaging.
Soap bars often last longer than bottles of body wash too! I even slice my bars in half to reduce how quickly the soap lathers away. Even if a bar of soap costs $7, I’m able to make that bar last 3-4 months or longer, which is cheaper than buying a $4 body wash every month.
Travel-sized products are a scam. The teeny-tiny bottles of branded product last the length of your trip and either tossed before you get home or are forgotten about. Don’t buy traditional travel sized products!
Instead, refill your own small bottles that fits within TSA Guidelines (3.4oz) or reuse one of those scam ones 🙂 . Each time you refill, you’re not only keeping tiny bottles out of the landfill but you’re also saving money!
I remember when I purchased my first “reusable cup” (in quotes because honestly, most cups are reusable) and it was considered weird by my coworkers that I would want to refill a cup when I could just walk out of our office and purchase a fresh water bottle.
I’ve had the same cup for almost ten years and use it almost daily. It helps remind me to take a drink with me when I run errands, bring my own drink to work, and that I really don’t need to go buy a fancy coffee or soda! This is one of those zero waste swaps that takes time to remember but will soon become second nature!
My favorite tumbler is from Tervis.
My family doesn’t yet compost, but we certainly don’t toss out our veg scraps! We save them in the freezer to make homemade vegetable broth!
Homemade veggie broth is super simple and costs you nothing other than a freezer safe bag, freezer space, veg scraps and eventually some water and a pot to cook it in. Not only is veggie broth made from scratch free and easy when done this way, it can also be better for you too (less sodium and preservatives)!
For instructions, see my homemade vegetable brother recipe HERE.
When our Little Guy was just starting solid foods we made our baby food from scratch. We could control exactly what we fed him with no hidden ingredients or preservatives. Plus all those tiny plastic containers and pouches – no thanks!
DIY baby food can be as simple as:
You can also get fancy and add grains, seasonings, and legumes!
But you want it on-the-go as well, right? We had the perfect reusable pouches that we could fill, freeze, use, wash, and do it all over again. Not only does DIY baby food cost way less than store bought, but you’re keeping a lot of plastic pouches out of the landfill.
The last zero waste swap to save money on my list is cloth diapering.
Now hear me out.
Yeah, it’s a little gross in the beginning but you get used to it! You’ll be doing laundry more frequently, but you’ll build the habit. And the best part is that you never have to worry about if you’re about to run out of diapers!
Cloth diapering does cost more upfront that disposables. However, we were able to use ours for over two years with very few issues. We did use disposables while traveling and while on long outings – but the majority of time Little Guy was in cloth diapers.
You can read more on my cloth diapering adventure HERE.
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Research shows that shoppers are ready for single-use packaging alternatives that will be at the heart of a circular economy for plastics.
By Claire Murphy, Editor, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Photo by Sophia Marston on UnsplashBetween 2019 and 2021, people altered their shopping habits to actively avoid plastic packaging, according to a study by consultancy GlobeScan. The statistics can serve as a catalyst to businesses exploring packaging innovations, indicating that people are motivated to change their buying behaviour in order to eliminate plastic waste.
The Healthy & Sustainable Living survey asked 24,000 people across 24 countries over the summer of 2021 about the variety of ways they try to minimise waste and environmental impact in the way they shop. 44% said they avoided buying products with ‘a lot’ of packaging ‘most’ or ‘all’ of the time, up from 39% when the survey was conducted in 2019.
This is mirrored by rises in the avoidance of plastic shopping bags, and single-use plastic items in general, and represents a significant shift in reported behaviour over a relatively short period.
The increase in plastic packaging avoidance is most marked in the US, where 38% of Americans in 2021 said they rejected products that they regarded as having a lot of packaging. Although this is less than the global average it is still a significant rise on the 25% who said the same in 2019.
The most enthusiastic plastic packaging avoiders were those from China and Italy with 59% of people surveyed saying they rejected products with a lot of packaging ‘most’ or ‘all’ of the time. It may be that this figure is elevated in these countries because food is available unpackaged more often than in some other countries. In China in particular, the rise in popularity of community-supported agriculture can be viewed as accelerating this trend.
In the UK, 44% of shoppers said they rejected excessive plastic packaging, while 47% of those in France said the same.
The data also echoes other research that has shown growing public concern about plastic packaging. A survey of 2,518 Australians in 2018 found that nearly a quarter (23.2%) of shoppers take action to reduce their use of plastic packaging at least 70% of the time.
Meanwhile, in the UK, research among 1,000 adults by Delineate the same year found 53% of shoppers ‘always or mostly’ buying groceries that come without plastic packaging and WRAP research noted 68% of people as saying they had become more concerned about plastic packaging waste over the previous year. Cutting out packaging from fruit and vegetables was found to be shoppers’ most favoured route to reduce plastic packaging in a YouGov study in 2019. 81% of UK consumers said they were trying to buy less of these products if they were surrounded by plastic packaging. Household cleaning products were the next most popular segment in which they were trying to minimise packaging.
It’s worth noting a caveat to these data sets. The concept of ‘a lot’ of packaging, for example, is subjective, and research subjects can often be positively biased in favour of their own behaviour. But the fact that numbers of people reporting that they avoid excessive plastic packaging are on the rise indicates a growing motivation to act, according to Tove Malmqvist, Globescan senior project manager.
Photo by Yasmina H on UnsplashGiven the change in buying behaviour highlighted over two years by the Globescan study, it is reasonable to assume some degree of impact resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, as the timing has coincided. Exactly how successive lockdowns and the prevailing public narrative about health may have accelerated public motivation to shop differently requires specific research. Some had even speculated that users would become more tolerant of plastic packaging if it aided infection control. But one possibility is that the increase in single-use plastics generated as a direct result of the pandemic has motivated end users to make changes where they can.
A report from the OECD refers to the weight of single-use plastics in personal protection equipment (PPE) like masks and gloves, as well as the rise in plastic packaging generated by all the extra e-commerce deliveries over the past two years. Restaurants switching operations to home deliveries also led to extra plastic packaging. One small-scale survey during the first lockdown discovered that households were generating 30% more plastic waste than pre-covid as people were relying on more online supermarket orders with packaged fruit and vegetables.
It may be that once they were able to shop in person again, citizens have been voting with their wallets to reject over-packaged items. The fact that reuse platform Loop steadily built distribution over the same period also supports this theory. It also became clear that food shoppers were keener on sourcing their produce direct from specialist butchers, greengrocers and bakers in some countries.
This is a trend that could have been influenced by a variety of social and environmental factors. However, research has certainly indicated that, contrary to concerns in the early months of the pandemic, Covid has served to increase environmental awareness. A study of 3,000 people in eight countries by consultancy group BCG (July 2020) found 70% saying that they were more aware than before the pandemic that human behaviour threatens climate, and that environmental degradation threatens humans. A resounding 87% across all the countries in the poll thought that private companies should integrate environmental considerations into their products and the way they operate, either ‘a lot’ or ‘somewhat more’.
A growing public appetite to avoid waste is one element that will help facilitate the movement towards a circular economy for plastics. This aims for complete system change based on three principles: eliminating the plastics we don’t need; innovating to ensure that the plastics we do need are reusable, recyclable, or compostable; and circulating everything we use. The net effect is that the value of materials is constantly maximised, rather than wasted, as is the case in the current, linear economy.
Bringing about complete system change isn’t a small task. But for companies keen to embrace this thinking, the place to start is upstream innovation — reimagining a product, packaging or business model to design out waste in the first place. Downstream innovations like recycling are still necessary, but it is the upstream efforts that are likely to deliver the widest-reaching changes.
Some companies with heavy current investments in plastic packaging have already been moving towards this vision, exploring upstream innovation alternatives like reusable packaging, refill systems, and new product/packaging formats. The latter has attracted a variety of innovations from start-ups, including Apeel and Mori, edible coatings for fruit and vegetables that avoid altogether the need for any single-use plastic wrapping.
The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, led by The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UNEP, provides a benchmark of this activity by measuring the efforts of businesses, which together represent over 20% of the plastic packaging market, as well as governments to realise a vision for a circular economy for plastics.
In 2021, signatories’ progress showed that, although brands’ and retailers’ use of virgin plastic has peaked and there has been action on recycling, there have been limited attempts to introduce reusable packaging at scale. Reuse is an effective way to design out single-use plastic packaging, but companies are not yet prioritising innovations or infrastructure development in this area at sufficient scale.
Less than 2% of Global Commitment signatories’ plastic packaging was reusable, as reported in 2021, and more than half of all signatories reported that they use no reusable plastic packaging at all. While developing reuse options takes time, more concerning is that levels of ambition to explore and scale reuse appear low. Just 11% of signatories launched more than three pilots during 2020, while 56% launched none at all.
But we may be on the cusp of change. In early 2022, Coca-Cola published a plan to make 25% of its packaging reusable by 2030 — the first major FMCG manufacturer to set such a target. PepsiCo indicated that it also intends to set a reuse target in 2022.
Unearthing barriers to progress in this area is complex. There are a variety of logistical, economic, and communications issues that will require collaboration by a variety of industry players to arrive at a solution.
User demand can never be the pivotal action on this issue. The creation of a circular economy for plastics must involve all parties in the complex plastics system taking their active part, including businesses, governments, and NGOs, as well as shoppers.
Plastic pollution is rapidly outpacing current policy efforts to stop it. Existing regulations are often limited to banning or taxing very few specific single-use items, such as plastic bags, or focus exclusively on improving waste management and packaging recycling while ignoring the need for upstream interventions.
But in Europe at least, there are two new policy initiatives that could represent the start of effective systems change. France has required retailers to sell most fruit and vegetables without plastic wrapping from the start of this year. On a wider scale, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to start negotiations on an international legally-binding treaty this year that aims to reduce plastic pollution along the full life cycle of plastic products and packaging, including through a circular economy approach.
Businesses and governments need to work together to establish the commercial models and regulatory frameworks that will make reuse a viable on-going part of a circular economy for plastics. The task to build on shoppers’ concern with plastic packaging and actually alter their shopping habits can happen within this context.
Photo by Zuzanna Szczepańska on UnsplashJudicious use of public policy can nudge changes in consumer behaviour. It was only a few years ago that it was normal to see a sea of plastic bags covering the end of every checkout in a supermarket. Growing public awareness of plastic pollution and, in the UK, a simple financial levy persuaded people to remember to bring their own bag with them. 67% of shoppers globally now take their own bag with them to the supermarket, according to Globescan’s research, rather than getting one at the checkout.
Part of the behavioural task now is to take this change a step further — asking users to remember to bring appropriate reusable containers with them to stores as well as bags.
Some early pilots have shown that the use of reusable containers can be even simpler, via a refill at home model facilitated by digital technology, with more convenience for users as they don’t have to remember something else as they head out shopping. Chilean social enterprise Algramo delivers laundry liquid to people’s doors by tricycle in response to a request processed by an app. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagged containers are given to them at the first order and then the user just has to bring them out to their doorstep each time to fill up. This system worked well during the pandemic when people were particularly keen to avoid stores.
Food and cleaning products giant Unilever has also been exploring the issue of reuse, with pilots (each in conjunction with a local retailer) set up in Australia, Pakistan, Mexico, and the UK. In the UK, it has extended its tests of refillable bottles of brands including detergent brands Persil and Radox in Asda stores.
These pilots have made clear that it will be essential to come up with an offer that not only gives shoppers the buzz of avoiding wasteful packaging, but that also works for them on price and convenience too. A circular economy ultimately offers the prize of reductions in material costs as a result of more effective systems. In the transition period however, in order to keep prices to end users at a level that invites them to experiment with reuse, companies will need to regard the costs of early innovation pilots as investments in future strategy.
Part of the evaluation of these pilot projects is working out the right reuse model for different products and markets. There are four reuse categories: refill at home (as in the Algramo example); refill on the go (including in-store, as in the Unilever trials); return (of a container) at home; or return on the go.
Coca-Cola Latin America has spent the past few years refining a reuse project that fits in the fourth category, and potentially offers the kind of reuse model that users could easily understand their role in.
The company created a standardised PET bottle in 2018 that Brazilians can bring back to stores in return for a discount on their next purchase. Bottles are returned to the bottling plant, where they are washed, refilled, and relabelled. Return rates are around 90%, and this programme has effectively taken 200 million bottles out of landfill.
The Universal bottle project has now been rolled out into seven countries across South and Latin America and forms part of the drinks giant’s efforts on reuse.
This type of deposit-return model has also been adopted by Starbucks and McDonald’s. Both are currently trialling schemes that offer customers the option to pay a small deposit to borrow a reusable cup in return for a small discount on the cost of their drink.
Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on UnsplashCommunications will be key to helping users understand the logistics and advantages of the various packaging reuse models on offer. At the moment, refilling at home has proved the most popular reuse model in the UK, according to a study by the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD), with return on the go and return from home also showing potential.
The IGD study also discovered that 41% of people had already used some form of reusable packaging, and flagged the value of using loyalty points to motivate more users to make the switch in habits.
There is a big opportunity for any FMCG or retailer that makes a move into this space to align their brand with the push to rid the world of plastic packaging via reuse.
Reusable product maker Chilly’s hit the headlines in June 2022 with a poster campaign urging bottled water brands to offer reusable bottles. It teamed up with reuse charity City to Sea for the campaign, which also involved a letter signed by over 400 other groups, calling on FMCG giants Unilever, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola to commit to viable reuse and refill systems.
Ecover has been banging the drum for refills since 1989 — it fits well with the brand’s eco-conscious positioning. Over 700 refill points in independent shops across the UK are promoted on City to Sea’s Refill app, and more recently it has created refill pilots within a few Sainsbury’s stores.
As part of what it calls its ‘Refillution’ campaign, Ecover’s head of long-term innovation Tom Domen published a report containing the company’s learnings on reuse, intended as an encouragement to other brands’ efforts.
The report makes five recommendations for increasing shoppers’ motivation to refill: leverage novelty; create objects (containers) of desire; highlight advantages of reuse; create a movement; and give ways to save money.
On the subject of the logistics and the business case for refills, there are five more tips: remove the refill premium (i.e. extend refills to more mainstream brands); de-risk the process; design for minimum agency; design for the fail case; and meet shoppers where they are.
Marketers have historically been cautious about introducing product and packaging developments that users are not ready for. But that era has passed — shoppers are clearly waiting for companies to bring innovations to the market to catch up with the way they would now like to shop. They are also starting to get more actively involved — 175,000 UK households took part in Greenpeace’s Big Plastic Count in May to discover exactly how much plastic packaging is thrown away.
A significant communications campaign to launch a reuse system could easily tap into the significant latent user desire to make a contribution on this subject — a survey of 2,000 UK shoppers (IGD) released at the end of 2021 found that 78% of people felt that more big brands should offer the facility to refill/reuse their packaging.
Although this is only UK data, it does underline the spirit of the Globescan research — a global audience of shoppers increasingly keen to be offered alternatives to single-use plastic packaging.
But, as the brands and retailers taking part in the pilot projects have discovered, getting the price and logistical offer right for users is crucial. Many Zero Waste shops have experienced a dip in revenues since the start of the pandemic, with owners reporting that shoppers could no longer afford the price premium or the time involved in making a trip to another store. It may be that (as the IGD has indicated) reuse models that meet users where they already are — whether at home or within supermarkets — will prove most viable.
Despite all the practical and financial challenges that system change presents, a transition to a circular economy for plastics delivers a way for companies to carve themselves out an authentic brand positioning as progressive and socially-conscious. But this must be underpinned by demonstrable, scaled action to provide users with viable alternatives to peeling vast amounts of plastic packaging from their shopping.