4 Unexpected Hurdles of Starting A Zero Waste Lifestyle

The ‘zero waste’ concept is used to showcase the numerous ways of modern waste management in order to reduce the amount of waste as close to zero as possible. ‘Zero waste,’ more specifically, stands for a lifestyle that is ethical, economical, efficient, visionary and systematically intended towards the elimination of waste and recycling of materials and resources.

If you are embarking on the journey of trying to be more environmentally friendly and lead a ‘zero-waste’ life, there might be a few things you should know beforehand. Yes, there are numerous documentaries, YouTube videos, and articles talking about the advantages of leading a ‘zero-waste’ lifestyle, but no one genuinely tackles the issues you’ll probably face on your way to leading a ‘greener’ life. For example, people need to talk more about how awesome the Edusson, online writing service is; if you want to save money, time, energy and materials, make sure to visit this site that helped me to write my dissertation for more information. If you want to find out the issues of transitioning to a ‘zero-waste’ lifestyle, then keep on reading.

1. Recycling Is Not Enough

On the journey to leading a ‘zero waste’ lifestyle, the first thing you will realize is that recycling is not enough. According to the Sustainable Jungle article, ‘zero waste’ is a much bigger concept than recycling, meaning, recycling focuses mainly on the garbage problem itself rather than the source of the problem. Even though recycling is receiving much more publicity and is overall prioritized, there are numerous other ways you have to take care of waste minimization which might be a little overwhelming for someone starting a ‘zero waste’ lifestyle.

One reason for recycling publicity might be the fact that waste minimization is challenging to measure and is out of the reach for the customers. In order to minimize waste, there should be waste minimization efforts even before the product reaches the consumers. This is more a ‘designing waste out’ concept, which would basically look over the materials and ingredients of the products before they even hit the shelves in supermarkets. And, this is actually the part where you as someone in favor of ‘zero waste’ is thrown under the bus, set to fail from the beginning; which brings us to the following issue:

2. Zero Waste Lifestyle Is Impossible

The term ‘zero waste’ can be problematic because of the word ‘zero.’ What I’m trying to say is that producing no waste is simply impossible; everything you ever use is waste after you’re done using it. What you should do instead is try and lead a ‘low-impact’ lifestyle, rather than the impossible ‘zero waste’ one. The ‘zero waste’ ideology revolves around the idea that we should all live like our predecessors did hundreds of years ago, producing no waste and only using natural, reusable materials.; and this is simply out of the question for a modern man or woman; we still need to lead life in line with the day and age we are in. But we can do a lot to create a ‘low-impact’ lifestyle that will still be beneficial for our environment.

Therefore, you should consider how to be a more conscious consumer, for example; turn to small-profit-making companies, stop buying things for immediate satisfaction, take in consideration the cost of the cheap, disposable products and don’t waste water. These are simple, baby-steps that will lead you to a ‘less-impact’ lifestyle you can actually handle, rather than setting you up for failure with the impossible idea of producing zero waste.

3. Zero Waste Guilt Phenomenon

If you want to lead an eco-friendly lifestyle, it shouldn’t be motivated by the feeling of guilt and other people’s judgment. According to this my green closet article, the majority of people striving for a ‘zero waste’ lifestyle lose the motivation to do positive things and turned it into trying to avoid the guilt of doing negative things. To be more specific, after some time of leading a ‘zero waste’ lifestyle, you will start feeling guilty for buying products that contain plastic or are wrapped in unrecyclable material, like makeup or hygiene products. And this is not supposed to make you feel bad. Maybe over the course of time, you would become accustomed to the feeling, but it is definitely not motivational, at least, in the beginning.

The ‘zero waste’ lifestyle seems to be all about the label itself and the focus on the ‘zero’ part, which is entirely wrong. It is not about producing literally zero waste, but rather about what we can do to reduce the negative impact on our environment without having to completely change the way we are as humans. You shouldn’t feel guilty about living a regular life, but rather about the things you are not doing to help your environment.

4. Zero Waste Lifestyle Is Not Accessible To Everyone

‘Zero waste’ lifestyle depends highly on your living situation; you may not have the same accessibility to eco-friendly options to produce less waste as people living in some other cities and regions. Some cities, like Tokyo or Vienna, have excellent waste minimalization infrastructure and system, but some other, less-developed cities are not that lucky. ‘Zero waste’ specialty stores are also not that widespread, and it would probably take you a drive to the first neighboring city with a specialty store in order to buy necessary products.

Moreover, since the majority of the products nowadays contain plastic and other unwanted materials, a lot of things have to be self-made. This is also time-consuming and basically means that everything pre-made, packaged or non-vegan/vegetarian is off the table for you. Products like soaps, deodorants, makeup, dairy products, and many more, would have to be DIY’d, since the store-bought ones contribute to waste production.

Final Thoughts

That’s the tea on ‘zero waste’ lifestyle people rarely talk about. Hopefully this article will help you reach a decision about leading such a lifestyle and paint a picture on how it might look like. ‘Low-impact’ lifestyle seems to be a more reasonable way to go, but if ‘zero waste’ life appeals to you, then you should try it yourself. But, make sure to be aware of all the possible issue you might face on your ‘zero-waste’ journey.