Zero waste week Ambassadors

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These are always very dodgy posts to write because you invariably succeed in missing someone out. However, not one to shy away from a challenge I want to mark the end of a phenomenal zero waste week with some Mrs Green loving.

We’ve had some fantastic support from people helping to spread the message for Zero Waste Week and thought you might like to have a look at what they are up to.

You’ll find some new blogs to read, tweeters to follow and some new campaigns which might interest you. This is a super long post, so bookmark and browse through at your leisure…

Zero To Go

Sarah Womer runs Zero To Go which is a grassroots movement based in Beacon, NY.

Zero to Go encourage local businesses to switch from using styrofoam-based takeout containers and cups to more sustainable alternatives. They also help educate the public about local environmental issues.

Live Otherwise

Jax blogs at Live Otherwise. She’s a homeschooling Mum who blogs about her life and throws in a handful of ‘green’ to keep us on our toes such as  blogging about climate week and her camping experiences at the Wilderness Festival.  She’s been a star with retweeting about zero waste week. Thanks Jax!

Sustainable Guernsey

Richard Lord maintains the Sustainable Guernsey website where he shares news that champions local people and businesses that are making an effort to be more sustainable. You’ll find everything from biodiversity to transport to waste covered on the site. Richard posted up about our zero waste week for us and shared it with his social media fans.

EcoSalon

Emily Bond wrote something about zero waste week for one of my favourite sites; EcoSalon. I love Emily’s story – when she was a Mum of three months she decided there had to be more to life than being a “Brooklyn mom”, so a month later she and her husband sold 80% of their possessions and became ‘the change’ they wanted to be in the world. Check out her excellent call to action for zero waste week.

WRAP

We had great support from the PR team at WRAP who posted on their Recycle Now facebook and corporate twitter accounts.  We’re proud to be partners with the Recycle Now website.

Organikal

Julie from Organikal shared about zero waste week on Twitter. Julie is taking steps towards a more sustainable life; she is an organic lifestyle enthusiast and lives as lightly on the earth as possible. She also did us proud with a fantastic article on her website citing exactly what she and her family would be doing.

Start

Ruth, editor at Start, featured us on their blog. Start is a national initiative by The Prince’s Charities Foundation to promote and celebrate sustainable living. Their goal is to help people across the UK take clear, positive and practical steps towards a better future. They highlight the very best examples of sustainable practice in the UK, and show how we can all make positive changes right now.

Zero waste Scotland

Miriam Adcock from zero waste scotland blogged about zero waste week.

Mother Nature Network

Laura Moss who is content editor for the fabulous Mother nature Network interviewed us for one of her feature articles back in March. She passed along the details of zero waste week Jenn Saveage, author of green parenting books who blogs about raising eco-friendly kids over at the Green parent. Jenn covered the event beautifully on MNN and asked readers for their favourite tip for minimising waste away from home.

zero waste in Brazil

In Brazil, Argentum Vulgaris attempted zero waste but was really up against it. For example in Rio de Janeiro, eating places of all types are not permitted salt shakers and sauce bottles so everything comes in individual plastic sachets! However, he uses his own plastic cups at work to avoid disposable ones and wipes his hands on his jeans instead of using paper towels 😉

During zero waste week itself our friend called into a restaurant he has frequented in the past only to discover desserts were now served on plastic disposable plates with plastic spoons! Our intrepid eco warrior insisted on a ceramic plate and metal spoon (which is quite something because in Brazil it is not the norm to ‘make a fuss’ about anything). Before he left, an agreement was made with the manager that the option of ceramic plates for those who prefer them should be made available. Yay for speaking out!

Eco Friendly Homemaking

Alicia always take her own cloths instead of using paper napkins. Her husband and she use reusable mugs and they take leftovers home when eating out. They even take their own containers as doggy bags to avoid getting polystyrene containers from restaurants 😉

Cloth Diapering Mama

Jessica at couldn’t wait to jump in and get back into the green swing of things

Nonmom used zero waste week as a reminder to take her re-useable bags to the grocery store. She was also going to attempt to use her travel mug as much as possible for coffee.

Think about it

Tanya and her family from ‘think about it’ have been trying to reduce waste for a long time. They compost and recycle but know there is room for improvement. In restaurants they are gradually adding good habits such as refusing straws, taking their own cloth napkins and to-go containers. Tanya always carries water with her to avoid purchasing plastic bottles. Tanya was impressed with one of our readers ideas of a mobile compost container and I think that was next on her list! She shared a fantastic infographic about bottled water on her site – be sure to check it out.

FuntasticallyGreen

FuntasticallyGreen found zero waste week came at the perfect time. She has been wanting to reduce her waste so this week there was no excuse not to get stuck in! There was no holding her back as she made huge pledges including zero waste lunches, using her own coffee mug at church and encouraging co-workers to particiapte too. Check out her other zero waste pledges. Later on, whilst sitting with a disposable plastic cup in her hand, Lynn gave us an update about her experience at Wendys called “and what would Wendy’s say about that?”

Jen and Joey go green

Jen shared that while it’s easier to stay more or less in control of the waste you accumulate at home, it’s more difficult to keep your impact minimised when you are at work, on the road or on vacation’ In her zero waste week post she shares 4 tips for staying green on the road.

Tiffany’s Toy Box

Tiffany’s Toy Box pledged to not use any plastic utensils and/or cups. She doesn’t really use them anyway but during zero waste week she had to attend a barbecue and was determined to pull out her own water bottle, regardless of what other’s thought!

Creative country cooking

Jenn shared a link to a company where you could buy straws made from corn and recycled glasses for restaurants. Her idea was to become a bit more activist and share the information with local restaurants. She shared some ways she is zero waste outside the home such as taking home compostable goods, support restaurants that use recycled products and if she does get a huge plastic cup she takes it home to scoop out animal feed!

The Greening Of Westford

The Greening Of Westford sent her child to school with a cloth napkin and reusable utensils to avoid using the disposables at school. She shared an article she wrote for a local online newspaper about maing your summer vacation green.

Good Girl Gone Green

Good Girl Gone Green took the challenge to a whole new level by pledging to waste-less for one full year! Read more about ‘Project green foot‘ and read her simple, yet effective, zero waste tips.

Rewinn

Rewinn took our idea of bringing your own coffee cup a step further by getting his travel mugs at thrift or 2nd-hand stores – thus keeping stuff out of the landfull and saving him money! Check out his coffee cup love.

Simple is working

Harold spends most of his time at home, so creating waste outside the home isn’t really a problem. In his article he shares what he does around the home to get as close to ‘zero waste’ as possible with some simple, yet effective strategies.

Handmade and natural life

Amy over at handmade and natural life had lots of ideas for the week. Amy realised she’d been doing a lot of eating out, wasting food and buy coffee / tea out so vowed to make some changes including starting a meal plan. Check out her zero waste week post.

Growing and making things

Back in the UK, Rachel at growing things and making things kept herself accountable with her public pledge. She decided to replace disposable paper tissues with washable handkerchiefs – great pledge Rachel!

Eco-Centricity

Michelle Morgan from Eco-Centricity shared a blog post about her pledges for zero waste week. Included were ways to help local businesses, campers and tourists – phew! She also shared with her facebook fans.

WasteAM

Joddle from WasteAm chose to use up all the food in her cupboard AND not buy anything in non recyclable packaging. She also celebrated her Birthday during the week and planned a zero waste celebration. She blogged about her experiences on WasteAm.

Green Familia

Brenda Cuby who runs a fantastic site called the Green Familia shared zero waste week with her readers. Brenda was also a superstar over on Facebook and Twitter, keeping her followers up to date with the week’s activities.

Green Directory

Sue from Green Directory posted about zero waste week on her site. If you’re looking for eco companies, events, news or offers, Sue provides the perfect website for browsing. Sue also took off on Twitter, tweeting in my absence for which I’m truly grateful.

Naturally Green

Julie Day wrote about zero waste week on her blog, Naturally Green. She shared what she does with crisp packets with out and about and showed how easy it was to reduce plastic bottle waste when away from home.

Tweet tweet

There were loads of people tweeting throughout the week, using the #nzww hashtag – here are some of them:

Recyclebank UK motivates individuals and communities to realise a world where nothing is wasted. They are a group of passionate people that believes an individual has the power to change the world who do this by rewarding people for making small green changes to their lifestyle.

Recycling Lives is a Queen’s award winning commercial recycler & integrated waste management provider, with Corporate Social Responsibility and community life at their heart. Their commercial services help to support their social welfare charity, which helps vulnerable people to work their way back to independent living.

@PeopleTowels sell reusable, personal organic cotton hand towels to reduce paper towel use, save trees and reduce landfill.

Greeneyedmonst who are sisters sharing a love of all things independent & earth-friendly.

EnviroFusion who promote sustainable living in Hawaii wrote a simple but profound comment: Bring your own Reusables. Every day and everywhere, even when you travel. Let your lifestyle be infectious and share the zero waste concept with family and friends.

@takeoutwout the campaign to reduce restaurant waste to help you to fill your stomach, but not our landfill!

@CwallSusAwards who aim to encourage, reward and gain recognition for the excellent work businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are doing to improve sustainability.

@EcoTeams who are part of the Global Action Plan, encouraging people to work together to reduce carbon emissions.

@BeStrawesome a Michigan-based green company that offers fun, safe, and reusable glass drinking straws to people of all ages – they even offered to send to Little Miss Green to help support her throughout zero waste week!

Rannva from Friends of the Earth

Gold gold and gold:

I’m awarding three gold medals this year for people who have absolutely shone during zero waste week. These have been the people behind the scenes who have dedicated their week to spreading the message.

Mrs A

Ahhhh, where would we be without Mrs A?

Mrs A blogged, tweeted and facebooked all through zero waste week, but her support and encouragement started way before the week kicked off. When I was going through my ‘I can’t run it this year’ summer drama, it was Mrs A who picked me up, dusted me off, shared ideas for this year’s theme and got me back on the bandwagon… I couldn’t have done it without her.

North East lincolnshire Council

Joanna Boardman is the recycling boffin for North East lincolnshire Council. She keeps her finger on the pulse over on the Letswasteless Nelc facebook page runs the Lets Waste Less blog and tweets as the Rubbish Geek. Last year she ran her local 10:10 campaign alongside zero waste week and this week she’s been fantastic at helping us spread the word while encouraging her local residents to join in the fun. She had a great piece written in her local paper: “Turning trash to cash for local charities“.

Reduce Footprints

I was delighted to have ‘small footprints’ by my side this year. She runs the hugely popular ‘Reduce Footprints’ site where each Wednesday the ‘change the world Wednesday’ gang are invited to take on a challenge to make the world greener. During zero waste week, she encouraged the group to take part in zero waste week and they were blogging and tweeting like nobody’s business – thanks Small Footprints and the #ctww gang; you’re all my international heroes!

YOU!

And finally, I have to say thank you to all of you! Lots of you commented on the site, but the majority of the action was taking part on social media on our facebook event page where over 300 people pledged to join in. What struck me is how creative you all are. Even if you weren’t a person who ate out you found something to do – be it lobbying your local store or raising awareness amongst colleagues.

It’s always so heart warming to receive your comments and emails throughout the week and to see just how far you’re taking the zero waste concept. As from next year it’s definitely going to be an INTERnational event – yay!

I know I will have missed out somebody, and for that I apologise – if you blogged, tweeted or facebooked, give yourself a pat on the back and let us know in the comments section 🙂

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