About this site
Myzerowaste.com is all about reducing and removing our personal contribution to waste and environmental contamination.
The human species is the most wasteful and destructive creature on planet earth. No other creature produces so much waste and damaging material from its everyday life. From the most minor activity of flushing SLS into the water course when brushing your teeth, to dumping cars in landfills or burying nuclear waste, we alone are surely and certainly polluting the world to a critical state where it can no longer absorb any more or recover.
Put simply, there are so many humans on the earth and in the western world. We are particularly bad at leaving a daily trail of waste, unwanted material and environmental contamination.
Every day we fill our bins with waste packaging, food, broken and unwanted items and chemical products. It gets collected by the municipal services and for us, it’s out of sight and out of mind.
But here’s the rub … we may buy something wrapped in plastic packaging, it may be food or an item of clothing. We use it and eventually it may break and we simply throw it away and buy a new one. That is the shortest part of its life cycle! What happens when we throw it away is usually only the beginning of a life of hidden darkness and chemical decay as it gets buried in the ground.
If it’s plastic, or a chemical derivative, it may exist for up to several hundred years in the landfill, slowly decaying and decomposing its polluting toxic chemical components which leach into the soil and water courses. If the waste gets incinerated, it releases highly toxic gasses into the air that contribute to greenhouse gasses and air born chemicals that affect life on the planet.
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I am so on board with you! We need to use our buying power to steer away from plastic – especially disposable plastic, as a start. Companies need to step up and create alternatives.
I am re-reading Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” and feel a bit down on what we can actually do. There are so many chemicals pervading our environment on a daily basis, it is so overwhelming.
So glad I found your site! Keep up the good work!
@Pure Mothers: Hi Pure Mothers; it is so nice to have you here, sharing your views on the site. I think I first ‘found’ you on Twitter 🙂
I know what you mean about overwhelm. If you wade through some of the archives, you will find some of my ‘what’s the point’ moments; but as the lovely readers here are quick to tell me; we all have those sorts of days and that’s ok – we just need to make sure we pick ourselves up and continue with spreading the message. We’re only human and it’s the fact we care so much that makes things hurt.
I hope you’ll visit us again and I’ll be along to participate in your site too 🙂