We’re all aware by now that switching to reusable straws, mugs, and water bottles is one of the easiest ways to reduce your environmental footprint, but there’s more we can do in reducing the amount of waste we produce by reusing and recycling often.
“Plastic goes deeper than just straws — there is plastic hidden in so many items, from tea bags to gum,” says Kathryn Kellogg, founder of Going Zero Waste and author of101 Ways To Go Zero Waste.
It’s not just plastic that’s getting thrown away to landfills in exorbitant amounts. It’s paper products, textiles, and more miscellaneous materials that are unnecessarily ending up there.
“The average American throws out 4.4 pounds of trash every day,” Kellogg says. “But a few simple swaps can make a huge difference.” We don't have to wait for Earth Day to band together for Mother Earth — here are some small changes we can all make to change our trash habits, starting today.
Image via Kathryn Kellogg
1. Swap out plastic food wraps and containers for more sustainable options.
Plastic wraps and containers are another big environmental “don’t,” Kellogg says. Instead, opt for reusable beeswax wraps to preserve your food and invest in reusable, plastic-free containers and silicone bags instead of plastic ones to store food.
This especially comes into play during meal prep when you’re packing lunches, Kellogg adds, which is often the most wasteful meal of the day when it comes to using disposables.
Photo by DS Stories / PEXELS
2. Be a beauty product minimalist.
Kellogg is a proponent of keeping a “capsule collection” of versatile staple beauty products, and she employs a “one in, one out” rule with all of her makeup and other products, so everything gets used to capacity before she buys something new. If she decides she isn’t a fan of a certain shade or type of product, she gifts it to a friend to try out rather than pitching it.
Kitsch Shea Butter Nourishing Conditioner Bar ($13)
3. Reduce the number of items used in your beauty routine.
It’s important to keep down the number of disposables you’re using in your skincare and beauty routine. “Put toner in a spray jar, and spray it on your face that way instead of using a cotton pad,” suggests Kellogg as one example. “It doubles the life of your toner, too.”
There are also easy opportunities for upcycling used beauty products, such as cleaning off and donating old mascara wands to help care for wildlife. Another great hack for reducing beauty disposables is opting for bars of soap rather than bottled products. Brands like Lush, Kitsch, and Brixycarry shampoo bars, conditioner bars, and body wash bars that omit plastic containers for eco-friendly, recyclable packaging.
Tushy Classic 3.0 Bidet Attachment ($99)
4. Make your toilet into a bidet.
“The number one thing I can recommend in your bathroom is getting a bidet attachment for your toilet," Kellogg says. "They help cut down on how much toilet paper you’re wasting, which for the average American is about three rolls a week.”
Getting the attachment is a financial and environmental investment, but it can even be more sanitary than toilet paper. If you do want to supplement with toilet paper, make sure you buy rolls made from recycled content or cardboard-less rolls.
Photo by Anna Shvets / PEXELS
5. Rethink your menstrual products.
You can’t stop your period from coming, but you can make more eco-friendly choices in dealing with it. Some people choose a menstrual cup, reusable cloth pads, or period underwear, but another solid option is a reusable tampon applicator and organic cotton tampons (not the standard kind, which contains other materials like rayon), which can actually be composted!
Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric / PEXELS
6. Always buy lonely bananas.
Did you know that many grocery stores and markets throw away single bananas detached from a bunch at the end of each night? This is a huge environmental bummer, and it massively contributes to food waste and food insecurity.
“Bananas have a high carbon footprint, because many of them aren’t grown in the US,” Kellogg explains. There’s nothing at all wrong with a single banana, so you should buy them instead of letting them go to waste, she says. And when you do pick up produce, bring your own mesh produce bags or canvas totes to eliminate the need for single-use plastic grocery bags.
Photo by Dominika Roseclay / PEXELS
7. Brew your own tea.
Tea bags are one of those surprising items that actually contain microplastics, which then gets in our tea, and then in our bodies, Kellogg says. Brewing your own loose-leaf tea with reusable infusers is healthier for you and for the planet — and with the option to perfectly customize the blend, it can be even tastier, too.
Photo by Polina Tankilevitch / PEXELS
8. Find creative ways to cook with food scraps.
Ideally, we should waste no part of the ingredients that we’re cooking with, especially if they’re plants (many leaves, stems, and greens of fruits and vegetables are edible and can be incorporated into recipes — though there are a few notable exceptions, so be sure to Google first). To make a flavorful vegetable stock in your slow cooker, Kellogg recommends using the skins of onion and garlic.
Photo by Ron Lach / PEXELS
9. Enforce a 30-day clothing buy delay on yourself.
“Put a 30-day hold on anything you’re eyeing and feel like you want to buy — separate yourself from the feeling of wanting the item,” advises Kellogg. Marketers can really trap us and get us to spend money in stores or on their sites, but fast fashion and its processes, in particular, are hugely detrimental to the environment.
“If you feel like the piece is an investment for your closet, that you’ll get many wears out of, then purchase it,” Kellogg says. If not, shop secondhand at the thrift store, make use of clothing rental sites like, or swap clothes with friends!
Image via mill.
10. Rethink your trash.
If you aren't in a great position to compost, but still want to do more than just throw your food scraps away, check out Mill. Every member receives a Mill kitchen bin that dries and grinds kitchen scraps overnight to turn your banana peels, pizza crusts, and egg shells into food grounds, which can be sent back to farms instead of going into the landfill. The best part is that it can take the meat and dairy your compost bin can't, you only have to empty it every couple of weeks, and you don't have to deal with stinky trash anymore!
Photo by Karolina Grabowska / PEXELS
11. Donate your clothes and household items to charities.
Once you’ve decided what does and doesn’t spark joy in your home, think twice before dumping bags off at a large donation center or thrift shop – where you don’t exactly know what will be done with the items, Kellogg says.
Be especially wary of curbside collection boxes, which often belong to for-profit organizations that ship the clothes overseas, where they flood the market, reducing demand for local craftspeople. These shipped textiles often end up in the ocean, too, harming the environment.
Reselling your clothes is a smart option, plus Kellogg suggests that you “try to find a specific charity for the specific pieces you have,” such as an organization that collects gently used prom dresses or interview-appropriate clothing for those in need.
Check out our Sustainability page for more creative ways to reduce waste!
Lead photo by cottonbro studio / PEXELS.
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This post has been updated.
