Zero Waste Lifestyle
The average American generates about 2,072 pounds of trash per year. And in total, America produces 254 million tons of trash per year. We only recycle about a third of that trash. And on a global scale, humanity produces 2.6 trillion pounds of garbage per year. (Titlemax).
Where does all this garbage go? Landfills and the world’s oceans. Many reports estimate that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. (One Green Planet)
Obviously the problem of pollution must ultimately be solved by world governments. But as world governments increasingly fail to do what needs to be done, it is up to us as individuals to try and do our part.
Some people are making an effort to adopt what is called a “zero waste lifestyle” in order to reduce their personal carbon footprint. And some people are so good at it that they only generate one mason jar of garbage per year.
People who adopt a zero waste lifestyle have given up on plastic and other disposable amenities in favor of anything re-usable. Many people are familiar with the practice of using re-usable bags at the grocery store, or bringing a mug to Starbucks instead of getting a disposable cup. But zero waste folk go even further than that, going as far to even do re-usable diapers, re-usable feminine products and re-usable toilet paper. It may sound icky, but it’s not impossible, and doesn’t even have to be unsanitary when done right.
Here are some tips below from One Green Planet:
1) Get rid of disposables in your kitchen.
- Replace paper towels with reusable rags.
- Pack to-go meals with reusable sandwich bags.
- Use Non-Disposable or biodegradable dinnerware.
- Always bring your own shopping bags.
- Earth friendly sponges.
2) Buy in bulk
- Bring mason jars to the grocery store to hold bulk items or foods from the deli counter.
- Consider buying bulk castile soap to use as hand and dish cleaner instead of buying a bunch of little bottles of different cleaners.
3) Eat your leftovers
- Forty percent of all food goes to waste in the U.S.
4) Shop second hand
- Carbon Trust estimates that CO2 emissions associated with clothing account for three percent of global emissions. This number includes out-sourced production, shipping, washing, and drying. Shopping second hand saves good clothing from a landfill and reduces the overall demand for clothing production.
5) Take care of clothes
- Buying fewer items of higher quality will save you money in the long run and make it more likely you will take the time to mend rips and tears instead of throwing it out.
6) Bring your lunch
- Disposable lunches (to-go packaging, plastic utensils, etc) generate 100 pounds of trash per person annually.
7) Go digital
- The average office worker uses two pounds of paper per day! Take notes on your laptop and communicate with your colleague’s via e-mail rather than using paper.
8) Recycle!
- Unless your office has gone completely paper-less, chances are there are stacks of paper that could be recycled. While reusable water bottles are the BEST option, any plastic water bottles should be recycled as well.
9) Simplify cleaning supplies
- White Vinegar and baking soda are all natural alternatives to dangerous chemical cleaners. They are versatile, effective, and eliminate plastic bottle waste.
10) Make your own cosmetics
- Save money, avoid harsh chemicals, plastic containers, and packaging by making your own cosmetics. Check out Free People’s blog for instructions on how to make your own natural cheek and lip stains, perfume, shampoo, make-up remover, and more. Also be sure to check out OGP’s very own DIY beauty guides right here.
RELATED LINKS
A Beginner’s Guide to Zero Waste Living (Ps, It Doesn’t Happen Overnight)
10 Ways to Adopt a Zero Waste Lifestyle This Earth Day!
What I learned from adopting a ‘zero waste’ lifestyle (it wasn’t as easy as I thought)
Mankind’s #1 Priority Today – Stop Destroying The Planet Before We Destroy Ourselves
First of all, what needs to be understood in the conversation about climate destruction is that this has the more grievous consequences for the survival of the human race itself. It’s not just the polar bears. It’s not just the ice caps. It’s the future of the human race.
Now whatever happens, nature will survive. In the Earth’s 4.5 billion years of existence, nature has endured 5 major mass extinctions that destroyed most of the life on the planet (at least 60%), and nature will survive humanity, even if it takes a couple hundred thousand or million years for nature to get back on track. However, it is not certain that humanity itself will survive.
Today, mankind is presiding over what scientists are unanimously describing as a sixth major mass extinction event.
According to the Living Planet Report put out in 2014 by the World Wildlife Fund, humans have killed up to half of the wildlife on the planet in the last 40 years (World Wildlife Fund). And according to the Living Planet Report put out in 2016, this level of decline could increase to two-thirds by 2020. And now a recent study 2018 has said that humans have killed off 83% of wild mammals.
What is also terrifying is that the Permian Extinction (the most deadly extinction event on Earth) may have been caused by circumstances similar to the causes of global warming today. A team of researchers from Canada, Italy, Germany and the US say they have discovered what caused the Permian Extinction. According to a paper published in the journal Palaeoworld, volcanic eruptions pumped large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, causing average temperatures to rise by eight to 11°C. This melted vast amounts of methane that had been trapped in the permafrost and sea floor, causing temperatures to soar even further to levels lethal to most life on land and in the oceans.
Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University, has said, “If there were a large methane release, which is now possible because of the instability of the methane hydrates underneath the Arctic continental shelves, the off-shore waters, that could quite easily give rise to a very large [methane] pulse.” He was one of the authors of a paper in the journal Nature, which suggested it was possible for a truly vast amount of frozen methane to be released over just 10 years – a blink of an eye in geological terms, which could theoretically lead to similar events that caused the Permian Extinction (Independent).
So this is the key issue we face today. This should be a political focus, a spiritual focus, and a psychological focus of all our current endeavors. Doing what we can to stop this destruction before it is too late.
METAL GAIA ARTICLES
Earth Day Realities and Environ-metal – Change is Needed Before We Reach The Point of No Return
The Era of Fake Reform. When Will We Actually Fight for the Planet?
RESOURCES
Humans Are Paving the Way for a Sixth Major Mass Extinction (World Future Fund)
Neil deGrasse Tyson scolds cherry picking climate science (CNN YouTube)
Sixth mass extinction: The era of ‘biological annihilation’ (CNN, 7-11-17)
Earth’s worst-ever mass extinction of life holds ‘apocalyptic’ warning about climate change, say scientists (Independent, 3-24-17)
Study: We’ve wiped out half the world’s wildlife since 1970 (VOX, 9-30-14)
Are We in the Midst Of a Sixth Mass Extinction? (New York Times, 6-1-12)
Extinction Threat, A Call to World Leaders at Rio Earth Summit: (CNN World News, 6-20-12)
According to the article above: 41% of amphibians, 25% of mammals, 13% of birds, 30% of conifers and 20% of all plants are all threatened with extinction.
One in Five Mammals Threatened With Extinction (Common Dreams, 11-3-09)
The survival of 17,921 species is in jeopardy.
Almost 50% Of The World’s Primates Are In Danger Of Extinction (CNN, 8-5-08)
Habitat destruction as well as hunting are the greatest threats to primates today.
Earth Day Tips Followed up by Some “Environ-Metal”
Happy Earth Day Everyone! Go outside and enjoy yourself some nature. But don’t forget, every day is Earth Day. Every day of life, ever breathe of clean air, every morsel of food we eat, or glass of water we drink is a precious gift from the Earth. Let’s think of things we can do to give our thanks and give back.
WHAT CAN YOU DO AS AN INDIVIDUAL?
- Plant a tree
- Get together with some people and clean a park or pick up other litter.
- Make a greater commitment to recycle
- Shop at a local farmers market
- Try to cut down on your carbon emissions by biking or taking the bus when you can.
WHAT CAN SOCIETY DO?
- Small scale tasks in our day to day lives are noble gestures, but ultimately, it is large scale government policies that are needed to get this planet back on track. So what government policies are needed?
- Cuts to carbon emissions.
- More funding for Renewable Energy Technology such as Solar and Wind energy. Fracking and Natural Gas are not realistic alternatives.
- More funding for public transportation projects, since these give out less pollution than cars.
- A firm commitment to protect what is left of the world’s rain forests and other natural landscapes.
Of course these solutions won’t completely save the day, but it’s a start. In the meantime, enjoy some environ-metal…hurhurhur.
Ozzy Osbourne – Revelation (Mother Earth)
Black Sabbath – Hole in the Sky
Testament – Green House Effect
Cattle Decapitation – Regret and The Grave
Two Steps From Hell – Protectors of the Earth
A Plan B for the World
As humans, we are our own greatest predator.
The world’s population is growing.
80 million people are added each year.
215 million women around the globe have no access to birth control. Anthropologists who live among these women say, “they live in fear of their next pregnancy.”
Resources are shrinking.
Soil erosion, deforestation, and factory farms are turning the world’s grasslands and forests into deserts.
The cost of food world wide tripled in 2007 and 2008.
Water levels are decreasing.
Global warming as well as poor farming methods are depleting levels of water around the globe.
We’re riding of the rails of a crazy train and the conductor is pressing his foot to the accelerator.
With an exploding population
Mounting poverty world wide
Decreases in the available food and water world wide,
Damage to the world that sustains us
The future outlook is not good
We need a plan B for the world!
A Four Part, Plan B for the World
Lester Brown’s Plan B, from his book, World on the Edge
Spirit of the air, ancient one of the east, give me the knowledge, to purify my world
Spirit of the flame, ancient one of the south, give me power over my own body, and my own sexuality
Spirit of water, ancient one of the west, let your dream flow free, like the torrents of a river
Spirit of the earth, ancient one of north, let me learn from your forests, how to live with your creatures
1. A massive cut in carbon emissions in the air by 2020
We can shift away from burning fossil fuels by tapping the Earth’s wealth of wind, solar, and geothermal energy.
This transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy can be driven primarily by tax restructuring: steadily lowering income taxes to offset this reduction with a rise on Carbon Emission taxes.
2. Stabilize the world’s population to no more than 8 million by 2012
Provide women around the world with the basics of family planning and contraception
3. Eradicate poverty
Provide primary education for ALL boys and girls around the world.
4. The reforestation of forests, soil, aquifers, and fisheries
Recycle water
Ban deforestation
Establish more efficient irrigation systems
Arrest the fall in water tables by raising water productivity
It’s not impossible!
Doing all these things would cost a mere 200 billion, an eighth of the current world military spending.
Manifesto For Social Change
Ancient Pagan Folks believed that life was interconnected.
Many of the problems if the Modern World must be dealt with together, not separately.
The forest itself is an interconnected force that thrives on life and death.
We are moving into a world where our perverse methods of destruction are destroying/polluting the resources we currently have. What is needed?
WHAT IS NEEDED?
POPULATION CONTROL
SELF SUSTAINING COMMUNITIES
CORPORATE SANCTIONS
SPIRITUAL GROWTH
POPULATION CONTROL: There are too many damn people on the planet. At the end of this year there will be 7 billion people. How many more people can this planet and its resources tolerate?
If we don’t make birth control more available, the population will sort itself out through uglier methods: War, plague and famine. It would be a much better option to provide access to birth control for the people who need it most. The population is declining in first world countries, but exploding in the third world. Many of these third world women don’t even want to have all the children they’re being forced to have.
Spreading tolerance towards Gay Marriage will also help limit the population. Since Gay couples obviously adopt babies instead of making them.
It would be a far better thing to have a multitude of resources distributed to the few, rather than the many fighting over few resources. However, the latter arrangement benefits the wealthy .01 percent that owns a majority of wealth on the planet. The more people there are, the lower their worth, the more expendable they are, and thus – easier to use for war profiteering and factory labor. We can’t go along with this!
Also, with the growth of automated labor, there will be less of a need for humans to do certain jobs.
A Picture of Chinese Hakka Houses (Self Sustaining Communities)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF-SUSTAINING COMMUNITIES: We need to cut ourselves off from the leash of corporate dependence. Throughout most human history, small self-sustaining communities were responsible for making their own food, clothes, weapons, entertainment, burying their own dead, and for worshiping their own Gods, tied to the land. People derived a sense of identity based on where they were from and the community they were a part of. Tradition and customs were tied to the landscape. Rituals, weddings, coming of age ceremonies were tied to the changing of the seasons, the waning and waxing of the year.
Now we make almost nothing for ourselves. We are much like the cattle we eat. Our corporate masters keep us fat, helpless,pumped full of hormones and preserves. Our sole function in life is to make more money so we can consume. Consume is the mantra by which we live. The synthetic values by which we live command us to work meaningless jobs so we can earn enough paper (of imaginary worth) so that we can fulfill our dreams of consuming the most things.
We need to go back to buying local food, clothing, etc. We need to go back to producing these things for ourselves. I’m not suggesting that we throw away all technology and live in Pre-industrial societies. I’m suggesting that we use the technology that we have to make our lives and society more efficient. Eating food that has been driven hundreds of miles from a factory farm in the mid-west is highly inefficient, and would probably be super expensive if it weren’t for government subsidies. Not to mention that the transportation needed causes a large carbon footprint. With the technology we have today, we could see things like solar and wind power the electric grid for an entire community.
A strong local economy would provide more jobs, a greater feeling of meaning in life (the work you do contributes to your community), it would be better for the environment, and would allow people to provide services for one another – instead of relying on the government or corporations to do it for them. People would also be able to contribute their skills and worth to where it counts, rather than working a dead end job for minimum wage.
With many home foreclosures and towns going bust in the United States, this provides an opportunity for land and housing to bought for the development of eco-friendly, self sustaining communities.
CORPORATE SANCTIONS:
Yet we are not powerless…. This is only something that the corporations want us to believe. The media is a multi billion dollar machine designed to make us feel worthless. A majority of news stations on television are owned by six corporations.
Yet we are the ones who feed the corporations! It is our blood and sweat upon which they survive. They depend on US to buy their goods. After all, in the United States, we are the world’s top consumers. Sure, there would be others available to buy their goods. But if a large group decided to ban together and sanction a particular corporation – that corporation would lose their competitive edge.
We the people out number the 1 percent. It takes five fingers to make a fist. If we can unite our efforts together, we can kick major ass. Many people have already realized that the corporate structure of America is not good for its people, or for life on the planet in general. Yet we continue to feed the beast that destroys us. The Occupy Wallstreet movement is a start. Yet we need more. The occupy movement can be controlled by police brutality and threats of imprisonment. Yet there is less control over what we can and cannot purchase.
When there is a country that threatens the safety of other countries around the world, what do we do? We impose economic sanctions until they comply with our will. The 1 percent and tax evading corporations that control a majority of American Wealth are now threatening our livelihoods more than ever. So what do we do? We impose sanctions.
Not all corporations are bad. In fact, there are many good corporations out there that pay their taxes and give people jobs. Yet there are also many bad corporations that sponge off of American resources (roads, educated workers, protection via police, etc.) and yet these corporations refuse to pay taxes themselves. These corrupt corporations also send jobs over seas and bankrupt entire towns that depended upon a particular factory for their living.
We need to determine which corporations are doing the most damage and make a plan to not purchase their goods. We need to unite people together in agreement to impose corporate sanctions. Such groups of people can also raise funding for those who are sued by corporations for frivolous reasons.
The idea of Employee owned corporations is also a suitable replacement for stock owned corporations.
SPIRITUAL GROWTH: The argument over real spirituality versus fake spirituality is as old as humanity itself. This debate became more acute with the introduction of the Abrahamic faiths. Yet real spirituality is the connection to the organic rather than the synthetic. Shifting to a culture that values the organic over the synthetic will be a colossal change. Many will resist this change and hold on to the synthetic system with clenched hands. Yet the synthetic system based on money and consumption will evaporate like grains of dust in the winds of what is to come. People will eventually re-organize their lives around the organic principals our ancestors have revered for a majority of human existence. The old ways will return. Yet the transition will not be easy. Such revolutions in history never are.
Why do I mention spirituality? Because a divine change from within is needed to create a mass change on the outside. You can follow whatever faith you want. I don’t care. You can be an atheist. I don’t care. But what I’m saying is that a connection to the things that truly matter is needed here: a connection to nature and the people around you. The spiritual divine of nature. We must tap into this in order to see the soul sucking destruction of our current system.
Metal Gaia 