How To Start A Zero Waste Lifestyle

6 min readJul 2, 2018

I recently made the decision to have a zero waste lifestyle. The whole changing a lifestyle thing was intimidating at first and I thought there were too many things I need to change. I thought, what if my family and friends laugh at what I’m doing?

Oh and yeah, that’s my anxiety talking.

But all that were not too big to stop me from committing. I realized I can always start at the smallest things or at least on the personal things I use. At our home alone, we use enough plastics for my grandma to collect it on a regular basis in a huge plastic trash bin and sell it for some coins to those people who can bring it to a junkyard — and I am not sure if they even recycle it from there.

Here are 5 things I did to start my zero waste living:

1. Making myself mindful of how many plastics I use in my day to day life.

The very first thing I did was I made myself aware of my plastic usage.

I recently had a quick trip with my sister where we had to take a 6-hour bus ride. We had a stop for lunch and bathroom break going back to Manila.

I decided to buy two hotdogs in a bun and two hotdogs on stick for our quick lunch. After the vendor cooked it, she then started putting each hotdog on its own plastic bag (4 plastic bags in total!) but good thing I was able to ask if she can just put the 2 hotdogs on stick in one plastic before she finished and then I had to ask her again to not use a bigger plastic bag to put everything in which she was about to do.

It’s mind blowing how easily it is to accumulate plastic if we don’t consciously stay away from it.

2. I switched from plastic to reusable items: straws, cups, tumblers, utensils, etc..

The next thing in my (mental) checklist of what I need to do towards zero waste living is to say no to plastic straws and cups when I drink milk tea (or boba to some people).

It’s hard for me to resist drinking milk tea when it’s easily accessible to me. (Sorry not sorry!) The thing is milk tea places use plastic cups and plastic straws regardless if you’re drinking it at their place or you’re taking it to go— well, I don’t want to stop drinking milk tea!

So first, I bought a set of stainless steel straws which was conveniently sold by the milk tea place I always go to. It had twosizes, a regular size one and a milk tea/boba one. There are also colorful steel and glass varieties, you can get whatever you think would work best for you.

Then I had the problem of finding a good sized tumbler that can fit the same volume of their large sized drink but I eventually found one!

I was already using the reusable straw but was still contributing to plastic waste because of the cups (left), then I finally found a great sized tumbler (right)

3. I invested on menstrual cups.

Women use tons and tons of sanitary napkins and tampons our whole lives. Well, until we reach that old age and this thing called menopause comes along — but still, that’s not going to happen until we’re the age of 50 (on average).

Plus, I have always found it yucky and uncomfortable using sanitary napkins and tampons. Switching from pads and tampons to a menstrual cup was one of the things I didn’t think twice about when I decided the switch.

Here are a few main benefits of using a menstrual cup:

Economical and eco-friendly — Using a reusable and sterilizable menstrual cup can reduce the wastes that we use every start of our cycle. It will reduce the cost in buying the sanitary pads and tampons and it will lessen the landfill waste!
Safer — Unless you bought a fake “silicon,” you won’t have to worry about all the chemicals, perfumes, and odor neutralizers used in making tampons or pads. No need to worry about Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) either!
Holds more liquid — On average, women lose 30 to 50 ml during their period. A normal sized menstrual cup can hold about 30 ml of blood compared to a tampons or pads that only absorb about 5 ml to 10 ml per use.
More time between changes — For pads and tampons, you normally have to change every 5–6 hours and you have to make sure you change your tampons less than 8 hours to not be at risk of TSS. For the cups, you would only need to change every 12 hours depending on how heavy one’s period is.

4. I switched to a Bamboo Toothbrush.

Every 3 months, we are supposed to change our toothbrush. That’s 4 plastic toothbrushes that will take forever to breakdown in 1 year!

These eco-friendly toothbrushes are made with bamboo which are biodegradable and you can just take the soft bristles out and put it in your ecobricks. It ’s not 100% plastic free, but it’s better than those 100% plastic toothbrushes.

5. I started my first Ecobrick.

Ecobricks are plastic bottles packed tight with scraps of non-biodegradable materials which are mostly plastics. These are used by organizations as a foundation or literal building block for furnitures, homes, buildings, etc.

You can find a lot of information online on how to make these. There are general guidelines for the bottle sizes to weight ratio that you can follow. You can also research the drop off stations that are nearby your area. The important thing is to pack the plastics tight in the bottle and the bottle should have no give when squeezed.

6. I created a social media diary, @ecolivingdiary.

In my case, I utilized Instagram for my #zerowastelifestyle diary. This is a great way to find people in the community that live the same lifestyle. You can easily meet people, exchange tips, as well as find accounts that cater to the sustainable living audience.

Knowing there are people who are also doing the same and putting my “diary” out there encourages me to commit more to this lifestyle.

This Zero Waste or Plastic Free lifestyle is mentally healing for me personally knowing I am “healing” the Earth in my own little way. I have seen enough amazing living creatures in our oceans that are and can be affected by plastic to care and change my own ways.

I hope whatever I have written can help you start your own zero waste lifestyle!