FOURTEEN days, ZERO waste
— time for stocktaking.
End of week 2 of zero-waste challenge. After 14 days of building and maintaining new -sustainable- habits, I feel satisfied. It’s like my existence had another level of meaning during these weeks, having a specific purpose gave me a thrill. All my waste is stocked in a jar in my room, on my writing desk, reminding me of the past days.
Last annotation: I broke a pair of sunglasses (5.99 €, 2 years old and still in good shape). The first thought was that this was the perfect excuse to buy a new pair (I know I already do have enough but sunglasses are among my few addictions). But then it came to my mind… the jar. The pieces of my broken glasses were too big to enter the jar. I confess that, at first, I thought about breaking the pieces again and again so that they could fit in the jar. Secondly, I went to see if I had a bigger jar and I actually found it. The broken sunglasses perfectly fit the new jar! But then I started feeling a little dirty so I focused on the real theme of the challenge: understanding the impact we can have with little actions. Sooo I took the glue and searched for another little screw (I knew that somewhere I ad a little box where I collect this kind of stuff), and easily fixed them. I felt sustainability flowing in my veins!
To conclude the experiment, it’s time to analyze which waste I could not avoid and so it ended up in the jar:
- many pills blisters
- an empty tube of cream
- a pen
- the package of a new pen
- some other little peices I can’t recognize
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE
First POSITIVE. I really enjoyed this fourteen days challenge, even if sometimes it got a little hard (e.g. coffee needs). The biggest successes were the usage of tissue handkerchief instead of common ones, reusable shopping bag which allowed me to never take a plastic bag from any shop, never buying bottles of water, and going for biodegradable. And I will maintain these habits for sure. I love the new (package-free) products I now use for my cleaning routine so I will definitely keep them. Also, the habit of always taking lunch from home was not that hard and it helps the planet while making me save some money. I didn't have to put much effort while food-shopping because my diet already only consisted in fresh products so I could do it in any supermarket (but I’m sure that for people with a healthy and balanced diet it wouldn’t be that easy)
Then NEGATIVE. To face this challenge, I admit that sometimes It was easier for me to completely give up on doing something instead of finding an alternative solution. For example, I love pastry and I usually prepare something for family and friends at least once a week but all those waste restrictions made me avoid cooking. Moreover, I preferred resisting temptation and not buying any new clothes instead of going to second-hand shops.
I had to completely eliminate coffee in my university life because breaks are too short to go to the bar and vending machines only sell plastic cups. Sometimes I brought with me a coffee thermos but not every morning I had the time (and the head) to prepare it.
Finally, I think that, nowadays, the main problem in going zero waste in Milan is the lack of special zero-packaging supermarkets in the area.
With something that will be kept and something else that will be abandoned little by little, what is sure is the fact that these 2 peculiar weeks set e me in the right mindset to think about the future and face the coming project from a different perspective.
