What Fashionable Zero Wasters have in their purses
July 26, 2018Being a zero waster is a lot like being a boy scout. You always have to prepared for anything. I wanted to share with you, dear reader, some of things that I do to stay prepared. I keep two reusable shopping bags in case I have to buy something. Typically one is made of fabric…
A Sticky Situation: Making Strawberry Jam
July 26, 2018Nothing captures the essence of summer fruit like jam. When I was growing up, we had a large garden in our backyard and we grew strawberries. I have many happy memories of my mother making strawberry jam, however, I never seemed to have (or be able to find) the time to make it myself. As…
Weighing In on Waste
July 14, 2018As we have now reached the 6 month window of our year of zero waste, I wanted to know if we have further reduced our garbage. Facing a weigh in of garbage, I am a little nervous. I am not sure that we have made a significant improvement in our waste reduction recently. It is…
Reflections after 6 months Zero Waste-ish Living
July 2, 2018Happy Canada Day and 6 month Zero Waste Anniversary! We have made it to the half way point of our zero waste-ish experiment. For me, it has been a life changing yet enriching experience. Thank you to everyone who has given me positive feedback on this project and encouraged me to continue. While I routinely…
Shopping to Reduce Our Waste
June 24, 2018People are often curious about how I shop zero waste. It certainly is a big change from last year at this time. The major difference is that I rarely go to the traditional grocery store. When you look at today’s grocery store, you see packaging, packaging and more packaging! Here is a high- level review…
Starting a Garden
May 24, 2018I have to admit something. I don’t exactly have a green thumb. Unlike my mother in law who has a gift with plants, anything green left me with me eventually turns brown or worse, dies. Whenever I went on vacation, I used to tell my plants that they were going to the spa (aka my…
A Reason to Continue
May 15, 2018A few weeks, I had the privilege of travelling to sunny California for business. I was going to meetings in El Segundo, about 20 minutes from LAX. El Segundo is a chemical engineers dream: decorated with steaming distillation columns and perfumed with oil refining. El Segundo (The Second, in Spanish) became the second site of…
Experimenting with Homemade Cleaning Products
May 8, 2018As a wanna-be zero waster, I know that I have to make and use homemade cleaning products. Unfortunately, my efforts to date have been limited and somewhat unsuccessful. In researching the topic of homemade cleaning products, three ingredients appear: vinegar, baking soda and castile soap. I have tried a vinegar and water 50/50 blend for…
The Sad State of Glass Wine Bottle Recycling in Quebec
April 22, 2018I like, I mean love, wine. And like many people here in Quebec, I dutifully put my empty wine bottles in my blue recycling bin. I was recently horrified to learn that much, if not all, of the glass in the recycling bin ends up in trash. Why? Cross-contamination. When glass bottles break, the broken…
Zero Waste Jar Envy
April 17, 2018My brother has joined the zero waste movement and he recently asked me how much I had reduced my garbage. He has already reduced his waste 80%! Since we were already composting, I expected that the waste reduction that I would see after 3 months would be negligible. Plus, we have a cat (really not…