In case you missed it, my 2023 goal post said my goals for the year were going to be:
- Continue reducing my single-use paper towel consumption
- Find a substitute to Who Gives a Crap toilet paper
- Stop/reduce my use of notebooks and notepads
I’m happy to report I was able to find a great Who Gives a Crap alternative – they’re called Roll Up and they’re a Canadian bamboo toilet paper company (yes I’ll be reviewing them at some point) – and I was able to reduce my use of notepads and paper towels!
While I still haven’t cut paper towels out completely, I’m using way less than I was in 2022 and even early 2023. The notepads on the other hand…
I was going to write this article and say that my notepad use was almost a non-issue because I really haven’t been using them to write down story ideas or phone messages – I’ve been using my phone’s note app for that – but I had to stop myself because sitting beside my computer is my To Do list, which I wrote on a piece of notepad paper.
While this might not seem like a big deal to you, I don’t have just one To Do list. In addition to the paper one I have sitting beside my laptop – which I change/update every month or so – I have a Year To Do list taped to the wall that my desk is facing and a daily To Do list on my phone!
I’m one of those people who needs To Do lists in order to not only manage my time, but to also help organize my brain. Unfortunately I can’t just have all of these lists on my phone… well, I could, but they wouldn’t be helpful. I’m also a visual person, and if I don’t have my To Do list somewhere I’ll see it every day, I’ll forget about it and nothing will get done. Or different things will get shuffled to the top of my priorities, and then the whole system gets out of whack.
Luckily though, while I was doing the research for resuable options, I found one thing called a Rocket Notebook that seems to be a digital tablet of sorts that let’s you write on it like paper, but it saves as a digital copy. I don’t know too much about that, but it seems like a good option from what I’ve seen so far. I also saw something at one point that looked like a dry erase notebook and I think that would also be a helpful alternative.
I’m definitely going to have to do more research into my options, but from what I’ve seen, those seem to be the best two for me.
So, what are my zero waste goals for 2024?
Well, I’m going to stick with my paper towel goal and modify it a bit. I recently discovered that Roll Up has expanded their line of products to now include not only bamboo paper towels, but also tissues!
I’d like to test those out as I’ve still been using regular/paper tissues. I wasn’t too worried about switching my tissues because I really don’t use them that often – I use maybe 1 box a year – but that’s still contributing to cutting down 50 year old (or older) trees for something you use once then throw away. So I’m going to take the necessary steps to changing that.
That’s also a great change for my wallet, since their website says they only sell in cases, and there’s 12 boxes per case, so I’ll be good for a while after just 1 order.
The other goal I’d really like to focus on this year is the To Do list alternatives that I mentioned above. They’re sort of my last big hurdle in cutting out paper from my day-to-day, so I’d really love it if I could sort of buckle down and figure that out.
While I know it’s impossible to live completely paperless in today’s society, I’m hoping that by focusing on reaching these goals this year, by this time next year, I’ll be as paperless as I can be.
So, what about you? Do you have any zero waste goals for 2024? Do you have any tips on how to achieve my goals? Let me know in the comments!
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