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No. Mad.

2023 Zero Waste Goals Recap (+2024 Goals)

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In case you missed it, my 2023 goal post said my goals for the year were going to be:

  1. Continue reducing my single-use paper towel consumption
  2. Find a substitute to Who Gives a Crap toilet paper
  3. 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!

Like this article? Check out more about zero waste here!

No. Mad.

Paperless Paper Towels?!

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Yes, I know the title is an oxymoron, but it’s also true!

Not all paper towels are created equal, and luckily for the zero waste crowd, some of them aren’t even made out of paper!

Like toilet paper, I think it’s dumb (and unnecessary) to cut down a tree just to use it’s mangled remains once then throw it away. And sure, paper is biodegradable, but that still doesn’t make it okay!

Again, cutting down a 40-year old (or older) tree just to wipe my face? Uh, no thank-you. There are better alternatives out there, and that’s exactly what this article is about!

When it comes to paperless paper towels, there are a few different options you can choose from. I’ll be listing out some of the benefits to each alternative, but as always, I leave the decision up to you.

 

  1. Bamboo Towels

This option is probably the closest to the “real” thing as you’re gonna get. As the name implies, instead of being made out of paper, these products are made out of bamboo.

The bamboo makes them more sustainable than paper (bamboo is a grass and grows back much faster than a tree) and some people have reported that bamboo towels have more structural integrity (read: don’t disintegrate as easily when used with water), and because of this, they can use less towel per activity/meal.

However they are still a single-use product, and they may be harder to find – and more expensive – than “regular” paper towels.

 

2. Napkins

You’ve probably (hopefully) heard of napkins before, but just in case: these squares are made out of fabric, and were the original go-to for wiping your mouth during a meal.

That’s right, napkins are the OG paper towels!

Somewhere along the way, the industry standard changed to single-use/convenience products over substance, and napkins are now usually only thought of as being “fancy” and used in similar settings. (Think: weddings, 5-Star restaurants, etc.)

What makes napkins better than your standard paper towel is the fact that they’re reusable! You use as normal, then toss the soiled napkin into your laundry (or a wet bag, then laundry once you have enough to make a load out of) and bam they’re good to go for the next use.

The down sides of using cloth napkins are that you have to wash them, so you’ll be doing an extra load of laundry, which means you’ll be using more water. Another downside is that they may stain, and though you do wash them, that can make them appear not as clean as they are to guests.

You do also run the risk of running out if you don’t launder them frequently enough.

 

3. DIY Reusable Paperless Towels

These ones are sort of a mix between the other two alternatives. You can make them yourself out of basically any material you want (like reusable pads, most people tend to use fleece, or terry cloth) and attach snaps to one side of them so you can roll them up and house them on a paper towel holder for convenience.

The great thing about these DIY paperless towels is the fact you can make them with scrap fabric from around your house, which means you don’t have to ‘waste’ money on buying fancy cloth napkins. (Not to mention, the wait for them to get shipped to your house)

Another good thing about them is that, just like cloth napkins, they can be washed and reused!

One downside to these DIY paperless towels is that you may not like the idea of a wet bag holding your dirty/used napkins in your kitchen. Or, if you’re sewing skills aren’t that great, you may need to repair them should they begin to unravel.

Like I said above though, that’s a decision you’ll need to make for yourself. I don’t know your lifestyle, so I can’t tell you which of these three alternatives will work best for you.

Do some research into the paperless towel scene and take a chance on one to try. Or hell, try all three!

There’s literally no harm in testing out all three zero waste options before deciding to stick to one. Or, you may even find you use different alternatives for different days/occasions, which is also totally fine!

Whatever you decide, just remember any of these alternatives are better than using paper.

Paperless paper towels: have you tried them? Which alternative is your favourite? Let me know in the comments!

Like this article? Check out more zero waste articles here!

No. Mad.

2022 Zero Waste Goal Recap (+2023 Goals)

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*This article was written 22.11.01, please excuse any information that is no longer applicable.

I’ve decided to make these goal recap posts an annual thing as well. I think it’s important to hold myself accountable to the goals I set for myself, and one of the ways I’m able to do that, is by announcing them here on the website, and then making follow-up posts.

Now, usually, I don’t like shouting my goals or future aspirations from the rooftops – if you’ve been on following this website/my posts for a while, you’ll know this – but I’m trying to change that, at least for my zero waste goals, because I think it may be helpful to any of you readers to see how the zero waste journey goes.

It’s not always a straight line to changing your lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try!

As cliché as it sounds, you only get one life, and it’s worth it to put in the effort to live the way you want. Not the way your parents, friends or even your partner want. It’s your life.

Before I get too far off topic, let me circle back to the point of this post: did I reach my 2022 zero waste goals?

If you missed 2022’s post, I said my goals for last year were to stop using or reduce my overall use of paper towels. I’m happy to report, I did it!

Kind of…

As said in the last post, I noticed my main consumption (is consumption the right word even though I’m not eating them?) of paper towels was when I needed to cut something up, or to use instead of a plate.

While I have managed to re-train myself and just use a cutting board or plate, I was/am still using paper towels for their main purpose: as a napkin. And I know, there are cloth napkins I could use, or even just get up and wash my hands/face after every meal. As I said above, changing your lifestyle is more of a marathon than a sprint. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Like veganism, you can choose to focus on changing one area, before moving on to changing another. And yes, technically using paper towels could be considered one area, but since I was using them for different reasons, I counted them as two.

So while I’m happy to report my consumption of paper towels has gone down, I haven’t completely eliminated them from my life. And truthfully, I don’t think I’ll ever eliminate them entirely. The trade off to using a paper towel as a napkin is to use a reusable cloth one, which sounds like a better zero waste option up front: it’s made of cloth, you use it multiple times and wash, instead of using it once and then throwing away.

While that sounds great, you’re really just exchanging one problem for another. Sure, you use a cloth napkin multiple times, but you have to wash it, which means you use more water than if you were to just use a paper towel.

I’m not trying to make excuses at all, just show you guys that even the ‘better’ options still have their… let’s call them complications. No matter what option you pick, you’re still potentially harming the planet, or not doing as much good as you think. Keep this in mind when also shopping for reusable substitutes – if you’re attempting to ship something new from overseas, that’s actually less environmentally friendly of an option than if you were to just continue using the plastic version of whatever the item is.

That said, I am going to continue attempting to lessen my use of paper towels, and am definitely interested in exploring reusable napkins. While I attempt to work my way toward 100% paper towel-less living, I will also continue to explore more sustainable options. As mentioned in last year’s post, Who Gives a Crap offers what they call Forest Friendly paper towels (which actually aren’t made out of paper at all) and while I was excited to try them, before I had a chance, they unfortunately had to stop selling their products in Canada. Their website says this is temporary, and they’re hoping to be back ‘soon’, but it’s been a few months* now and they still haven’t returned.

While waiting for my favourite brand to come back to Canada, I may have to explore other toilet paper alternatives, as well as explore other paper towel options. One thing I read said that as long as a paper towel didn’t have meat juice and/or cooked sauces on it, it could be put in a compost pile or backyard dirt instead of the garbage.

I’ll obviously have to continue to research that to learn all the ins and outs to ensure I’m doing it correctly and not just… littering while calling it being environmentally friendly.

Aside from continuing to reduce my paper towel consumption, I’m also going to focus on reducing my use of notebooks/notepads. As a writer, I use a lot of notebooks, notepads and random scraps of paper to write story ideas, character concepts, etc.

While I do mostly use my laptop, sometimes I don’t always have it with me, so instead I reach for a paper and pen. Other creatives will relate to the ‘I have to write this down right now before I forget’ moments. For those who aren’t, it’s sort of hard to explain. But, being a writer is definitely not an excuse for me to continue to use paper all the time!

I’m honestly not sure what options there are for reducing my notebook consumption, aside from using my laptop and phone notepad instead, but I’m very excited to learn!

If you have any suggestions of what I can use instead of a notebook for writing, or if you have any zero waste goals you’re hoping to achieve this year, let me know in the comments!

Like this article? Check out more of my zero waste articles here!

No. Mad.

2021 Zero Waste Goal Recap (+2022 Goals)

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This article was written 21.12.05, please excuse any joke/reference that’s no longer applicable.

Happy new year!

How was everyone’s holiday break? Good? Bad? Stressfully filled with no (or very few) zero waste options?

Don’t worry if you ‘slipped up’ this past holiday season – that part of the year is literally designed to be thrown away. Think about it: plastic decorations, wrapping paper, gift bags, cards – everything that makes it ‘festive’ is basically just fancy trash!

You don’t have to beat yourself up if you used a festive napkin at a get-together or couldn’t resist buying a plastic decoration. These things happen. The important thing to remember is that the Earth doesn’t need everyone doing zero waste perfectly, it needs everyone doing it imperfectly.

As long as you’re trying to do better, you’re already ahead.

Speaking of trying to do better, at the beginning of last year, I made this post, which outlined my zero waste goals for 2021. And I thought, since I went to the trouble of making a post telling you what my goals were, it would be kind of dumb if I didn’t make a follow up post to let you know whether or not I actually reached them.

To recap, in the post I made last year, I said the main thing I wanted to try and stop using was paper towels, and then zip lock bags, if I managed to stop using paper towels.

I’d like to report that I accomplished removing these things from my life, and I can now move on…but if I did that, I’d 100% be lying!

I didn’t stop using paper towels, and I definitely still use Ziploc bags. Instead, I decided to test out a more eco-friendly toilet paper, and, I’m happy to report, I’ve been using it exclusively since trialling it last year!

I mentioned it in passing in the goals post for last year, that chopping down a 40 year old tree for something you use 1 time and then throw out is crazy – which it is – and the more research I did into toilet paper, the more I felt compelled to change that first.

Since I wanted to change things in order of the most wasteful, so that my changes would have the biggest impact, changing toilet paper actually should’ve been the first thing I changed.

As I was researching paper towels, I stumbled across a stat that blew my mind: 27,000 trees are cut down per day for toilet paper. Per day!

That’s an insane amount of trees being cut down for something people definitely don’t use more than once. Similar to when I went vegan, once I knew, I couldn’t un-know, and I definitely didn’t want to be contributing to that stat anymore, so, I started researching alternatives.

Now, there are varying degrees of alternatives to paper toilet paper – for instance, there are bidets, which are pretty widely known, but thinking about the future, since the bidet is something that has to use water, and attach to your toilet, I decided that wouldn’t be the right option for me. (I’m planning on converting a bus into a tiny house on wheels, and using a dry [composting] toilet – there will actually be an article coming out later this year explaining this in more depth)

Then I found a more… let’s call it ‘unique’ alternative called Family Cloth. This one… well, it probably is the most eco-friendly, since it involves taking what would otherwise be trash and reusing it, but, it also seems the most gross and labour-intensive.

For those of you who don’t know, Family Cloth is pieces of clothing (usually old t-shirts/sweaters/flannel) that have been cut into squares, for you to use like toilet paper. After using, you put the soiled cloth into a bucket of water (or, it might be some sort of water/vinegar cleaning solution) and then you wash the cloth using a washing machine.

While it might not be as gross as I’ve built it up in my mind to be (I’m assuming it might be like reusable period pads – there was a time when I thought I would never use them, and now I use them exclusively), Family Cloth is just something I don’t think I could do, at least for the time being.

That’s why I was over-the-moon excited when I discovered a brand called Who Gives a Crap. They sell toilet paper (and a few other products) that is more eco friendly than conventional toilet paper. They have two kinds available, a bamboo, or a recycled paper version. You’ll be getting a full review of them later this year (March), so I won’t go into too many details, but I ended up trying (and loving) their bamboo paper, so I decided to switch to them once I got my order.

And, I’m happy to report, it wasn’t actually that hard! The difference is very minimal, and I’ve actually gotten used to the texture difference, and don’t even really notice it now. As stated above, this is the only toilet paper I use now, so it was a great switch for me to make.

So, while I didn’t technically reach my zero waste goals for last year, I ended up changing a bigger, and arguably, more important aspect of my life. Which leads me to: my 2022 zero waste goals!

I think I’ll stick with last year’s goals of trying to remove paper towels and, possibly, plastic zip-lock bags. Who Gives a Crap has some Forest Friendly paper towels (they’re made out of bamboo and sugarcane), so I’ll check those out, while I also try to cut back on my over-all use of paper towels. Just because they aren’t made out of trees doesn’t mean I should feel complacent with still producing garbage!

Since I was actively thinking and observing my paper towel use last year, I realized the reason I use them the most is to cut up food or use them instead of a plate. Which is dumb, because I should just be using a cutting board, instead. Or, y’know, a plate!

I don’t even know when it happened, but at some point, grabbing a paper towel just became ‘faster’ than grabbing a cutting board or a plate. Which is actually bullshit, because it literally takes the same amount of effort to grab a paper towel as it does to grab a cutting board or plate.

Do you have any zero waste goals for this year? Let me know in the comments below!

Like this article? Check out more here!

No. Mad.

Zero Waste Goals for 2021

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This article was written 20.12.18, please excuse any reference to COVID that no longer applies.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a good holiday, despite not being able to see relatives in person. (Thank God for the internet, am I right?)

To kick off the new year, I thought I’d start with what zero waste goals I hope to achieve by the end of this year. I can’t remember if I made a post about it yet, but last year my main goal was to switch from disposable to reusable menstrual pads, and I’m happy to say, I succeeded!

It actually wasn’t as hard or gross as I originally thought, and if I haven’t posted it already, I promise I will make a dedicated post talking all about that transition.

Since I felt like that was my most wasteful thing, I was struggling to find what else would be a goal that would make a big (ish) difference by the end of the year. Then it finally hit me: I use a lot of paper towels. I’m kind of surprised I never noticed before, but I guess since I hadn’t really thought about it/it was just a ‘normal’ thing I did, I didn’t really pay much attention to it. And this is why we have a problem!

With that in mind, my next main goal for this year is to stop using paper towels. That seems like a crazy thing to say, but when you think about it, chopping down a tree that took years to grow just to be used in a product we only use 1 time? That’s crazy! (Same thoughts I’m having about toilet paper, but I think I’ll do better if I focus on changing 1 thing at a time, instead of trying to change everything all at once, so toilet paper switching will have to wait)

Since I started doing some research into zero waste living, I’ve discovered there are bamboo paper towels. These are better for the planet because bamboo re-grows a lot faster than trees do, so it’s not as devastating as (for example) cutting down a 40 year old tree, and then having to wait another 40 years for it to re-grow. Bamboo is a type of grass, so it grows a lot faster, which is great! Though switching to bamboo would still be producing waste, I’m just thinking of using them as a transition while I figure out what else I can use.

It sounds dumb, but it never occurred to me that most things I use paper towels for (wiping up spills) I can just use a sponge or a towel for. I’ve also seen reusable paper towels as well. Those look like they are just wash clothes snapped together into a roll, so I may actually attempt to make some homemade reusable paper towels, if it turns out that actually is all they are. I’ll of course continue to keep researching, so I can make the best decision possible, but right now reusable paper towels are looking like a great option. Not only will they eliminate the single use paper towels I use, but because they can be washed, I can throw them in with the reusable pads (which I’ve actually been feeling bad about, because I’ve had to wash them by themselves and while I set the machine to do a Small load, I still feel like it’s a ‘waste’)

If I begin succeeding with the paper towels, my next main thing I’d like to switch to reusable is Ziploc bags. I use them also a lot more than I originally thought. Since COVID started, I did start washing and re-using them, which is good, because I’m not using them as single use plastic. However, since my end goal is to be as zero waste as possible, I’d like to switch them to reusable silicone bags, or to use jars or something else to replace them.

Zero waste isn’t about going out and buying all new reusable stuff, and while I think it’s great and helpful there are a lot of reusable alternatives out there now, I don’t think it’s practical for someone to dish out all this money to buy reusables and then just throw out all the plastic stuff they own. When I say I’m going to transition, I literally mean it. I will use the plastic bags and paper towels I have left (which admittedly isn’t very many at this point – which I think is one of the few good things to come out of 2020) and then will start to look to things I already have before deciding to go out and buy new reusable things.

So there you go. My 2 big zero waste goals for 2021 is to reduce/stop using paper towels made out of trees, and to stop/reduce use of Ziploc bags.

Do you have any zero waste goals you’d like to achieve? Do you have any tips or tricks on how to transition away from using paper towels or Ziploc bags? Let me know in the comments!

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