Zero Waste Didn’t Work Like We Thought

Dearly beloved, we've gathered here to say our goodbyes. Here she lies. The last vestiges of the Zero Waste Movement as we know it. We meant well, we really did. And I say this as someone who named their entire channel after it. And before anyone panics now, I don't think Zero Waste is actually dead. But I do think something about the way we were doing it was a little backwards. So today on Earth Day, I wanted to show you what actually happened to the Zero Waste Movement. What we got right, what we got wrong, and of course, your homework, which will show you what actually works going forward. That might have been a tad dramatic, but so am I. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Going Zero Waste YouTube channel. I'm Katherine Kellogg. I do videos to help you live better and waste less. If you'd like to do that, please press that big red subscribe button. Ding the little bell and you'll be notified when new videos are coming out. So what on earth actually happened to the Zero Waste Movement? The term Zero Waste was first used by Paul Palmer. It was a guy who invented a company called Zero Waste Systems. And he started this in the 1970s, which is going to be a reoccurring theme that you see throughout this video. He's a chemist with a Ph.D. from Yale, and he moved to Silicon Valley where a lot of chemicals were being discarded. And with his chemistry degree, he could turn them into products that people actually wanted to buy and use. So that is where the whole idea of Zero Waste started. But it started becoming a lifestyle around 2009 when Bea Johnson started writing her blog, Zero Waste Home. I don't think Bea Johnson ever set out to get all of her trash to fit into a mason jar. That was simply the byproduct of her Zero Waste lifestyle. But that became really popular. So people started taking that on as a challenge. Me, I did as well. The whole goal of the movement was to throw out as little as possible, which you can see in the five R's, which is refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and then rot. And then you were supposed to go in that order. The goal was to avoid any type of trash at all, which is quite challenging in the modern world. And I think really fascinating to watch people participate in. This idea of wasting less really resonated with people and took off. There was tons of press, tons of coverage. So many viral videos on YouTube and social media. And then it all came to a screeching halt. And I can show you the exact moment it happened. But first, I am super excited to announce that today's video is sponsored by Birch. We are currently redoing our guest room, upgrading from a full sized mattress that frankly does not fit some of our guests to a queen. And I'm really excited to share the process of redoing that space a little bit more sustainably with you. We spend about a third of our lives in bed. So having a good quality mattress is something that is very important to me. Most conventional mattresses are made with polyurethane, which is a plastic polymer that off gases and releases VOCs into your home. Instead, Birch uses an organic alternative made from the rubber tree, which is natural latex. This is my favorite material to sleep on. The quality of sleep is truly incredible. It's so much more breathable, allowing you to naturally regulate your body temperature at night. And it's crazy durable. It's a little more firm than your traditional memory foam mattress, hitting the right balance of softness and structure. So your joints feel really good in the morning. I'm secretly hoping they'll start making dog beds because I know Nala would really like one for her aging joints. They also have a super cool partnership with CleanHub tackling ocean bound plastic pollution with every single order. So if you're currently in the market for a new mattress, Birch is offering 20% off sitewide. You can head to birchliving.com slash Katherine Kellogg and make sure to mention my channel in the post purchase survey. The term zero waste peaked in 2019 and surprisingly fell off pretty rapidly until right before COVID. Around that time, a lot of people were coming out saying, I'm quitting zero waste, and they were moving to different terms like low impact or low waste. I have a lot of mixed feelings around the term zero waste. The name of this channel, the name of all my channels, the name of my blog. Boy, did I hitch my wagon there. I've personally always viewed zero waste as a goal or a place that I would like to go. The term started for a business, and you can still get your business zero waste certified, which means an 80 to 90% reduction in what you send to a landfill. And I think an 80 to 90% reduction is pretty achievable for most people, even if you don't have access to bulk bins or a lot of package free consumer goods. But the problem with COVID specifically is how many reversals we saw during that time. San Francisco, which was one of the first places in the nation to ban plastic bags, outlawed bringing your reusable bags. You couldn't bring your own cups. You couldn't bring your own straws. You couldn't bring your own bags. And for a whole movement that is focused on bringing your own things and personal responsibility and you can't do any of it, it's going to collapse. And it's not because people stopped caring. It just became so much more difficult. I was getting plastic bags, straws. I was ordering takeout to support my local restaurants and businesses. So I was producing more trash than I had in so, so long. And I distinctly remember posting this picture to my Instagram talking about the takeout and packaging I was getting because of how hard it was to avoid. And several people who are big names in the zero waste movement at the time unfollowed me. How many of us were? And it allowed us to shift our priorities a little bit. And I think for the best. If you agree with that, please give this video a thumbs up. It really helps my videos with the YouTube algorithm. And beyond so heavily focusing on trash, we were also really caught up in the aesthetics of zero waste living. So much of the media around zero waste living focused on the aesthetics. And Bea Johnson has a beautiful, very, very minimal home. And I don't think I am capable of maintaining that kind of minimalism. I have never been able to achieve anything like that in my whole life. And while it is beautiful to look at, I'm not sure how practical it is for the everyday person. I don't have kids, but I do get questions from parents about, you know, reducing waste at home and in the school. And some of the suggestions that worked for Bea, probably because she also lives in Mill Valley, which is part of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is very progressive and very considerate of zero waste initiatives. She offered to buy the classroom reusable wipes as opposed to disposable ones. And I'm not sure all school districts would be OK with that. There's also an added layer of privilege being in the Bay Area and having access to so many amazing package free options. Having people who understand, having people who support. The city has a zero waste goal. And so many people are on board with that idea. And if you live in the middle of Arkansas and you don't have people who necessarily get it, you're fighting a much larger uphill battle. And while I do find that zero waste living has saved me money, a lot of the reusable items do have more of an initial upfront investment. Now, they save you money over the long term, but it can be a little bit more expensive, especially if you're trying to replace your consumption habits one to one. And sometimes the zero waste movement was even kind of a detriment to itself in that I was terrified to buy wood glue to fix something that was broken because what was I going to do with the wood glue bottle when obviously the most sustainable thing for me to do was to fix and repair the belongings I had and not to worry about a little bit of packaging? Now, I'm not going to go too deep into the specifics because I have another video, which is the eco friendly trends that age terribly. That you can go and check out because I want to focus on the really big problem. We were so hyper focused on our individual actions that we might have forgotten about the systemic ones. We'll need to misfrizzle ourselves out of here and head back in time. Groovy. Earth Day started on April 22nd in 1970. Now, for decades leading up to this, pollution was incredibly high. New York City was absolutely covered in smog. The EPA dispatched 100 photographers to capture America's environmental issues. And New York City was one of the most polluted cities in the United States. Oil spills were an incredibly common occurrence, with almost 300 oil spills in the first six months of 1973. Air pollution levels were so high, you couldn't even see New York's iconic skyline. The TV show, Bad Men, takes place from 1960 to 1970. And in 1969, the year before the EPA was formed, they kind of touch on this a little bit, which I feel is really rare to see in television. But the smog was so heavy that it would be all over the streets, meaning it was a place you absolutely did not want to be wearing sandals. These feet, they were my sandals and I look like a hobo. Your toenails are black. You can't wear those in the city. You might as well be barefoot. In fact, that's why people often wore overcoats and they would have detachable collars so they could take them off and replace them when they were indoors because of how thick the smog was. Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson in 1962, is also considering a pivotal moment for the modern environmental movement. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin was really inspired by the anti-war student movement and wanted to use that energy to bring public consciousness about our water, our air and our natural resources. After a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, he recruited a young activist to organize teach-ins and they chose April 22nd because it fell in between spring break and final exams so they'd have more time to focus on the cause. The very first Earth Day was a massive protest on April 22nd in 1970. More than 20 million Americans showed up. At the time, that was 10 percent of the population. And if you've heard of the 3.5 percent rule, that's if you can mobilize 3.5 percent of a population, you can bring about real, meaningful change. The great thing about Earth Day is that every person was on board. This led to the creation of the EPA, the National Environmental Education Act, the Clean Air Act, and two years later, they passed the Clean Water Act. And I hope you've been enjoying the fruits of our labor in the 70s, way up there in the future. I would like to say that we are still enjoying the fruits of those labors, but unfortunately, a lot of things are getting stripped out of those bills and we don't quite have the all-in-it-together mentality that was there in the 70s. But I hope that is something that we can achieve. We'll get to that a little bit later in the video. So one of the major traps the zero waste movement fell into was being highly individualized. And I think a lot of that we can trace back to 2004 when BP created the Individual Carbon Footprint. Now, of course, the idea of ecological footprints had been around before then, but the people who really started to push it were BP. This was a hundred million dollar campaign that was called Beyond Petroleum. So it's just really funny because it's it's it's still BP. So I know they did that on purpose, but it amuses me. And the whole idea was to shift the focus from mass polluters and corporations to the individual. The idea was to guilt trip all of us and for all of us to go after each other instead of turning our attention to major polluters. And boy, did it work with the zero waste movement. There was quite a bit of catty infighting, if I remember correctly. People constantly jumping down each other's throats for getting a single piece of plastic, for not being good enough, for not being perfect enough. If we had have been able to divert our attention into something more substantial, do you think we could have made a bigger impact? Now, to be clear, I do operate under the yes and philosophy. Scott, what you got for us today? This game is called yes. And I still think reducing waste, repairing what you have, using what you have, being mindful of what you consume. I truly, truly do believe in this message. And I think it is something that is so important. But it's not necessarily because of the planet. I believe in this message because it is better for us. I think we live so much better lives when our lives are not focused on consuming. We are going to be happier. We are going to live better. And yes, it is better for the planet, but it is first and foremost, better for us. And I think that is why Bea Johnson really started doing it is because it was a better experience for her life. There were no zero waste blogs she could read. She was simply writing about it from her own perspective. I truly think that is the most powerful messaging we can get behind because nobody likes waste. Nobody likes waste. And you can have so many different types of waste. You can have a waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of energy, a waste of resources. Time is our number one non-renewable resource that we are never getting back. And I don't want to spend it working to buy things to impress people I don't know or don't like. I would much rather spend my funds on things that actually make me feel good, which is spending time with the people I love, doing things with the people I love and doing things that I love. You know, I don't want to spend my money on a lububu that's going to be at the bottom of the landfill in a year. That just seems dumb. Why would I do that? And I think the more that we can focus on these amazing yes and benefits, it is going to remove so much of this perfectionism mindset that we have because the word zero waste does turn a lot of people off. I get it. I do get it. But the more we can focus on the personal benefits, the better. Yes, bring your own coffee cup to the coffee shop because it's a much better experience and you're consuming fewer microplastics if you bring your reusable mug as opposed to getting a plastic one. Right. Better experience for you. This is yes and. Also, if you do wind up getting one, we're not going to stress about it. I've gotten one. I just take the lid off. Fewer microplastics. A little better that way. But I'm not going to stress about my one individual choice because the weight of the world cannot rest on our individual shoulders. So what can we do about it? This is your homework section for the video. We are like the phoenix rising from her ashes. And I hope that we will be able to use our passion. I hope our passion is still there because I do know this is a very tough time and I'm feeling burnout. I don't know if you're feeling burnout, but this is one of the best ways to rekindle hope. The first thing is to make a monthly practice of writing or calling your legislators. I try and send an email at least once a month. I did a really, really fun evening where I got people together and we wrote postcards. I also call, especially when I, especially if you're in a bad mood. It's a great time to call when you're in a bad mood. I just need to talk to someone. I'm just I'm not happy about the way things are going, Susan. I'm not happy. And then, you know, you can leave that as a message. Great. Fantastic. But beyond just that, you should get to know your legislators on a local level because a lot of the things that happen locally are equally, if not more, impactful to you and your daily life. Head to your city website. Learn more about your boards and your commissions and your city council and what projects are going on. And then I would highly encourage you to join an organization, any environmental organization. You can join the Sierra Club. You can join 350.org. You can join a local chapter of Surf Rider. We have a great one here called Reuse Maine, the National Resources Council of Maine. So find an organization that you can get plugged into. And they're also going to help and give you prompts and tell you things that you can do. We want your support on this bill that's going to be entering into the house so that way you can sign your name to it or you can call for your state legislature. And it's a fantastic way of getting plugged in. I am a firm believer in yes and and I am really excited to see where this new wave is going, because I think we had our really individual wave and that was important. But this next step, this is really, really important, too. I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you did, please give it some hype points. It really helps my video with the YouTube algorithm. And a huge thank you to Birch for sponsoring this video and supporting this kind of work. It really means a lot to partner with brands that are aligned on values like using better materials, creating high quality products and making things that are built to last. If you're interested, you can check them out at birchliving.com slash Katherine Kellogg. Love it. We've gathered here to say our goodbyes. Here's Sheila Newhouse, the late great daughter of Mother Earth. I'll see you next week with a new video.