Would you like to start living a life of zero waste, but do not know where to start? Than the 5R’s is the way to go!
What are the 5R’s?
The 5R’s of zero waste are:refuse,reduce,reuse,recycle,rot. The 5R’s were ivented by Bea Johnson in her book ‘Zero Waste Home’ to make sustainable living easier. The 5R’s can especially be useful if you are inexperienced in this field, which most of us are at the beginning of our journey but the 5R’s are here to help.
So let’s get to know the 5R’s
(It’s very important that you adopt the 5R’s in your routine, in the correct order)
1.Refuse
In our daily life we tend to buy things that we don’t actually need or things that we won’t even use, we just have them sitting at the back of our wardrobe and we never even let them see the sunlight. This can be a waste of money, but it also increases the amount of waste you prduce. So the next time you go shopping give yourself a little time to think before you buy something, you can ask yourself questions such as’Will I actually use this, or am I just buying it for a single use such as, for a picture to post on social media’, if the answer is ‘yes, I am just buying it for a single use’ than you should avoid buying the good and only buy items that you will use and need for the long term. You can do this by going for quality over quantity, this means the things you buy will last longer and you won’t need to replace them as often, meaning less waste produced. Therefore next time you go shopping think before you buy and say NO to things which you won’t need or use in the long term.
2.Reduce
This means letting go of items which you don’t need or use. This could be done through a clear out, but don’t just throw away the things which you don’t need as that would be a wate of resources. You should rather donate them to charities or even someone you know who might need the thing you want to throw away, but if you’d like a little money in return for your items than you could sell them on platforms like depop or ebay… Reduce also means only buying necessarry items in the future or ones that you will use for a long time.
3.Reuse
Reuse means reusing the things you own or the things you’ll buy in the future for as long as possible; or until they are no longer reusable. This can also be done by going for quality, as better quality items will last longer. You can also find a reusable alternative for your single use items: for example, you could get loose tea with a tea strainer instead of tea bags, replace plastic bags with cloth bags, and there are many more items that can be replaced with sustainable alternatives.
4.Recycle
This should only be done once you have tried all the 3 steps above but there was no way out of the situation. Some might be confused as in to why recycling should only be a last resort but it’s because recycling is not as good as we have been programmed to believe. This is because some items cannot be recycled and some can only be recycled to a limited extent, but the biggest issue is that even out of our recyclable material only 9% is actually recycled, with the remaining 91% ending up in landfils, marine ecosystems, polluting our environment with toxins arising from the decomposition process.
5.Rot
The last step of the 5R’s of zero waste is rot. This means composting the organic waste that you are left with. This can be done outdoors or indoors if you don’t have an access to a garden. Composting outdoors is pretty straight forward, as you just have to place your organic waste into a composting bin where it can be left behind to decompose. But composting indoors can be a bit trickier becuase of the limited space etc. however, it’s not impossible to do. Indoor composting can be done with a worm bin where you add some worms to your bin with organic waste and you are pretty much good to go. But you do have to make sure that certain conditions are met for the worm bin to fully work, for example, you have to keep a good level of carbon(eg. dry leaves) and nitrogen (food scraps), with 50/50 being around the best ratio.
Now that you know the 5R’s you can apply it to your life to live a more sustainable life, help the environment, your sorrounding and help make the world a better place for all.
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