Living a zero waste lifestyle is something we should all strive to do - and it’s not as difficult as you may think! By adopting the 5 ‘R’s’ - recycle, refuse, reuse, rot and reduce - you can dramatically reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfill and save yourself money at the same time. However, did you know that there are many other benefits for you and your home that come hand in hand with living a zero waste lifestyle, so here are the benefits of a zero waste home.
Better Physical Health
Packaged food is not always associated with bad food, however unhealthy foods typically have a lot of packaging. Consider what you see at a supermarket: loose fruit, vegetables and salad — all nutritious and free of packaging. What's the difference between biscuits, sweets, and crisps? Plastic, plastic, and more plastic.
Packaging is frequently so thin that it cannot be recycled. Simply being compelled to shop, cook, and eat healthily is one of the zero waste health benefits. Furthermore, forcing you to slow down and think about what you're buying at the supermarket encourages you to shop more mindfully, helping you to make better selections throughout the product's life cycle!
Improved Wellbeing
Mindfulness has been found to have a variety of beneficial impacts, including stress reduction, improved working memory and focus, reduced emotional reactivity, and so on. People feel obligated to evaluate the goods they use to clean their houses and as a result benefit from the aforementioned wellbeing life improvements.
No Toxic Chemicals
Zero-waste cleaning and self-care products typically include fewer potentially harmful chemicals (and fewer substances in general), resulting in a happier, healthier and more sustainable home. The same is often true for the packing of these products and reducing waste by using non-toxic packaging materials (such as plastics and other petroleum-based materials) implies less microplastics issues in the local, national and global environment.
Reduced Spending
Perhaps one of the biggest perks of living a zero waste lifestyle is the amount of money you can save! Many people engage in emotional spending, which is when you buy something you don't desire or need as a response to bad (or sometimes positive) feelings like stress, even if you don't notice it. One of the reasons you could make impulse purchases is that they make you feel good. Making a determined effort to achieve zero waste entails avoiding emotional purchasing and limiting the amount of money spent on superfluous (or even unwanted) items.
The ultimate goal of zero waste is to help individuals in repurposing, repairing and reusing items that have reached the end of their useful life (or would have if you were still throwing them in the bin). You can save a lot of money by reusing rather than replacing, which is another zero-waste lifestyle benefit.