Waste Reduction may seem daunting, but there are many simple steps that can be taken to commence the journey to producing less waste! Some of the easiest changes can be implemented at home. Your home is a great opportunity to try some new ideas for waste reduction and see what works for you!
Start A Compost Bin
Composting is one of the best methods for reducing unnecessary food waste. Food scraps sent to the landfill create harmful greenhouse gases, and so choosing instead to compost is a great alternative. And don’t worry! Composting can occur in the winter as well. If you’re interested in composting, we have compiled a number of composting resources to get you going. Still unsure? Keep an eye out on our events page, as we often host free Backyard Composting 101 workshops.
This Waste Reduction Week, challenge yourself by starting a compost bin of your own! Check out our how-to guide on composting. Get in touch with our composting hotline at 204-925-3777 if you have any questions or need some tips!
Go Plastic Free
Plastic Free July may have come and gone for the year, but that doesn’t mean that those resources can’t be used for the rest of the year! Take Waste Reduction Week as an opportunity to reduce your plastic. Some specific ideas that you can try:
- Go Plastic Packaging Free
- Bring Reusable Bags when you shop
- Ditch the Plastic Straw and choose a more sustainable option (or don’t use a straw at all!)
- Keep a reusable water bottle and thermos handy to avoid single-use plastic water bottles and take-out coffee cups
- Use tupperware containers and reusable lunch bags instead of single-use plastic
This Waste Reduction Week, challenge yourself by choosing a plastic free option from the list above, or from Plastic Free July’s Action Picker and commit to implementing this option for the week and beyond.
Do Your Own Waste Audit
This one can be a little messy, but a household waste audit is an extremely valuable learning experience.
The basic principle of a waste audit is to empty all waste and recycle bins in your household, then collect your discards over 24-hours as normal. Instead of throwing the discards out, take it and separate it (preferably outside and on a tarp or something that can be washed afterward) by bin. Take a look and see what was thrown into a garbage bin that is actually recyclable, what could be composted, and what your household tends to discard a lot of. Not quite sure what can be recycled in Manitoba? Check out Recycle Manitoba to search for those questionable items and see just where it should go.
This Waste Reduction Week, challenge yourself to perform a waste audit, collect your discards and critically determine what changes you can make in your waste habits. If you have any questions or want to follow up on your audit, get in touch with us and we’d be happy to help!
Challenge Your Children to Reduce Waste
School and play and sports and work and dinners…raising kids can be a lot of work! It’s also a great opportunity to introduce waste reduction in a fun and easy way. We recommend trying a 7-day waste reduction challenge, and it can easily be adapted from Going Zero Waste’s 31-Day Zero Waste Challenge!
In here we usually do a garage sale for this. Not only are we cleaning the junk we have a bit of money to boot. These are good ideas by the way.
Very sound advice for waste reduction and insuring that future generations will keep the same mentality. Straws are especially bad for fish and other sea animals, so it’s extremely important to avoid using them. Like you said, making the extra effort to do waste audits and using eco-friendly products is very valuable for a healthy environment.
All these ideas are fantastic. Teaching the children on waste management is a great idea of ensuring that these efforts are passed on to the next generation and don’t die.
I love the idea of composing the waste. My aunt has this waste compost that she uses to make cooking gas. it saves her a lot of cash.
In my country the government went ahead to ban use of plastics. It was one of the best moves. We now have small sizes of trash around town which was unlike the past.
My mom loves gardening and hates fertilizers – and she wants to learn about composting. Great timing I found this article, the composting workshop will be great. Is the workshop still available?
Hi AJ, we continue to offer basic backyard composting presentations at various points through the year. Here’s the link to sign up for an email notification on another page on our website so you’re notified as soon as we have one booked! The next scheduled one (not listed yet) is April 4th, 2019, in Selkirk. https://greenactioncentre.ca/module/composting-2/composting-presentations/
We use supermarket bags whenever we go grocery shopping. We also try to limit buying things that are in singles, instead by them in bulk and reuse big packages or containers.
Seriously, how to dispose wastes properly is one challenge i face in my neck of the woods..we don’t have a proper waste management system..people just dispose their wastes anywhere..I often burn my wastes although I know its not environment friendly..
Thanks for this article..I could sure use some help from your tips..
I already have a compost pit project going on and it provides excellent manure for my kitchen garden. I however never thought of creating Eco friendly cleaning products so many thanks for the DIY link.
These are helpful ideas to follow!I started getting rid of single use plastics since last year.
I certainly agree that waste reduction/management starts at home. We need to compost biodegradable products and recycle anything we can. It is not too late to help mother nature and be a part of protecting our environment.
Our community is having a waste management meeting next week. would you have handouts to provide for our guests, encouraging the changes identified under Waste Management week?
Hi Lorna,
Thanks for getting in touch! We have a few things you may find useful:
– littlerless lunch one-page handout
– various handouts promoting workplace greening and sustainable commuting presentations and our Go Manitoba app
– backyard composting and vermicomposting how-to pamphlets
– information on our ON SITE multi-family composting for apartment and condo buildings in Winnipeg
What community are you in?
If you contact info@greenactioncentre.ca the staff person monitoring that email line will be able to arrange things with you (feel free to copy this message there).
Teresa