How much rubbish have you produced today?
Did you go to the supermarket and pay 50 cents for a plastic bag? Perhaps you bought a cooldrink and drank it with a plastic straw or got some takeaways in polystyrene boxes.
How much rubbish do you produce in a week?
Most people don’t think about this much, but they should. The world produces 3,5 million tonnes of solid waste every single day. Each and every one of us adds to this figure.
Many of us have seen the terrifying videos of sea turtles with straws stuck up their noses or beached whales with their bellies filled with trash bags.
We’ve all driven by stretches of land strewn with plastic bags and other refuse. Perhaps you’ve even seen a goat or cow chewing on some garbage.
Whether we want to admit it or not, the world is drowning in rubbish, and one way or another, we are all responsible for it.
The point of this is not to be bleak and say the whole world is doomed and we may as well give up, but rather to figure out what you can do about it.
Let’s be real, living a zero waste lifestyle, just by the nature of consumption, is a daunting task.
Even zero waste experts like Bea Johnson or Lauren Singer have only managed to make it down to a jar of waste a year. (Something that might seem like climbing Everest to a beginner.) But the point is: Rome wasn’t built in a day; we all have to start somewhere.
You can reduce the amount of waste you produce by making simple choices like switching from plastic forks, spoons and straws to bamboo or metal ones with your takeaways and opting for cloth bags instead of plastic when grocery shopping.
Recycling is also one way to be more sustainable, although it still has a long way to go – only 9% of the world’s waste actually gets recycled, according to National Geographic’s issue ‘Planet or Plastic’.
So the bigger issue is not just to recycle but to reduce the amount of stuff we produce and consume. Because there is no way the earth can keep up with it.
To get there, make conscious choices to reduce the amount of waste you produce each day, and Namibia’s first ever Zero Waste Store is a great place to start.
The Zero Waste Store is based on the simple concept of reducing the use of packaging used to store our food and cleaning and personal hygiene products by making sustainable choices that benefit the environment in the long run.
The store has only been open for a few weeks and already it’s making an impact.
Owner Brigitte Reissner was inspired after discussions with her friend Christina Böhm about Bea Johnson, author of ‘Zero Waste Home’, who managed the seemingly impossible feat of reducing her annual waste to fill just a 500ml jar.
“Christina brought me Bea’s book, and I started to understand what zero waste was, but then I thought to myself – where will I shop for zero waste? As I thought about it more, I flew to Cape Town and visited zero waste shops there. I did an online course about zero waste shops and decided to do it myself. I sold my hair salon, and here I am,” she says.
Today, the Zero Waste Store stocks many locally sourced products like vinegar, oil, pasta and some cosmetic products.
“Your senses come shopping with you at the Zero Waste Store. You can smell the coffee and tea, you can test the toothpaste, the deodorants… It’s really a shop you need to experience. You see all the beautiful colours of beans, nuts, seeds, spices.
“This is a shop for everyone, no matter who you are, you can find something you need.”
How It Works
Store assistant Emilia Kristian notes a few things to remember when shopping at the store. Firstly, bring your own jar, reusable bag or paper bag. If you don’t have any, they are available for purchase at the store.
Weigh the empty jar or container and write down its weight using the marker pens or crayons available, fill your container with the product you want (only one product per container) and note the code before you head to the cashier to have the products weighed. Voila! You pay and you’re off on your merry way!
The store stocks dry goods like rice, pasta, mahangu, spices and herbs, as well as cleaning products like laundry detergent, general cleaners and personal hygiene products like bamboo toothbrushes, reusable razors, menstrual cups and more.
Almost everything you could think of to start an environmentally conscious lifestyle like compostable bags, which biodegrade much faster than plastic bags – which can take up to 400 years – can be found.
“We are taking all the resources from this earth and we really have to look at our ways of shopping. We need to know the difference between what we really need and what we want. I love the feel of the shop. I like the openness, I love how attentive everyone is and the personal attention you get from staff. I just love the entire concept.”
The Zero Waste Store is situated at Paulanic Square on the corner of Sam Nujoma Drive and Stein Street in Klein Windhoek. Call 081 127 8851 for more information.
