We’ve got a reputation here in Philly when it comes to garbage: We make a lot of it, and we dispose of it pretty much everywhere. It’s about time we stop throwing it all away. Here, 35 tips for living a happier, healthier, less wasteful life EDITED BY PHOTOGRAPH BY Brian Howard Ben Goldstein APRIL 2020 • PHILADELPHIA 79 ZERO WASTE SHOPPING Forget baseball. The real American pastime is buying stuff. We’re not about to suggest you stop (or are we?), but we can help you consume a bit less conspicuously. E BY CARLA SHACKLEFORD EARLY THIS YEAR, spurred by the amount of trash a household with two BYO bags. We know—change you forget your bags, but if it takes small kids can generate, my wife made 1 is hard. Just ask City Council; two months to form a habit, you’ve it her mission to slash our household it took 12 years and four separate got time to get yourself in order—the waste footprint. She was listening to attempts for it to fi nally enact a ban bag ban goes into effect July 2nd. Dax Shepard interview Jonathan Saf- on single-use plastic bags. It’s about ran Foer on his latest book, We Are the time. According to the Center for Stop using and purchasing Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Biological Diversity, plastic bags take 2 plastic. “Do you know what Breakfast, about the small changes we 500 years to degrade in landfi lls, but plastic is?” asks Alisa Shargorod- all can make—but don’t—to impact cli- they don’t ever go away. They slowly sky, founder of zero-waste consult- mate change, and something clicked. break down into microplastics and ing fi rm ECHO Systems, whose cli- Practically overnight, “The How- pollute the waterways. All of which ents include local sustainability icon ard Family Sustainability Act of 2020” is to say: Bring your own bags to the Weavers Way Co-op. “It’s petroleum.” appeared on our refrigerator door, out- grocery store. Cloth, paper, old plas- And plastic’s chemicals sometimes lining the things we would—and would tic ones you already have around the leach into the food contained within. not—do, as a family. We would begin house—it doesn’t matter, as long as What to do? Break up with plastics composting. We would actually use our you aren’t making new waste. I have immediately. Say ’bye to single-use cloth napkins. We would buy “lonely” a friend who keeps a stack of reusable water bottles, too—you don’t need bananas. We would avoid packaging. We grocery bags in her car. You may be them. Reusable water bottles are would not buy from Amazon (as much). inconvenienced the fi rst few times available almost everywhere, from We would use buy-nothing groups, and we would do whatever we could to mini- mize what we put on the curb on gar- Secondhand doesn’t mean second-rate. Bulking up at Weavers Way bage night. 3 For non-food items around the home, shop your local cre- It has been, honestly, empowering— ative reuse center—Philly has one called the Resource Exchange. Support stores a list of things we can do to be a little bit “They’ve got everything from fabrics to lumber to art and o ce supplies to housewares,” says Samantha Wittchen, a principal at that support you. better. And that’s the spirit in which this 6 sustainability consultancy iSpring Associates. “It’s not like your Mariposa, Weavers Way, Mom’s Organic Mar- package—a guide to being a less waste- average junk shop where everything is just thrown together. They ket and Riverwards Produce all have corporate ful Philadelphian—was conceived. get some really high-end stu there. A lot of donations come from initiatives focused on zero waste, and they’re We all know that landfi lls are prob- movie sets and theatrical productions.” Wawa to T.J. Maxx. When grocery- have extras, save those, too, so you eager to assist customers who’ve embarked on lematic greenhouse gas factories and shopping, try to buy foods that come can … their own such journeys. Shopping at smaller grocery stores and co-ops gives you the chance that recycling is broken, predicated on in glass jars, metal containers, or to e ect real change in their o erings, so speak the myth that there’s actually an after- plastic-free paper wraps. BYO vessels. Yes, it is possi- up. “When customers say what they want,” says market for all the plastic crap we toss in 5 ble to do a signifi cant amount Shargorodsky, “a lot of times, businesses follow.” our blue bins. The stats are dire. They Audit your kitchen. Get the of grocery-shopping using your own can also be paralyzing. One problem with 4 plastic out of your kitchen. containers. Take the glass jars from “sustainability” is that it’s often been pre- If you have food in your home that your kitchen audit, head to the bulk ton ones. Side effects of this kind of sented as an all-or-nothing proposition: came in glass jars, great. After you’ve section at the store of your choice, shopping? Signifi cantly less waste You must atone for your sins or else! And eaten all the goods, wash those jars and refi ll them with items like soap, and a healthier diet. that can lead to inaction. with hot soapy water and save them. granola, fl our, rice, dried beans, olive The thing is, doing with less junk, “Pull out everything in your kitchen oil, honey, and apple cider vinegar. Buy nothing for a month. clutter and distraction aligns with what cabinet and start to take an account Even meat from a butcher counter 7 If a month sounds long, start so many of us say we want right now. So of what’s in there and what it’s pack- can be put into containers. Yes, your with a week, but do go cold turkey. rather than viewing these suggestions as aged in,” recommends Shargorodsky. grocery load will be heavier—thank When writer Ann Patchett realized acts of contrition you must make to sur- You never know Everything stored in plastic should goodness for all those cloth bags you that “in my anxiety I found myself vive, think of them as a bunch of things what you’re going be poured into glass jars. These jars remembered to bring. For fruits and mindlessly scrolling through two to find at the you can do to, you know, be happier— Resource Exchange. are your new food storage contain- vegetables, get reusable food storage particular shopping websites, numb- now and in the future. —B.H. ers. Make friends with them. If you bags—Riverwards Produce sells cot- ing my fears with pictures of shoes, 80 PHILADELPHIA • APRIL 2020 PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER LEAMAN APRIL 2020 • PHILADELPHIA 81 ZERO WASTE pean approach: Buy what you know Recycling 101: Inside the Numbers you’ll need in the next couple days,” Not all recyclable plastic is created equal. Here’s what’s what, what’s likely to be says Samuel Schiffer, assistant gen- recycled—and what’s just gonna end up in the landfi ll. eral manager and environmental res- toration captain of Mom’s Organic Market. “If you’re like, ‘I might need What it a second gallon of milk in fi ve days’ Code stands for What it Is Is it commonly recycled? and you buy it, but then you get sick Polyethylene Clear, rigid plas- Yes! In 2017,* PET was recycled nationally and don’t want to drink milk while terephthalate tic commonly at a rate of 25 percent, the highest rate of you’re ill … The further out you plan, found in bever- all the plastic types. it’s like weather—the less you know.” age bottles So shop the bulk section—where you can parcel out the exact amount you need—but don’t buy in bulk. Do you High-density Rigid plastic Yes … ish. At a 16 percent rate, HDPE actually need 20 plastic containers of polyethylene commonly used comes in second. in detergent yogurt right now? Probably not. and shampoo bottles Go meatless. If you’re not 9 aware of the environmental Polyvinyl Flexible plastic No! Of the 430,000 tons of PVC created damage or mind-blowing eco sta- chloride used in cling in 2017, the amount that was recycled was tistics surrounding meat produc- wrap, squeeze “negligible.” And per PBS data, disposing bottles and of it can create harmful by-products. tion (especially beef), I recommend shower curtains. you head to Netfl ix and watch What the Health or Cowspiracy. Remov- Circle Compost’s Low-density Flexible plastic Eh, sort of. About nine percent of LDPE ing meat from your diet is a power- Michele Bloovman polyethylene found in bags produced in 2017 was recycled. ful force in reducing waste—locally surveys her bounty. and some and globally. If vegetarianism doesn’t bottles work for you, focus on going more plant-based by incorporating meat- Embrace Composting free Mondays. 3 Food waste is the single biggest category in Polypropylene Rigid-ish mate- Hardly. Just 2.7 percent. municipal landfi lls, which is problematic because rial commonly food waste creates a lot of greenhouse gas. Luck- found in deli, Avoid fast fashion. Cheap ily, composting said food waste is “easier than yogurt and mar- 10 garments generate waste you can even imagine,” says Michele Bloovman, garine containers at all stages of manufacture.