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Buying Used, Reselling and Donating
Getty Images
02of 13Trying Out a Subscription Service That Helps Eliminate Food Waste"This year, especially as we all tried to stay inside more often and limit our trips to the store, I found myself signing up for a subscription forImperfect Foods. You can choose the frequency of your deliveries, saving moneyandsaving food from going to waste. Some of the items have cosmetic imperfections, others are irregular sizes — I got some truly giant carrots that I wouldn’t stop showing people on FaceTime — and others are just surplus.My first order alone saved 12 lbs. of food waste, conserved 480 gallons of water and prevented 41 lbs. of carbon dioxide, to put it in perspective!"— Andrea Wurzburger, Features Writer
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Trying Out a Subscription Service That Helps Eliminate Food Waste
“This year, especially as we all tried to stay inside more often and limit our trips to the store, I found myself signing up for a subscription forImperfect Foods. You can choose the frequency of your deliveries, saving moneyandsaving food from going to waste. Some of the items have cosmetic imperfections, others are irregular sizes — I got some truly giant carrots that I wouldn’t stop showing people on FaceTime — and others are just surplus.
My first order alone saved 12 lbs. of food waste, conserved 480 gallons of water and prevented 41 lbs. of carbon dioxide, to put it in perspective!”
— Andrea Wurzburger, Features Writer
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Going (Sort of) Off the Grid
Courtesy Charlotte Triggs
“This is the year I became an amateur doomsday prepper. I invested in a generator, as well as a decent backstock of canned goods, and of course toilet paper. But the biggest change came when my husband Freddy and I decided to move our family from the huge media commuter town of Montclair, New Jersey, a little farther out, where suburbs start giving way to farmland. We’re growing our own fruits and vegetables, making jam, keeping bees (though, like straight out of a cartoon, a bear came in the middle of the night and ate all the honey last fall), and, most recently, keeping chickens and ducks. It’s not totally easy … all those nature-inspired clichés turn out to be based on real things: pecking orders exist, foxes really do try to get into the hen house … But we’ve finally got the hang of it and I hope my daughters Tatjana, 6, and twins Ofelia and Indira, 3, will learn some kind of life lesson they wouldn’t have otherwise, every time I have them throw a cup of dried worms in for the chickens.”
04of 13Chatting With the Electric CompanyGetty Images"I called ComEd and had them change my energy source toCleanChoice, which means I’m still getting electricity from the same place for about the same cost, but it comes from wind/solar plants rather than fossil fuels. It was a snap — the most annoying thing about it was waiting on hold."— Alex Apatoff, Digital Lifestyle Director
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Chatting With the Electric Company
“I called ComEd and had them change my energy source toCleanChoice, which means I’m still getting electricity from the same place for about the same cost, but it comes from wind/solar plants rather than fossil fuels. It was a snap — the most annoying thing about it was waiting on hold.”
— Alex Apatoff, Digital Lifestyle Director
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Trying Out Solar Energy
Courtesy Diane Cho
“My all-time favorite eco-friendly swap has got to be my window solar charger fromGrouphug. All you need to do is hang it in a sunny spot in your home and you can use solar energy to charge any of your electronic devices. I use it to charge my phone and iPad, and everyone who comes over always asks about it. It’s an awesome item to gift to friends and family to jumpstart their sustainable journey.”
06of 13Attempting CompostingCourtesy Kate Hogan"Composting is something I’ve been wanting to try for a while now, and I got lucky: just a few weeks ago, our town started a program. We drop our food scraps and food-soiled paper products into a small bucket in our kitchen (no smell, I promise!) and every week our waste management company picks it all up along with our garbage and recycling. I think a taxpayer program like this is still a rarity, but there are a lot of affordable private companiesnear major U.S. cities that will take your food scraps — and some will even process and return them to you to use in your yard. Food waste accounts for more than 25 percent of landfill material and can emit harmful gases when decomposing, so this small step we’re taking as a family feels like it could eventually lead to big change."—Kate Hogan, Digital Specials Director
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Attempting Composting
Courtesy Kate Hogan
“Composting is something I’ve been wanting to try for a while now, and I got lucky: just a few weeks ago, our town started a program. We drop our food scraps and food-soiled paper products into a small bucket in our kitchen (no smell, I promise!) and every week our waste management company picks it all up along with our garbage and recycling. I think a taxpayer program like this is still a rarity, but there are a lot of affordable private companiesnear major U.S. cities that will take your food scraps — and some will even process and return them to you to use in your yard. Food waste accounts for more than 25 percent of landfill material and can emit harmful gases when decomposing, so this small step we’re taking as a family feels like it could eventually lead to big change.”
—Kate Hogan, Digital Specials Director
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Sourcing Food Locally
“If you like the idea of a CSA (community-supported agriculture) share but are afraid of getting buckets of zucchini every week, try again! We found that many of them got super tech-savvy over the pandemic — the Chicago-area one we chose,Tomato Mountain, lets you customize your box weekly and add on other goodies like bread or dairy right in your online cart. There are also cool new concepts popping up, like Evanston’sVillage Farmstand(where you can place an order online based on what they have in stock and pick it up a few hours later) orSouthside Blooms’flower subscriptions, which arrange and deliver locally whatever looks good in their greenhouse that week.
08of 13Remembering Reusable Bags!Getty Images"It’s not much, but I have finally started making it a priority to bring my reusable bags to the grocery store most weeks. I use the plastic ones they give out for cat-litter waste at home, but in the past have been lazy about just letting them pile up at my house and told myself since I was recycling the extras, it was okay. Now, I always keep the canvas bags in my car so I don’t forget to bring them, and only go for plastic at the checkout when I’m running really low at home!I also regularly lecture my mom about single-use plastic water bottles, and I think I might be finally getting through — but stay tuned."— Jen Juneau, News Writer
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Remembering Reusable Bags!
“It’s not much, but I have finally started making it a priority to bring my reusable bags to the grocery store most weeks. I use the plastic ones they give out for cat-litter waste at home, but in the past have been lazy about just letting them pile up at my house and told myself since I was recycling the extras, it was okay. Now, I always keep the canvas bags in my car so I don’t forget to bring them, and only go for plastic at the checkout when I’m running really low at home!
I also regularly lecture my mom about single-use plastic water bottles, and I think I might be finally getting through — but stay tuned.”
— Jen Juneau, News Writer
09of 13Buying Usable Sustainable ItemsCourtesy Amazon"Eco-friendly products don’t do anyone any good (including the planet) if we just buy them and leave them sitting in our kitchen drawers. When the reusable straw craze began, Iwantedto be doing my part, but I barely used the metal straws I bought because it never felt like I could get them clean (even with that tiny little brush). This year, I boughtRain straws, which snap apart for easy cleaning. Knowing that there isn’t bacteria lurking around makes me feel betterandI actually use them every day."— Andrea Wurzburger, Features Writer
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Buying Usable Sustainable Items
Courtesy Amazon
“Eco-friendly products don’t do anyone any good (including the planet) if we just buy them and leave them sitting in our kitchen drawers. When the reusable straw craze began, Iwantedto be doing my part, but I barely used the metal straws I bought because it never felt like I could get them clean (even with that tiny little brush). This year, I boughtRain straws, which snap apart for easy cleaning. Knowing that there isn’t bacteria lurking around makes me feel betterandI actually use them every day.”
10of 13Switching to Natural and Sustainable DeodorantBy Humankind"The beauty industry is one of the biggest culprits of plastic waste. Luckily, it’s also easier to opt for more sustainable alternatives to things like shampoo, floss and toothpaste. I decided to zero in on one cosmetic product in particular: deodorant. Deodorant packaging is composed of many small plastic parts, making it tricky to recycle. So I switched from single-use toBy Humankind’s refillable deodorant. You buy a container and only need to refill the deodorant stick, available for one-time purchase or on a subscription basis in many different scents. Plus, you get periodic emails updating you on how much waste you’ve reduced — I’ve eliminated 4 oz. of single-use plastic waste so far!"—Amelia Langas, Digital Platforms Writer
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Switching to Natural and Sustainable Deodorant
By Humankind
“The beauty industry is one of the biggest culprits of plastic waste. Luckily, it’s also easier to opt for more sustainable alternatives to things like shampoo, floss and toothpaste. I decided to zero in on one cosmetic product in particular: deodorant. Deodorant packaging is composed of many small plastic parts, making it tricky to recycle. So I switched from single-use toBy Humankind’s refillable deodorant. You buy a container and only need to refill the deodorant stick, available for one-time purchase or on a subscription basis in many different scents. Plus, you get periodic emails updating you on how much waste you’ve reduced — I’ve eliminated 4 oz. of single-use plastic waste so far!”
—Amelia Langas, Digital Platforms Writer
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Using Refillable Cleaners
“I’m a huge fan ofCleancultand theirrefill bundles. They sell glass spray bottles and containers for their soap, cleaning solutions and laundry detergent, so all you need to do is purchase their 100 percent recyclable refills and you’re good to go. I’ve used one glass container for hand soap for my bathroom and one for my kitchen for years, and I just got theirnew foaming hand sanitizerthat I keep near my front door. They’ve also committed to a shipping model that’s sustainable and carbon neutral, and I love how they use non-toxic chemicals in their formulas.”
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Switching from Single-Use
“I stopped buying single-use cotton rounds and got100 percent organic reusable ones on Amazon. I’ve also cut down on buying paper towels and have used kitchen towels to clean up my messes. They’re small changes but they add up once you realize how much you’re buying and only using once before throwing everything away.”
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Get a Reusable Water Bottle
Morgan Smith; S’Well
“Did you know more than60 million water bottlesare thrown away in the United States every year?! That fact was enough to scare me into buying a reusable water bottle — and it’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made. MyS’Well bottlecomes everywhere with me. It keeps liquids cold forhoursand reduces your carbon footprint. It’s a win-win.”
source: people.com
