Essential Gaia

Reduce ♻️ Reuse ♻️ Recycle

These are in order of importance. I'm far from perfect, but I am super conscious of my families waste, and try to reduce and reuse where I can and recycle where I can't.

♻️Reduce your waste and consumption. I think it's really important to think about every purchase.
🍃Purchasing secondhand is a great way to reduce. I buy a lot of clothes for myself and my boys secondhand as well as things are the house and toys/books.
🍃Zero waste cleaning is another great way to reduce waste. Companies like Zeroco provide refillable cleaning and beauty products in pouches you send back to be refilled!
🍃Toilet paper is another source of unnecessary plastic. Companies like Who Gives a Crap use sustainably sourced bamboo (rather than cutting down trees) for their paper and do not use plastic in their packaging.
🍃You can also purchase dry food items from bulk food stores to eliminate packaging.
🍃Using soaps and shampoo and conditioner bars eliminates plastic containers. You can purchase from local companies/markets to avoid packaging all together!
🍃Making food items at home rather than purchasing store brought can eliminate waste. I make things like yoghurt, stock, spices, cakes, etc, rather than purchasing from the supermarket.
🍃Can you hire or borrow something rather than purchasing?

♻️Reuse is one of my favourites! Reusable products help eliminate single use items and therefor reduce items in landfill, environmental waste and transport emissions.
Some of my favourite things to reuse are nappies and wipes (the average child uses on average over 2,000 nappies a year which take on average 500 years to break up), menstrual products, coffee cups, shopping and produce bags, straws, cutlery, zip lock bags (or opting for containers instead), baking paper (I use a silicone baking mat), metal pegs, water bottle, safety razor (rather than the plastic kind), makeup pads, wrapping paper (I make mine out of fabric), paper towel (you can use cloths or 'unpaper' towels), coffee pods (or an espresso machine), plus so much more!

♻️Recycle is pretty simple, we've been doing it for a long time!
Check up with your local council to find out what can be recycled in your household bins! (You might be a bit surprised with what can't go in there!)
🍃Soft plastics can go in a Redcycle bin. I collect mine over the week and take it to Woollies/Coles and put in their collection bin. Check out the Redcycle website for your nearest bin.
🍃Empty beauty containers (moisturiser, shampoo, etc) can be returned to businesses like Flora and Fauna who then pay Terracycle to recycle them! Plus they give you a $10 voucher to spend in their store!
🍃Food waste accounts for around 40% of household landfill waste! I'm lucky that my council provide a caddy for the kitchen and collect food waste in the green (garden waste bin). Compost bins are also a great way to recycle food waste!

What else would you add to the list?