Going Zero in Connecticut

I'm super lucky to say that my husband, James, is going along with my zero-waste household initiative. He recently has called me a hippie for all these changes, but I don't mind. Perhaps I am a hippie! It's taken a few months to go through what we currently had for James's care routine, but I now have transitioned everything to where I can write a solid blog post about it! Gentlemen, take  notes, and ladies who do their man's shopping, jot this down. SAFETY RAZOR: After we went through his last disposable razor (and giving the rest to a homeless shelter), I  bought James his first manly-man razor. It's the kind of razor that your grandpa used to shave with! This safety razor is from a company called Albatross , and the cool thing about them is that they will take back your razor blades for recycling.  The weight of the razor is much heavier than the disposable ones we are all used to, and it will take a small learning curve to figure out how to

It's true. Zero-Waste has completely transformed the way I look at and purchase food. Gone are the days when I could just pick up a bag of Celery from the local grocery store. I now have to make sure what I purchase is bagless, and hopefully tagless, sticker-less or rubber-band-less: which is VERY difficult, if not sometimes impossible to get during the Connecticut winters. I can't wait for summer, when farmer's markets are plentiful and happy to give me my celery naked!  I would like to just share with you a few food tips that I have found has helped me on my Zero-waste grocery shopping. Ready to dive right in?   HUMMUS: In a jar? Did you know you could make hummus? But even more important, did you know you could make, and freeze hummus? YES! I am not really excited about cooking every single day, and I don't have a lot of time, as I am sure you don't either. What I do is I bring my cloth bag with me to my local Whole Foods and fill it up with Gar

Hi Friends! I hope you all had a fantastic holiday this year! I wanted to write about what I have been trying to do/discover this Christmas season to make my life a little more zero-waste. I'm grateful for the friends who have chatted with me and helped me on my journey. Together we can all be a little less wasteful, and a little more loving to our earth.  LET'S TALK ABOUT WRAPPING GIFTS! This year I had decided to try to use my Christmas gift wrap so that I can transition next year into more zero-waste options. One of my friends had been reading my blog, and contacted me about what she decided to do for gift wrapping. I'm so grateful she paved the way for me (and all of us!) to part from paper gift-wrapping traditions. She decided to go to her local fabric store right after Christmas, and pick out all the Christmas fabric deals. She brought them home, and made her own Christmas gift wrap bags, and then wrote about it! The gift receiver can use them for their own g

My freezer was slowly accumulating bits of compostable material that I could not give to pigs or to my chickens. But it was still organic material that did not need to go into the garbage. The end result for the compost scraps in the garbage would be the landfill, and my ultimate goal in zero waste is to prevent things from the house going to landfill. The freezer was getting full of my scraps, and I needed to get serious about composting if I am going to be a true zero waster. Just a quick heads up, I am NOT an expert when it comes to composting. In fact, it is the one thing that I am still trying to research and figure out. But I knew it was better to start composting and figure it out along the way than to read forever until I know an exact scientific balance. At this point all I know is that if the composter gets too smelly or wet, add more browns (leaves, wood shavings, paper scraps, etc). If it is not composting at all or is dry, add more greens (food scraps, grass clippings, e

The very first thing I ever researched when I first attempted a zero-waste lifestyle was how to make beeswax wrap. I saw a cool facebook commercial about how you can use them over and over, just wash them with mild soap and water, and when they are done just cut them up into your compost. WOW! Who needs saran wrap then? But then I looked online to buy myself a few squares of these pieces of zero-waste gold.... "HOW MUCH does it cost again for three measly sheets of beeswax wrap? $19?? That's nuts, I'll just have to figure out how to make it myself!"  --famous last words. Today is the day that I finally get to write about how I made my own beeswax wrap! I took a lot of pictures of the process, so maybe I can help someone out there in the internet world. And maybe after you read about it, you can decide to get dirty like me, or skip all the mess and purchase some instead. It's so great that we have choices today! At first I had no idea what exactl