Zero Waste’ish isn’t just for Hippies Anymore

If you have been following my blog over the past couple of months, I talk about going zero waste-ish by reducing my use of plastic and find alternatives to commercial cleaning products. Let me be 100% honest with you. If I had my choice, Mr. BMM and I would be living in a tiny home with a composting toilet completely off the grid with dreads, burned bras, and live living 100% natural. Since I cannot convince Mr. BMM to go along with this idea, I have been trying to introduce some simple and not so hippie zero waste things into our lives.

We no longer use paper napkins. We use old cut up t-shirts as cleaning rags. The plastic wrap has been hidden for over a month. Blinds get opened to reduce our electricity consumption during the day (which as been a challenge since Mr. BMM is getting use to closing the blinds without knocking stuff off the window). Turning soon to be wasted food into delicious side dishes.

After listening to the most recent episode of the Frugal Friends Podcast and knowing that my parchment paper supply is dwindling and I have no intention on replacing it, I turned to Esty this morning. I go through about 4 boxes of parchment paper each year that costs a total of $25.56. Instead I ordered 2 silicone baking mats for $11.64. Silicone typically lasts about 10 years. I just saved a lot of money.

The next zero waste-ish movement at our house will be to reduce the use of paper towels even further. I noticed that many people were turning to reusable “paper” towels, napkins, and wipes. Here are some of their reviews.

• these are great and have been helpful in reducing our paper towel consumption.
• Very cute patterns and soft fabric. Arrived quickly. We ran out of paper napkins and we are using these instead.
• So glad we got these and don’t have to worry about running out of paper towels again.

Did our current situation turn more people onto the zero waste lifestyle? Maybe I will be able to convince Mr. BMM to start a little compost pile in the far corner of our yard after all. Have you changed anything over to be more zero-waste as a result of what is currently going on?