Reducing Your Waste In College Is Not As Hard As It Seems
- Lilian Michael
- Jun 17, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 20, 2019
As a young woman who understands the struggle of getting to that morning class on time or staying up all night to ace that final, I can confidently say that I still see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to my passion for creating zero waste in my daily life.
As it is summer break for all students and we still have some time before classes start up, I thought this would be an amazing opportunity to set up a guide to producing zero waste during this upcoming school year.
School supplies is an amazing place to start.
Families are enormous contributors to the school supply stockpile in most schools. According to the 2018 National Retail Federation survey, families with elementary, middle, high school and college/university children will spend a total of $27.5 billion or an average of $685 per household.
All of this money is funding big corporations like Walmart to keep filling their shelves with plastic wrapped, sweat shop made (AKA, slave work) product for a price that really wracks up. It is a lose, lose scenario.
All though parents might be buying these expensive, flashy school supplies to enforce their children to thrive in academic ambitions, it might actually be slowly destroying their future as our massive plastic waste is contributing to a negative shift involving climate change.
As someone who has found a zero waste option for almost everything excluding medicine,
I can confidently say that I have found a solution to your expensive, plastic wrapped school products that will last longer than one school year.
https://www.wisdomsupplyco.com/ is an online store that allows you to buy school supply kits for a fraction of the average price that you would pay at any Wallmart or Staples.
They are a zero waste school supply company that goes by the saying; "The best time to stop purchasing garbage school supplies was millions of tons ago".
Wisdom Supply is where I ordered my school supples and I was extremely impressed with the fast shipping, the eco friendly packaging and communication between the provider and the seller.
Wisdom Supply is definitely going to be my go to for budget friendly and sustainable school supplies until I finish my degree.
After school supplies, comes lunches, your daily coffee and snacks. This is the easiest part of any zero waste transition.
When it comes to my lunches that I pack for myself, I like to go with an old lunchbox or one of my many glass jars or containers.
My go to items that I ALWAYS bring with me are
~ Stainless Steel water bottle and glass straw
~ bamboo reusable utensils to avoid one time use plastic cutlery
~ A small rag to substitute a napkin
~ a container for any food or snack that I might purchase during the day (in no plastic of course)
and a lightweight reusable linen bag to care all of my zero waste swaps in.
It might take a while for you to get used to asking for no straw or having that awkward conversation with the cashier about having the food put into your personal container instead of their plastic lined boxes but it is WORTH IT.
I never realized how aware this lifestyle has made me until I started having those awkward encounters.
I took these interactions as an opportunity to politely educate my peers around me.
Working so hard to get to this lifestyle of zero waste and sustainability has made me so passionate about making it possible for people like you to succeed in this lifestyle as well.
At the end of the day, all we can do is try to make this world a better place, one step at a time.
Maybe this can be your first step too.
Yours truly,
Lilian XO
#zerowaste #school #money #planet #climatechange
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