Welcome to the Teeny Greeny.
My name is Rob Greenfield,
and this is my off the grid,
tiny house life in the city.
I’m bill free and debt free
and life is good.
Today I'm going to talk to you about my zero waste lifestyle.
Let's start with my trash bag.
Here it is.
This is the last 2 weeks of trash,
which is less than a pound.
The average American creates about 4.5 pounds of trash
every single day.
So I'm creating about 50 to 100 times less trash
than the average person in America.
So how can you reduce your trash
from 4.5 pounds per day to 1 bag every couple of weeks?
Well for me, it starts with the three R’s:
reduce, reuse and recycle.
But it’s important to know that
those are in that order for a reason.
First, I reduce my consumption and my needs.
Then I reuse what I can.
And lastly, only once I've missed, reduce and reuse,
then I recycle.
Recycling is an easy one.
Believe it or not, about a third of all the trash in the average can
is actually recyclable.
So just by recycling that you'll already reduce
your entire trash can by a third.
Composting is another easy thing.
And this is something every household can do.
So the food scraps from my kitchen,
as well as my yard waste,
all goes into the compost pile
to be turned into nutritious soil for my plants.
Speaking of food,
what about the groceries?
I bring my own bags and jars
and buy all unpackaged food
so that my grocery shopping experience
is pretty much waste free.
I buy my staples,
like oatmeal and rice
at the bulk section at my local co-op
and fruits and veggies package free
from the local farmers market
or local grocery store.
And I ditched any one-time use disposable items years ago.
Paper towels and napkins?
No way! Reusable cloths.
Saran wrap and tin foil?
No way! Jars.
Disposable things like plates, cups and utensils?
Not a chance! Reusable plates.
And when I can, I buy things used too,
like my cookware.
Another "R" word is repair.
So when things break,
I try to fix them,
rather than throwing them away and getting a new one.
For example, I patch my bike inner tubes.
I buy quality stuff that lasts a long time
rather than cheap stuff that's going to break
and I have to replace.
My clothes for example,
are durable and can take a beating.
It's all pretty simple stuff.
Living a near zero waste lifestyle
saves me a ton of money,
makes me a much healthier person
and drastically reduces my negative impact on the earth.