Are you trying to live a zero-waste lifestyle, or at least trying to reduce the amount of waste you generate at home?

If you are finding this quite a challenge in the society we live in, that focuses on the convenient and the disposable, we hope that you may find some pointers here to help you reduce your personal waste.

The ultimate goal of a zero-waste lifestyle is to eliminate all of your waste, so no plastic, no rubbish, and no packaging. To most people, this will seem an impossible goal to achieve and many people will be put off by contemplating exactly what this would entail and how it could even be possible. 

But everything starts with baby steps, and even a small change to your lifestyle can begin to make a difference in the amount of personal waste you generate on a daily basis. 

The three R’s of waste management namely Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, have been around for a good few years and have helped with raising awareness of the need to curb waste. Bea Johnson in her book ‘Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste’, has given us a new framework of the 5 R’s to assist us in our attempt to reduce the waste in our lives. In addition to the three R’s we also need to find ways to Refuse and also to encourage Rot. 

• Refuse

Refusing stuff will help remove waste right at the beginning of the cycle. If you say “No” to free stuff, you already are stopping these items from becoming instant waste. 

Think of items that you can refuse, like single use plastics, disposable hot drink cups, plastic utensils, straws, and polystyrene containers for takeaway foods. Find reusable containers for drinks and food. And take a photo of specials on flyers if you need to refer to it later. 

These seemingly small steps will all contribute to a greener, more sustainable lifestyle. 

• Reduce

Reducing our waste can be achieved in many ways. An easy way to start is by being aware of the amount of stuff we buy. We can reduce this amount by always asking ourselves if we really need the item. There are many ways of reducing not only our energy footprint, but also the amount of waste we personally generate to lead a sustainable lifestyle, and it does not require too much of an effort. 

1. We can reduce packaging and plastic waste by buying refills of household cleaning products, and personal toiletries. 
2. Reducing can also be achieved by using less energy so using streaming devices to watch movies and listening to music uses less hardware than traditional methods, so even by doing this you are achieving your objective and saving both energy and potential wastage from packaging materials.
3. Invest in smart appliances as advanced energy-efficient technology used in these household items will go a long way to reduce your energy usage. At Junk Removal Wirral, we offer an appliance removal service for your obsolete appliances and we dispose of them responsibly with no danger to our environment. 
4. One of the easiest ways to reduce plastic is to switch from liquid hand soaps and shower gels, to soap bars. You will be reducing your footprint as the global cosmetics industry generates more than 120bn units of plastic packaging a year and most of this is not recyclable.
   
   

• Reuse

Reusing can be achieved in the simplest of ways by using a reusable coffee cup for your daily takeaway coffee, to buying your furniture from an antique store or even reusing old building materials such as old doors, windows and cabinets from your local junkyard. 

1. Replace disposable items in your home like paper napkins and plastic straws with reusable or green alternatives. 
2. Cloth or reusable diapers for your baby are an eco-friendly alternative to disposables and will keep hundreds of disposable nappies out of the landfill. 
3. When you decide to replace any items of furniture or appliances, sell, or donate your old ones instead of dumping them in a landfill. At Junk Removal Wirral we offer furniture removal services to save you the hassle, and will ensure your unwanted furniture or appliances are recycled.
4. Junk Removal Wirral offers home cleanout services and estate cleanout services to assist you when the time comes to help a relative with the difficult task of sorting through a household of goods. Donating these used items to a thrift shop or a charity is a great way of ensuring that these will be put to use by someone who needs them. 

• Recycle

Recycling is the obvious way to avoid waste, but it is far from perfect. This COVID-19 epidemic has meant that recycling programmes have been interrupted because of the regulations that have been implemented. Hopefully, recycling practices will get back on track again when the regulations are relaxed or lifted.

Although we all have to recycle as much as we can, we have to look at alternative strategies like avoiding plastic packaging to lessen the demand for plastics, and to encourage industries to use packaging that can be composted. 

• Rot

This is another word for composting which is great for the environment. Use your household scraps and your yard waste to start your own composting station. A worm farm or vermiculture composting is perfect to deal with kitchen waste, and this will greatly reduce the amount of garbage removal companies will be hauling away from your home.

These 5 R’s will hopefully assist you in your quest to lead a sustainable lifestyle. A zero-waste goal in your home may seem almost impossible to reach, but if you break it down into smaller steps, you will be part of the solution of leaving a cleaner and greener world for future generations. 

Junk Removal Wirral is there to help you achieve your goals. We will help you with your waste management and offer residential junk removal in Wirral and surrounds. We are a licensed waste removal company and will dispose of your junk in a responsible manner, recycling where we can. We can collect your waste after hours, on weekends, and even offer a same day junk removal service.

We operate in the Wirral, Chester, Liverpool, Ellesmere Port area and we look forward to hearing from you.

Please contact us at enquiries@junkremovalwirral.co.uk 

Wirral & Liverpool 01518 080407

Chester: 01244 953100

www.junkremovalwirral.co.uk