Want to lead a zero-waste lifestyle? Here is how you can start

What can one do with waste? With the Central Government banning single use plastic, people who follow a zero-waste lifestyle show us ways to reduce and repurpose what goes into our trashcan

I recently found a stash of chocolate wrappers in my drawer. Carefully preserved by my five-year-old, I left it untouched. He is yet to identify a wrapper as ‘waste’, like the rest of the world does. Right now, it is a shiny ‘something’ that can be of use later.

Waste, means different things to different people. For YouTuber Nayana Premnath, it is something that has to be properly segregated. Nayana follows a zero-waste lifestyle: which means that she is conscious of every bit of waste she generates. Her videos and Instagram posts explain the nuts and bolts of this lifestyle. She shows how she segregates her waste; describes ways to shop for fruits, vegetables and groceries in sustainable ways; lists initiatives that help put unused clothes to good use; explains how composting is done…

It all started in 2019, when Nayana put out videos on how much easier her life became after she shifted to menstrual cups. “This is when I fell into the zero-waste rabbit hole,” laughs Bengaluru-based influencer, who has over 40,000 followers on Instagram. Nayana says a zero-waste lifestyle is easy to adopt in India. “Traditionally, we have always been zero-waste. By talking about such practices, I am asking each of us to go back to our roots; to what our grandparents did,” says the 32-year-old. 

Ahmedabad-based scholar Anil Gupta remembers how in the 1950s and ‘60s, goods were wrapped in paper at grocery stores and secured with thread from a gigantic spool suspended from the shop’s ceiling. “My grandfather would collect these wrappers and place them under the bed to be flattened. He would suspend the thread on a nail on the wall to be reused,” he says. Having travelled across our rural landscape to document grassroots innovations, Gupta has seen how in most of our villages, sustainable living is something that is a matter of fact. 

“I once saw a string cot woven with strips made from plastic covers,” he says, “It shone in places because of the variety of colours used.” Gupta says his mother too wove mats out of plastic covers: repurposed bits of used clothes for dusting, and distributed leftover food to birds and squirrels. “Circular economy has always been part of our culture,” he points out.

But somewhere along the way, we lost our way. Single-use objects made our lives easier, in turn, our landfills and oceans bore the brunt. “It is said that our first toothbrush as a baby is still lying somewhere on this planet,” Nayana points out. Is there anything we can do to undo this damage? Madurai-based S Vishnu Priya says one can start with simple steps.

“I did by carrying cloth bags when I went shopping, avoided disposable cutlery, used shikkakai and bathing powders instead of shampoos and soaps. Right now, my focus is on sustainable cotton clothes,” says the 36-year-old who follows a “low-waste lifestyle.” Her journey began in 2016 when she started work on Meel, a documentary film on domestic waste. Vishnu Priya says that zero-waste is a misconception. “It is not possible for one to be entirely zero-waste. Look around, everything we use, right from our helmets to spectacle frames come with plastic components that will end up as waste. What we can do, is try and reduce the waste we generate.”