Climate change is a real and extremely important issue; it’s an issue that is often on the news and continues to be a source of concern for many people. Because of this fear, many states have taken action on reducing their contribution to the damage. For example, California has introduced a ban on single use grocery bags (unless the bags were made out of recycled paper). While this is an improvement, it obviously does not solve the issue. 

Some people have taken initiative to achieve this change on their own, such as using reusable straws instead of the plastic ones, recycling, using less water, or avoiding disposable products such as plastic water bottles. Others have made a change to their entire lifestyle by going “zero waste.” The goal with going zero waste is to send as little to the landfill as possible, some people have even accomplished having only a mason jar full of trash by the end of a year. 

While this is extremely impressive, would this be possible for the average family to accomplish? It is more expensive to buy zero waste products upfront, however, in the long term many claim that it actually saves money. By avoiding disposable or one use products, less money is spent on buying, using, and then buying the same products over and over again. 

This, however, does not mean that it’s realistic to expect every household to go zero waste. For the average middle class family, yes it is possible (although perhaps difficult) to maintain a zero waste lifestyle, but for lower income families and individuals, it may simply not be realistic. Going zero waste is helpful, but will not make a significant enough change on its own to solve the issue of climate change, bigger actions must be in place in order to benefit the planet in a significant way.

Zero waste is beneficial to the environment, and if you have the resources to maintain that sort of lifestyle, then I would absolutely encourage it. It’s better for the environment, can save money in the long term, and can encourage a healthier lifestyle for your body. However, the guilt should not be placed on families who may not be financially viable to afford a zero waste lifestyle, or families who may have unique situations such as a health issue which would make it excessively difficult to go “zero waste.” Rather, the blame should be put on the larger companies and such that produce much more plastic waste and use/produce much more fossil fuels. Change needs to happen, and rather than blaming the individual, it would be much more productive to insight change from the larger companies that cause much more damage to the environment.