Zero Waste Living

Sustainable agriculture is growing more and more popular by the year, and you can be the next to embrace this burgeoning trend by starting your own farming business. Taking this route in your career will allow you to enjoy a truly green lifestyle, it will help you to make some serious cost savings in your day-to-day life, and it will afford you the opportunity to make a living outdoors. 

Intrigued? If so, be sure to read on! Here are three sustainable agriculture practices that you should embrace when you start your own farming business:

Rotate your crops

Rotating your crops (otherwise known as intercropping, the practice of growing a mixture of different crops in one area) can benefit you and planet earth in so many different ways. For one, it promotes healthier soil, which in turn helps organic foods to grow and flourish. Crop rotation also improves pest control, which will ultimately help you to save a boatload of cash going forward.

Reduce your tillage

Tillage is the act of preparing fields for seeding, planting, and cropping. It is performed to ready the ground for the upcoming growing season and prevents ongoing weed problems. 

As beneficial as tillage might be to your day-to-day farming operations, it can still cause a lot of soil-related problems. It can negatively affect the soil’s pH level, which in turn can result in the erosion of natural habitats. If you’re serious about boosting your sustainability, you should seriously consider reducing your tillage or even eliminating it. The process of inserting seeds directly into settled soil might require more time and effort on your part, but it will be sure to benefit planet earth in the long term.

Make use of steel wire

As a farmer, wiring is something you are going to need to have at hand at all times. You’ll need it to fix broken fences, you’ll need it to hold hay bales together, and you’ll need it to package up all of your waste materials.

You will be required to use wire daily, which is why you must invest in a strong, durable, and versatile form of it. This will allow you to reuse your wire time and time again without compromising the work you perform. In turn, this will help you to cut back on the amount of disposable wire that you send to the landfill.

When you come to source a robust wiring option, 10 gauge steel wire should always be your first port of call. Created for quality, annealed for durability, and galvanized for function, this form of wiring can handle heavy-duty demands on a daily basis. High tensile carrier wire is forged via an expert recrystallization heating process, which means that it takes an atomic structure that increases ductility and reduces brittleness.

Are you sick of the daily rat race? Are you determined to lower your carbon footprint? If you’re serious about embracing a truly green lifestyle, you should seriously consider starting your own sustainable farming business.

The movement to get more Americans to recycle started in the 1970s. Many consider it to be one of the best PR campaigns ever, as the vast majority of Americans are now aware of recycling, and many practices it if they get the opportunity. This is great for the planet, but with more and more people choosing to recycle their waste- rather than just throwing it in the garbage –there has been an increase in the number of people not knowing where their waste is actually going. Ultimately, this is not that big of a problem (call it useful ignorance), but if you are a curious person, you’re probably wondering where your waste ends up. 

Where is Your Recycling Taken? 

A hauler will come and pick up your recycling, dropping it off at a sorting facility that is typically nearby. This facility is known as a Material Recovery Facility or MRF. Your recycled materials then go through several different operations before they reach their final destination. After they are dropped off, they are filtered onto conveyor belt systems where workers and machines pick out the trash that has been mixed in with recycling. Cardboard and paper are separated; glass is sent through a machine where it is pulverized into a cullet; a density blower redirects plastics to their own conveyer belt system. Optic sensors then sort these plastics into different destinations depending on what the plastic is made out of. Out of the material that is left, large magnets pick up steel cans from the waste stream, transferring them onto their own area. An eddy current draws up any aluminum objects from the remaining materials. 

Where Do Raw Recycling Materials Go Next? 

Once these recyclables are fully sorted into different materials, they are compacted into cubes, in a process called baling. Now they have been compacted, they have been commoditized – they become a raw ingredient for manufacturers to use. Those manufacturers are typically driven by consumer demand for recycled products, so keep asking for recycled materials when appropriate! The more demand there is for recycled materials, the more valuable the materials will be – which means more and more MRFs will pop up. 

Paper 

The paper materials that are due to be recycled are sold to paper mills. They require this extra step of processing before being sold to most manufacturers, though some might have their own mills. This recycled paper is of lower quality but is good for toilet paper, paper towels, and egg cartons. 

Metals 

Metals are baled and sent to smelting factories. There they are melted down, ready to be made into a new product. Even recycled metals are strong and durable, so they are great to make metal cans or even larger metal items like filing cabinets. 

Glass 

The glass cullet will be processed in a glass processing facility. Unlike some other materials, glass can be recycled over and over again ad infinitum, so you don’t get as much of a limitation with glass recycling. Glass cullet ends up contributing to the manufacture of the bottles and jars that were originally recycled. 

Plastic 

Bales of plastic are typically downcycled, making furniture and items that don’t need to be as beautiful but still serve a great purpose. Park benches, lawn furniture, and even garbage cans are great destinations for recycled plastic.

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Want your garden to be a hotspot for local wildlife? By adding particular features to your yard, you may be able to attract specific animals. Such features could include bird feeders and birdbaths. You can buy these pieces of garden apparatus premade – however, for those that want to save money, it’s also possible to go DIY and build your own. Below are just a few DIY solutions for attracting nature to your garden that could be worth trying. 

Create your own bird feeder

Bird feeders are a great way to attract local birds. While you can buy a wooden bird feeder, there are so many DIY solutions that won’t cost you a penny. Pretty much any container that you can hang from a tree can be turned into a DIY bird feeder for placing seeds in – a few great options could include empty tin cans, an empty plastic bottle or an empty cereal carton attached to a string. Make sure that any sharp edges are smoothed over or covered in tape.

Create your own bird bath

A birdbath could be effective at attracting birds wanting to drink water or bathe. Instead of splashing out on a premade birdbath, why not consider building your own? This guide on how to make a birdbath at home offers tips on how to build one using a shallow bowl and wooden dowels. Make sure to keep it topped up with water in the summer months. 

Start a woodpile

Woodpiles can be useful for keeping if you have a fire pit or chiminea. However, this isn’t the only use for a woodpile. A woodpile could be effective simply for attracting animals such as possums or chipmunks that like to nest in these places. The end of the garden could be the perfect location for such a woodpile. 

Build your own pond

A pond can be a beautiful feature in a garden. It can also be a great feature for attracting local wildlife. Animals such as frogs, newts, and dragonflies are often attracted to ponds. On top of this, it could be a great location for keeping pet fish. Many people hire a professional to build a pond, but it’s possible to save money by digging and laying your own pond. You can check out this guide to building a pond for more tips on how to build one. 

Plant a tree/more shrubs

You can also attract wildlife to your garden by adding more plants. Adding a tree to your garden is certain to attract animals such as birds and squirrels. Planting a large tree yourself isn’t advised – however you may be able to plant a sapling or small tree without the help of professionals. Other plants (especially those with strong fragrant scents) may help to attract pollinating bugs such as bees and butterflies. Make sure to plant trees and large shrubs in locations where their roots won’t eventually cause disruptions (don’t plant a tree right next to your house for this reason).

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It feels like warnings about the world we live in are everywhere, and they all come with instructions on how to live a better life. However, living in modern society is rarely as simple as these instructions assume. It can feel impossible to move without creating waste in some way or releasing nasty fumes into our sky. Everything is a risk; the Airmiles on your groceries, the use of energy in your home, the plastic packaging around your deliveries. Yet there are some simple steps you can take to help reduce this waste and live a more minimalist lifestyle. Follow the basic steps below to start reducing your footprint in the world, and live in harmony with the space around you.

Groceries

The two single best things you can do to improve your grocery habits are to shop at zero-waste stores or to grow your own produce. Of course, a home vegetable patch may not be possible for some, but even a windowsill selection of herbs and leaves can hugely reduce your need for the mass-grown, pesticide-treated cuttings sold in the superstore plastic bags. Failing this, research your local zero-waste grocery store. This is a brilliant way to cut down on your plastic waste, and they often source their products from local growers and producers, cutting down the air miles from imported vegetables.

Home

A big house can mean larger electricity bills, and therefore far greater emissions, and the ability to accumulate more waste than you know how to deal with! Minimalist living can mean smaller living – and smaller doesn’t have to mean less desirable. If you’re looking to buy or move house, make sure to consider the potential of condos as stylish living spaces that don’t create as much waste as a regular house. Apartments can be beautiful spaces, with plenty of sunlight and fresh air, and the ability to live with a much smaller footprint. You will also be sharing heat with space above and/or below you, which can further help minimize the cost and waste of heating your home. Once you have moved in somewhere, you can also look at other ways to keep your home waste-free and minimize your footprint.

Online

As a nation, we are obsessed with online shopping. By 2023, it’s expected that 91% of the country’s population will be online shoppers (that’s over 300 million people)! The current figure stands at 69%, which is already enormous. However, shopping online is a huge contributor to waste. It doesn’t only involve the packaging your items come wrapped in, but the process of delivery itself, driving products across the country sometimes several times, from depot to warehouse to postal service to doorstep, in order for them to reach their final destinations. Of course, the occasional online purchase may be inevitable, but if you can limit your online orders and shop locally as much as possible, you will be going a long way towards living a minimalist and waste-free lifestyle.

Clothes

First of all, the clothes are great, and the feeling of wearing new clothes is even better. They can make you feel amazing and boost your self-confidence – plus they are an expression of your personality, and how you display that to the world! Yet the clothing industry is also hugely wasteful, and some companies unethical in how they source and create their clothing products. It can be really hard to know where to shop, as most companies claim to be operating in eco-friendly and ethical ways, whilst hiding the less savory aspects of their production. Good On You is an amazing company that does some of that work for you and recommends where to buy from for the most sustainable fashion. Thrift shops are also great places, and spending an afternoon exploring them to find one amazing piece can be an incredibly rewarding and fun activity. So stop giving all those high street brands your hard-earned cash, and start thinking about clothes a bit more holistically – your style will thank you, and so will the planet!

Conclusion

Of course, being able to enact all these suggestions at once is a monumental task, and would require some pretty big lifestyle changes. Don’t worry about that – you don’t need to put all that pressure on yourself. Instead, build up the changes one at a time, leaving anywhere from a couple of months to a year for one habit to bed in before trying to change the next. After all, saving the world is a long-term process, and you can’t do everything overnight.

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We live in a society that is built around consumption. We buy things, we use them, and then we dispose of them. Everything is geared around replacing the items that we bought. A new car every few years. New clothes. New furniture. Fashions and styles will shift continually and, in order to keep up with these, we need to keep consuming and getting rid of our old unwanted items.

But this leads to massive amounts of waste. Many items are not degradable, meaning that they just end up being heaped high in landfill sites. All the while, these products may well have drawn on the planet’s natural resources when they were created and when we use them. This adds up to a looming environmental crisis that we all must play our part in addressing. 

While big businesses and governments should hold the blame for creating a society that is geared toward just a heightened demand for goods, it is down to all of us to get involved in the solution by changing our habits. 

Make Do And Mend

Very often, when we have something in our home that is starting to wear down, or has a broken part, we discard the entire thing and replace it. A chair leg is starting to work loose, it gets disposed of. A TV breaks, it is replaced. But very often, it would be cheaper and easier to repair these items and extend their lifespan by a few additional years. 

For many home electronics items and household appliances, you can buy spare parts. For example, when your fridge breaks, buy a new purifying filter and have it fitted.

If you are handy at DIY you may be able to fit these replacement parts or carry out repairs yourself, however, if you are not, there are many repair companies available that will be able to help you. 

Reduce 

When it comes to buying new electrical items for your home, ask yourself if you really need it. There are constantly new gimmicks getting created that will improve on an existing product, however, quite often, we don’t need these features and end up getting sucked into replacing our existing items with ones we don’t need. 

If you can reduce the amount that you buy and consume, you will reduce the amount of waste that you contribute to this planet. 

Recycle

When it comes to the natural end to a product’s life, if you are sure that nothing more can be done for it, and it cannot be broken down and sold for spare parts, then you should ensure that you are taking responsible steps to dispose of it. 

Make sure that any electrical items that you are disposing of are recycled in the appropriate way. You can either look to take these to the municipal waste disposal site for recycling, or you can find a private company that specializes in the disposal and recycling of broken electrical items to ensure that as much gets recycled as possible.