1 Year Zero-Waste, My Journey: How I did it and what I learned

My waste from May 2015 to present.

This past May marked my one year anniversary being zero-waste. While I wasn't as zero-waste as I would have liked (my waste definitely DOES NOT fit into a jar at this point, no shame) I learned a lot through the process and all in all, made about half a garbage bag's worth of trash through the year. Really not all that bad, and damn did I work hard to get it there! I hope next year to do even better and continually reduce my trash outputs as much as I can. I still can't believe it's even been a year!

I hope to divert a lot of this remaining waste from going to landfill by turning it into a commemorative art project. I'm thinking something along the lines of collage or mixed media project...I am still experimenting with techniques but am eager to show it off once it's finished. I hope that this project will greatly reduce my trash from this year if not entirely eliminate it. I'll make sure to include all the details in an upcoming post. ;)

So, onto my first year as a zero-waster. I first started out in May of last year, the year I graduated from college. I was really into minimalism and reducing my possessions at the time, especially since I had moved to a super small apartment in my town. It wasn't too bad, but my husband and I quickly learned we would have to get rid of a lot of things to be comfortable in our new space. I was watching a lot of Youtube videos, reading articles, and listening to Marie Kondo's now infamous book on Audible while I whittled down my possessions. During that time I got rid of nearly everything I owned either by selling it, donating it, or giving it away to family members or friends. I kept the bare essentials and some sentimental items I wasn't ready to deal with yet. I was really proud of myself at this time, because I was able to make use of the (very small and limited) built-in storage my apartment had without having to rely on other pieces of furniture or organizing equipment. I felt so light during this process.

During this time, I also became very interested in picking up litter around my neighborhood because it was everywhere. I felt so strongly about it I figured the best thing to do was to just do something about it instead of complaining, and that turned into spending some weekend mornings collecting other's litter and garbage, hence my old blog name, "Litter Lady". All of my posts during that time are still available for reading if interested, located in the sidebar.

Summer is here...

And I figure it's time for a change. Hence, this new blog layout and new domain!

If you read no further, please note that I will no longer be posting to or updating Litter Lady. All future entries will be posted here, so please subscribe if you'd like to stay tuned.

I have been a Weebly fan for years now, and in fact run several websites through them. They are a great free website service and I will continue to use them for my personal and professional portfolio sites. However, I felt that Litter Lady, while a good starter site, was still lacking in some ways. I lacked control over blog layout and publishing, and I couldn't schedule posts (very annoying). I liked the way Weebly made their layout creation/site editing page, but it kept crashing my Chromebook. All in all, I felt a bit "stuck" with the whole thing and it didn't motivate me to continue working with Weebly and I stopped touching my site for a while to scout other options. Not to mention, to unlock all of the features I liked (such as custom domain, more control over site, etc.) I would have to put down some serious cash in my frugal perspective. Definitely not the amount of money I wanted to spend on something I basically consider a hobby.

And that is basically how we got to here. I bought the domain off Google Domains (which I highly recommend), and instantly connected it to a new Blogger account. I found everything I have been looking for in a website/blog for just over $10. And that's for a year, mind you. I couldn't be more happy with the process, especially for someone who, while computer savvy, is not website hosting/DNS/other internet technical terms savvy. (I should mention none of this is sponsored, just felt it might be helpful to those who are like me and want to get away from freebie website builders and progress to something a bit more professional and within your control and financial means).

And that's how we got to here. I will no longer be updating or managing my old site so if you were a reader there please keep up with me on this blog for future and of course more up-to-date posts. I will have more posts coming soon, I apologize for the lack of my usual timely, weekly posts; I have been enjoying the first weeks of my summer break a bit too much. There is so much growing in the garden I want to show you, so many new things I've learned I want to talk about...so much I want to share. Stay tuned, I plan on uploading more this week. ;)