The zero waste movement is a lifestyle movement where a person makes as little waste that goes to landfill as possible. In order to do this, those within the lifestyle usually follow the five R´s. There five R´s are refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot.
The first R, refuse, means that when you are offered something wasteful or are in a place where it is likely to have a lot of plastic waste, you refuse it. One example of this would be if you were to be out and have the option of getting fast food, you choose not to get it because of the amount of plastic they would get with it. They also do not support business that use wasteful practices and poor working conditions.
The second R, reduce, means to reduce the amount of things that you buy in general. Single use plastic is often focused on the most specifically. This allows an easier way to not produce trash that goes to the landfill. The individuals that follow the lifestyle do not have to worry about that waste if it does not exist. This also allows them to avoid buying things that have a large carbon footprint and reduce their own carbon footprint.
The third R, reuse, means that the people who follow the lifestyle reuse as much as possible rather than throwing it away. This often means that due to the fact that they do not buy single use plastics, they buy more glass. These glass jars are used for a variety of things ranging from drinking glasses to decorations. On the off chance that plastic has to be bought, these are also reused in a variety of ways.
Image from Wix
The fourth R, recycle, is well known to a majority of people. It deals with the things that cannot be reduced or reused. People either have a curbside recycling program or they use a drop off site. There are many ways to recycle and there is even a program called Terracycle that is made for hard to recycle objects that are not accepted by other recyclers.
The fifth R, rot, involves the idea of composting. Composting is used to avoid food waste being brought to the landfill. Food waste in a landfill creates a problem because it decomposes and traps greenhouses gases that hurt the atmosphere. This is avoided by using a personal compost or a dropoff system. There is a large amount of choices that can be made based on the lifestyle of the person composting and to what they have access.
These five R´s are very important in the zero waste community and they are in the order in which zero wasters believe that they should be used. This order allows for the easiest low waste life. This order was created by Bea Johnson who is credited with starting the zero waste lifestyle movement. She started with her family and created a blog that spread the movement. Before that, the zero waste system was meant for companies and not individuals.