Day 3

This morning I woke up feeling defeated and sad, all before the day had even begun. It snowed last night, and since this is downtown Toronto, the snow had now become brown sludge, driven over several times forming puddles and slippery patches on the sidewalk. I find that the weather can occasionally affect my mood, which in turn can ruin any motivation and plans I had for the day. I got up and Ryan made me pancakes and bacon, and immediately after washing up wanted to go right back to bed.

Unfortunately, like most young adults, I could not just go back to bed. Today, I had responsibilities; a bunz trade, coffee with a friend and errands to run.

Side note: Bunz Trading Zone has been one of my most favourite things for the last 2 years. It’s a wonderful app where members can trade anything for anything, the only rule: no cash. This is available in every city as far as I know, but is something that started as a Facebook group in Toronto. This has been amazing, since I’ve been able to recycle my unwanted clothes, kitchen appliances, unused makeup and haircare products, furniture, basically anything you can imagine, I’ve bunzed it. In two years, I haven’t bought any new clothes, furniture, or makeup (other than my foundation which I only buy twice a year.) My point is: Get this app and recycle your items!

Anyway, I traded some clothes for a grocery gift card and went over to Pamenar in the market to grab some tea and sit on my laptop for a few hours. I love that they have these neat tea infusers instead of tea bags, and of course their compostable sleeves are another bonus. I met up with my old high school friend to discuss life, music, and other millennial hot topics of the day.

For dinner, Ryan and I decided to cure my Tuesday blues and go to my favourite place to get deep fried pickles. I asked my usual server to replace my napkin rolled utensils with just a fork, and it sparked another great conversation about waste. With that, he also made sure my dip came in a stainless steel container instead of the usual disposable plastic ones, even though I had completely forgotten to ask.

I want to take this time to address that this blog is meant to start a conversation! We are not all perfect and we can’t all live zero-waste lifestyles all the time, but being conscious and making small changes can always help. 

I got home pretty late and almost forgot to take a photo of my waste. This one, tiny, little cotton swab is all the waste I made today. To be fair, I had eaten out basically all day and treated myself to a few luxuries I normally wouldn’t have because of my mood, but I’m still pretty proud of myself! It is definitely hard to go from making bags of garbage without a second thought, to incredibly minuscule amounts of waste in under a week. I encourage more conversation about how we can all do our part, big or small!

Today’s Trash List

One cotton swab.

Day 3: 1 piece of waste.