10 Sure tips to reduce the amount of garbage at home

Did you know that the amount of garbage dumped in rivers and on the coast of Brazil each year would be enough to fill the Maracanã stadium 30 times? The country is the fourth largest producer of plastic waste in the world and, here, only about 1% of the material is recycled. These frightening numbers show how the environment is being harmed on a daily basis. The good news is that this framework can be changed and change starts at home.

On average, each person produces a kilogram of garbage per day, but, according to data from the NGO Global Footprint Network, only 10% of this daily waste cannot be recycled. So how can we repurpose the rest?

O awesome.club separated ten alternatives for you to reduce the amount of garbage at home.

The first way to reduce waste is to consume less. Although the tip seems obvious, we don’t always pay attention to the direct relationship between consumption and waste. Whether at the fair, supermarket, malls or even pharmacies, we often buy more than we need. Consumer habits need to be rethought, so that surplus products and food do not end up in the trash. The same goes for pieces of clothing that we buy on impulse and are thrown in the closet for years until they end up being discarded.

It is very important to do the selective collection, so that the garbage in your house can be recycled. For this, you only need to have three recycle bins:

one for recyclable materials, such as plastic or cardboard. another for the rubbish are not recyclable, nor organic, like bathroom waste. And one more for organic wastewhich will go into your home compost bin (we’ll talk more about this in the next topic).

An interesting way to reuse food scraps is to make a domestic composter, which transforms food into soil and fertilizer. In our homes, more than 50% of the garbage is organic and Brazilians make up less than 1% of it. Making a compost bin at home is a simple, economical and ecologically sustainable process.

To create your home compost bin, you only need 3 buckets of 15 liters, a drill, sandpaper, fabric, scissors, glue and paper. The YouTube channel Menos 1 Lixo has already made some videos on the subject and teaches you a very easy step-by-step for you to create your own. Check out:

Upcycling is the process of creatively reusing and thinking of new uses for objects, clothing and products that would end up in the trash. A mug that broke the handle, for example, can become a pencil holder or a vase for small plants. Bored of a blouse? Then take a pair of scissors and transform the model completely.

Try to replace disposable products, which were produced to be used in a short period of time, with longer-lasting goods. Replace plastic bags with cloth bags, razor blades with shaving machines, tampons with a menstrual cup, paper towel rolls with cloths… these are just some of the alternatives on how you can reduce the waste produced and, of course, save money.

According to data from the organization Plastic Oceans, of the 300 million tons of plastic produced annually, 8 million end up in the ocean. Half of this amount is plastics manufactured to be used only once. This already shows how the problem has reached truly worrying levels.

As we mentioned in the previous topic, the ideal is to reduce the use of disposable materials for more durable goods. However, it is also possible to reuse the plastic consumed without having to throw it away. You can make Christmas ornaments with the bottom of PET bottles, turn cleaning product containers into organizers… just get creative.

Another way to reduce garbage is to reduce the number of correspondence — which, most of the time, we don’t even read. If you receive letters with advertisements and flyers from supermarkets, contact the responsible company and ask them to remove your address from their list. When providing your address to companies, make it clear that you refuse to receive direct mail. The same goes for paper bills: prefer to pay through your bank’s website or app.

Familiar or budget packaging should become your best friend. If you start buying bigger bottles of shampoos, for example, you’ll throw away packaging less often, do you agree? The same applies to various foods and products, such as washing powder, detergent, creams, egg cartons and more. In addition to helping the environment, this measure also helps to save money.

Biodegradable products are composed of organic items, which decompose more quickly in nature. With a society increasingly aware of the impacts of waste on the environment, these products are appearing more quickly on supermarket shelves. A pretty cool tip is to replace synthetic dish sponges with natural ones and use biodegradable coffee capsules, which can be discarded as organic waste — and used in your home composter 😉.

In addition to being bad for your pocket, buying new products every time something breaks is harmful to nature, as you are only adding to the waste on the planet. Instead of throwing away a broken accessory, appliance, or piece of furniture, you can try repairing it yourself. Nowadays, it is possible to find several tutorials on the internet that teach how to repair (almost) everything, like this video from the Ideias Incríveis channel, which gives tips on how to fix broken beauty products.

Do you already apply some of these measures in your daily life? Do you have any other tips for reducing the amount of garbage at home? Tell us in the comments.