{"id":1172989,"date":"2023-08-07T04:14:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T04:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenqueen.com.hk\/?p=66535"},"modified":"2023-08-07T04:14:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T04:14:00","slug":"is-the-zero-waste-jar-trend-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/08\/07\/is-the-zero-waste-jar-trend-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Is The Zero Waste Jar Trend Over?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div><\/span> 10<\/span> Mins Read<\/span><\/span>\n

By Joseph Winters<\/a>, Grist <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story was originally published by Grist<\/a>. Sign up for Grist\u2019s weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost a decade ago, Kathryn Kellogg started storing all of her trash \u2014 every receipt, sticker, wrapper, and anything else she couldn\u2019t recycle or compost \u2014 in a 16-ounce Mason jar. The idea was to save money and avoid generating garbage by adopting zero-waste practices: bringing canvas bags to the grocery store, for example, or making her own beauty products. All of this could be done without putting her infractions on display, of course, but the jar offered Kellogg an extra form of accountability \u2014 especially since she decided to share it with her numerous Instagram followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought, let\u2019s just try and reduce as much trash as possible and have fun making my own products,\u201d said Kellogg, who runs the blog and Instagram account Going Zero Waste. \u201cCan I make my own crackers? Yes, I can. Can I make my own burger buns? Yes, I can. Cleaning products? Sure can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result was strangely beautiful. Photos of Kellogg\u2019s jar (of which there are several) offered an archeological glimpse into the zero-waste lifestyle. In one image from a year into the experiment, a green twist tie peeks from behind an eco-thrift tag for a $0.25 miscellaneous item; from another view of the melange, a pop of primary color from a balloon fragment or wrapper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those types of images, blurring the line between ascetic and aesthetic in a Marie Kondo, minimalist kind of way, caught on, helping to catapult the \u201ctrash jar\u201d into a symbol of the zero-waste movement of the 2010s. Trash jars inspired dozens of profiles in outlets like New York Magazine, the Washington Post, and CBS. Entire zero-waste brands sprang up around them, such as Package Free Shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then came the backlash \u2014 or, rather, a gradual falling out of favor. A few years in, people who were inspired to adopt zero-waste practices because of the trash-jar trend began renouncing it as exclusionary and unrealistic. They argued that focusing on the jar sapped energy from more systemic actions they could take to address plastic pollution. Some likened it to extreme dieting, calling it the \u201cskinny supermodel of zero waste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the trash jar remains an emblem of the zero-waste movement, it\u2019s lost much of its cultural cachet. Today, in 2023, many sustainability influencers are relieved to have entered into a softer, more forgiving era of the zero-waste movement \u2014 one that recognizes the impossibility of \u201czero\u201d and welcomes a spectrum of waste-reduction efforts. Some have pioneered alternate slogans, like \u201clow-impact,\u201d \u201clow-waste,\u201d and #ZeroWasteIRL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabs Katz, an influencer who runs the Instagram account Sustainable Sabs, identifies much more with those newer slogans. While the trash-jar trend helped introduce many people to the concepts behind zero-waste, she thinks of it as an evolutionary step in our understanding of greener living. Deemphasizing the trash jar feels \u201cless elitist,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we want to bring in as many people as possible, then why would we want to build a movement that you have to be perfect to be in?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trash jar or no, the zero-waste movement is a response to one of the United States\u2019 signature problems: our reckless consumption of stuff. The average American generates nearly five pounds of waste per day \u2014 largely from food, but also from paper, plastics, glass, metal, clothes, and other materials. Only about 30 percent of this gets recycled or composted. Another 12 percent is burned to generate energy. Almost all the rest \u2014 about 50 percent of waste generation, or about 132 million metric tons per year \u2014 goes to landfills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou start to look at your trash and you\u2019re like, \u2018How do I have so much? Where\u2019s the trash going?\u2019\u201d said Jh\u00e1nneu Roberts, a sustainability influencer whose social media accounts use just her first name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That mindfulness plays prominently in the story of all the influencers Grist spoke with, although several also described financial reasons for cutting back on their consumption. (Zero-waste is a money-saver!) In general, they were fed up with throwaway culture: knickknacks flying off shelves wrapped in unnecessary packaging, plastic bags and cutlery designed to be used for mere seconds before being discarded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The origins of the trash jar are up for debate, but one of the early pioneers of the concept was Bea Johnson, an influencer based in Marin County, California, who\u2019s been called the \u201cmother of the zero-waste lifestyle\u201d and the \u201cpriestess of waste-free living.\u201d Under the username Zero Waste Home \u2014 also the title of her book \u2014 she\u2019s been documenting her family\u2019s trash jar since at least 2014. \u201cOwn less + waste less = live more,\u201d read one of her posts from that year, just a few months before she shared a photo of her family\u2019s annual collection of jar trash set against a fluffy white blanket. Her jar made several more appearances over the years, sandwiched between photos of upcycled jewelry, fresh fruits and vegetables, and lots of elegant interior design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another influencer, Lauren Singer of the blog and Instagram account Trash Is for Tossers, went viral around the same time after she delivered a TED Talk featuring her trash jar. In 2016, she told CNN that her four-year experiment had helped her save over 6,000 pounds of trash compared to the average American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just this hippy-dippy community,\u201d said Lily Cameron, an influencer and author who runs the Instagram account Wild Minimalist, commenting on the trash jar trend. It was decidedly chic. \u201cYou could still have this very beautiful, fulfilling, joyful lifestyle without constantly buying things and creating all this waste in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zero Waste Home inspired Cameron to try out her own trash jar. She called it \u201cthe status symbol\u201d of being in the zero-waste community. Others described it as \u201cthe gold star everyone was looking toward,\u201d or the \u201cabsolute best, purest form\u201d of zero-waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It probably wasn\u2019t a coincidence that most jar influencers were women, who tend to handle more household tasks, like grocery shopping, than men. Women are also more likely to embrace environmental causes, while men tend to view habits like bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store as gay or emasculating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping a trash jar, like most domestic work, wasn\u2019t as effortless as it looked. At one point, Kellogg got so caught up in trying to embody the Platonic ideal of zero-waste that she was schlepping heavy glass jars on epic, three-hour-long public transit journeys \u2014 involving a ferry, a train, and a subway \u2014 just to get to a co-op with a decent bulk section. She\u2019d save those little stickers that you use to mark bulk items\u2019 product codes so she could use them again next time. And she\u2019d forgo foods that weren\u2019t sold in a package-free format. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t eat blueberries for two years,\u201d she said, even though they\u2019re her favorite food. \u201cIt was definitely stressful.\u201d In 2017, she finally called it quits. She now uses her old trash jar as a bookend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other jar keepers kept getting into situations where they couldn\u2019t control their waste generation. What to do with broken glass, unwanted gifts wrapped in plastic, or trash left behind by visiting friends and family? What about a spouse\u2019s trash? Some people would go for weeks without creating waste, only to find themselves with a single, very large or oddly shaped piece of trash that would certainly not fit into a Mason jar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabs Katz, for example, was doing well with her trash jar until she ordered a new mattress and it arrived wrapped in plastic. (She didn\u2019t feel comfortable buying one secondhand.) \u201cSo, that [plastic] was obviously not going to fit in my trash jar,\u201d she said. It became just one of many exceptions that made the trash jar start to seem \u201creally silly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was trying to do it where I could,\u201d Katz said, \u201cbut it felt so unattainable.\u201d Others feared that their trash jar missteps would undermine their credibility as influencers \u2014 but so would not keeping a trash jar at all, since they were such an emblem of the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that pressure occasionally led to irrational behavior. One influencer said she heard about people stocking up on \u201cbulk\u201d tortilla chips from the Whole Foods hot bar \u2014 as if they didn\u2019t come out of a plastic bag just minutes before. Others reported widespread \u201cwishcycling,\u201d a practice where people cross their fingers and throw items that probably can\u2019t be recycled into the blue bin \u2014 just in case. Cameron said she\u2019s heard other social media personalities talk about burying banana peels in planters at the airport, rather than throw them in the garbage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI get that you want to create zero waste,\u201d she said, \u201cbut does the airport know that? That\u2019s a little too far for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One criticism of the zero-waste movement in general is that it\u2019s too individualistic: It has tended to hone in on lifestyle changes as opposed to challenging the systemic factors that keep single-use products in play. Bulk foods, for example, may still be shipped to supermarkets in disposable plastic containers, or on pallets wrapped in unnecessary plastic. And even the most diligent zero-wasters are unlikely to make a dent in petrochemical companies\u2019 plans to nearly triple plastic production by 2060 \u2014 a scenario that would not only cause 44 million metric tons of aquatic pollution every year, but also exacerbate climate change, since plastic is made from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A trash jar can amplify that personal focus, since keeping one requires such extreme attentiveness to one\u2019s consumption patterns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kellogg says it\u2019s simply not worth putting all your energy into a trash jar if it leaves no bandwidth for chipping away at some of those bigger, system-level problems. Sure, shopping zero-waste might support a reuse-centric grocery store, but obsessing over the plastic zip ties used to cinch a bag of bulk kidney beans? Not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Kellogg quit her trash jar, she used her extra time and energy to serve on her city\u2019s beautification commission, a group dedicated to reducing trash and litter generation. She generated a little more garbage herself, but she now had the capacity to help organize a citywide trash cleanup event and a dump day, a way for locals to responsibly dispose of bulky items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI also tried to work on a Styrofoam ban, but that got nixed,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cNot everything you do is going to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kellogg is a bit of an outlier; serving in local government isn\u2019t for everyone, and she said it\u2019s certainly not a prerequisite to becoming a good zero-waster. But many share her view that waste reduction can feel empty \u2014 even consumeristic \u2014 unless it\u2019s paired with something bigger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

April Dickinson, a zero-waste influencer and longtime trash-jar skeptic, says she\u2019s often been turned off by the array of products meant to facilitate a zero-waste lifestyle. \u201cI engaged with the zero-waste community less when I saw that it was falling into the more capitalistic mindset,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s like 47 brands of bamboo toothbrushes now, and 11 billion metal straws, all different colors and sizes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, she tries to show how zero-waste practices can represent an alternative way of relating with the natural world and with other people. If we treat everyday objects as disposable, she said, by extension, we might also be more likely to treat people as disposable, with less empathy for those who are incarcerated or otherwise marginalized. She often highlights the human impact of waste, which can create air pollution and leach hazardous chemicals into the groundwater of low-income communities and communities of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too few people within the zero-waste movement engage with these issues, she said \u2014 in particular some of the \u201ctrash-jar people,\u201d who are \u201cjust hell-bent on not putting trash into their own jar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past several years, a newfound appreciation for imperfection has opened up space for many who might otherwise have felt intimidated by the zero-waste movement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, sustainability influencer Immy Lucas of the blog and Instagram account Sustainably Vegan ditched the \u201czero-waste\u201d label and instead began advocating for what she called the \u201clow-impact movement\u201d (which is not an exercise routine, although proponents of the phrase do have to vie for airspace with #LowImpact workout posts on Instagram). The philosophy emphasizes waste reduction rather than elimination, as well as sustainable lifestyle choices that go beyond waste \u2014 like diet and travel. Since then, a host of influencers have embraced the phrase, including Low-Waste Lucy, Taylor Pfromer, and Sarah Robertson Barnes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This trend accelerated during the pandemic, which marked a sort of turning point for many zero-waste influencers. The response to COVID-19 made going waste-free even more difficult: Although later research showed that the coronavirus isn\u2019t transmitted through surface contact or food contamination, supermarkets across the country closed their bulk sections and delayed plastic bag bans. Restaurants stopped accepting reusable mugs and dishes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was really hard to avoid plastic, or try to be low-waste,\u201d said Cindy Villase\u00f1or, an influencer who runs the Instagram account and blog Cero Waste Cindy (using the Spanish word for \u201czero\u201d). Villase\u00f1or said she\u2019s never aimed for zero-waste perfection \u2014 she never went through a trash-jar phase \u2014 but even her more relaxed standards had to be loosened during the COVID lockdowns. As it turns out, that laid-back attitude served her well and has stuck around. She now enjoys a broader selection of produce, for example, and is more forgiving of herself when she can\u2019t get a particular item without packaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about \u201ctrying the best you can with what you\u2019ve got,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dickinson takes a similar approach using the hashtag #ZeroWasteIRL, or zero-waste in real life. Her Instagram account, Zero Waste Dork, describes her as the \u201csole zero-waster in a family of four\u201d and emphasizes the importance of compromise. One post shows a grocery haul with mostly bulk items like granola, Brussels sprouts, and clementines brought home in reusable cloth bags \u2014 but there\u2019s also boxed fusilli pasta, a prepackaged bottle of lotion, and some cheddar wrapped in plastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI offer this transparent view of our routine to show that each #ZeroWaste journey is unique and every experience belongs in the movement,\u201d the caption reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who want to embark on a similar journey of their own, the consensus from zero-waste experts is to skip the trash jar, start with one low-waste practice, and take baby steps. Dickinson, who was inspired by the trash jar years ago but never adopted one herself, says that first step could be something as simple as getting a smaller trash can. A few years ago, she managed to transition her family to her city\u2019s smallest municipal garbage bin, a big win in her book. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes we don\u2019t even fill that up,\u201d she said. \u201cI think honoring and celebrating that is important for any family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared in Grist here<\/a> and is part of the Grist arts and culture series Remember When<\/a>, a weeklong exploration of what happened to the climate solutions that once clogged our social feeds.<\/em><\/p>

The post Is The Zero Waste Jar Trend Over?<\/a> first appeared on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>

The post Is The Zero Waste Jar Trend Over?<\/a> appeared first on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Green Queen<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/div>\n

<\/span> 10<\/span> Mins Read<\/span><\/span> By Joseph Winters, Grist This story was originally published by\u00a0Grist. Sign up for Grist\u2019s\u00a0weekly newsletter here. Almost a decade ago, Kathryn Kellogg started storing all of her trash \u2014\u00a0every receipt, sticker, wrapper, and anything else she couldn\u2019t recycle or compost \u2014\u00a0in a 16-ounce Mason jar. The idea was to save money and avoid generating garbage [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post Is The Zero Waste Jar Trend Over?<\/a> first appeared on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The post Is The Zero Waste Jar Trend Over?<\/a> appeared first on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1748,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5519,10011,6322,5904],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1748"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172990,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172989\/revisions\/1172990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}