Waste reduction doesn’t need to take special equipment at home or complicated instructions — in fact, waste reduction can often lead to simpler routines for cleaning and organizing your home. If this sounds daunting, don’t panic! Making small changes around the house adds up so there’s no need to try and be the greenest neighbour on the block. Start small with the following suggestions.

There’s Too Much Paper Everywhere

Pamphlets, flyers, guides, and other papers find their way into our cars, bags, and houses, and whatever your reason may be for keeping them around, they usually just sit there accumulating dust. Not only are flyers a waste of paper, it takes energy to print them, even if they use recycled paper. In order to minimize it, consider the following:

• Go paperless with your bills and banking
• Post no flyer signs on your mailbox or sign up for mail programs that keep spam out of your mail
• Buy products with as little packaging as possible, as lots of packaging means more room for promotional materials or manuals

Don’t Waste Food

Every year, billions of pounds of food go uneaten, and much of that comes from household waste. One way of correcting the problem is to make sure less food goes to waste:

• Eat your leftovers
• Plan your meals and stick to the plan
• Share extra food with neighbours and friends

Sometimes waste is unavoidable, especially when you have a vacation coming up or if you buy ingredients that go bad before you can eat them. In these cases, you should consider starting a compost heap, which is a simple and low-cost project, and once the compost is ready, spread the nutrient-rich soil on flower beds, gardens, and other parts of the yard.

Home Improvement Waste

Home improvement is currently one of the country’s largest industries, and if you take a walk in your neighbourhood, you’ll see lots of homes undergoing renovation. All these renovations means tearing out the old materials and replacing it with the new, and it’s obvious just how much garbage is generated when you look into your neighbour’s driveway and a container full of waste from the project accumulates. In order to cut down on the waste, make sure you’re only buying as much material as needed for:

• Painting the walls
• Tiling &
• Wood for construction

Most of the guidelines suggested above just asks you to be mindful of how much you’re buying for your home without cutting down on what you end up using. Other ways to reduce waste around the home is through reusing and recycling.