Zero Waste Chattanooga

We are doing another Zero Waste Workshop in February! This time we are partnering with Urban Horticulture Supply. Here is the link to reserve your ticket, but if the ticket price is a problem for you, please reach out to me in a DM: https://checkout.square.site/buy/FTUGLF76UM5Z5O3J7U2LGA7J

There is a repair cafe every 3rd Saturday in Chattanooga!

Repair Cafe! Let us fix your broken stuff for free!, Sat, Dec 16, 2023, 11:00 AM | Meetup Every 3rd Saturday ChattLab Makerspace hosts a Repair Cafe event. Basically, if you have something broken and you think it's repairable, bring it in and we'll do our best t

Unpackaged snack foods are hard to come by. Although, since most packaged snacks are laden with highly processed ingredients, it's arguable that we are better off without them anyway. For the most part our kids now snack on fruits and sliced veggies. However, sometimes it's nice to snack on something more other than fruits and veggies, and that's where these amazing energy bites come into play!...

Energy Bites Unpackaged snack foods are hard to come by. Although, since most packaged snacks are laden with highly processed ingredients, it’s arguable that we are better off without them anyway. For the…

Anyone up for an in-person event?
We are doing a Zero Waste Workshop this Saturday at Gaining Ground Grocery! It's a fun, interactive workshop, that is designed for all of us to learn together. Please feel free to come whether you are brand new to zero waste or if you have been doing it for a long time.
If you haven't ever done a zero waste shopping trip before and would like help learning how to refill your own containers, please bring a few jars to the workshop and I'll help you learn how to do it after the workshop!

Also, we did need to charge a fee to help cover the cost of putting on the workshop, it is about $7, but if that is a hardship for you please send me a DM and we can figure something out.

Zero Waste Workshop For Second Saturday in November, Gaining Ground is hosting a workshop from Zero Waste Chattanooga! A very informative workshop!

This past week, we helped out with several beach cleanups at a major sea turtle nesting site in Costa Rica. We were very surprised by one item that we found a TON of that we were not expecting - SHOES - and it prompted this article. Enjoy!

🩴 Zero waste Shoes 🩴 When people talk about how much plastic pollution there is in the ocean, they tend to focus on a things: Straws Toothbrushes Plastic bottles This past week, our family helped out with several beach…

If you visit Walmart in Costa Rica, this is what the bags say. It translates to And if you want a bag, you have to buy them. And they are made out of a durable reusable material. I haven’t seen a single plastic shopping bag as litter so far in Costa Rica, which are so ubiquitous in my hometown in Tennessee.

And Walmart rolled these out in 2021, in the midst of a pandemic.

Why?

Walmart said in a press release it wants to protect the environment. But does this huge multinational company really care more about the environment in Costa Rica than in my hometown in Tennessee? Maybe the Walmart board loves tropical forests more that the temperate forests of Tennessee?

Another sentence in the Walmart press release gives us a hint: “We want to…be a step ahead of legislation”.

Citizens in Costa Rica care about protecting this precious, beautiful land, so they are supporting laws that reflect their values. There is already legislation underway to remove all kinds of single use plastics from Costa Rica. Although it is good that Walmart has made these changes early, they are only doing what would have been required of them anyway.

There are many excellent solutions to plastic litter, but we need to pass legislation in alignment with our values in order to make those solutions actually happen. The beautiful land and waterways of Tennessee are just as worthy of protection as those in Costa Rica.

Second slide credit: Laura Alvarado at Costa Rica Star News
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What to do when you forget your jars to refill?

I usually search my car for containers to get the absolute essentials, then come back another day to finish my shopping.

This means I often end up filling my kids sippy cups with things like dishwasher detergent or peanut butter 😂.

Also, by the way now has refillable cleaning supplies!

Our celebration of Earth Day was much different than expected. My dear grandmother died this past week and we buried her body yesterday.

It felt right to “gift” back her body to the earth on Earth Day. Hers is the first natural burial I have ever attended, and it was so beautiful. She was gently laid to rest by her grandchildren in a “nest” of greenery prepared by her great-grandchildren. She was wrapped in a cocoon of linen and flowers.

Our bodies are gifts.

I was contemplating how the molecules in her body have been knit together over the years, with some parts even being formed from the food her mother ate when pregnant with her. Now they will all return to nourish the soil that once nourished her.

After having time to grieve, I will post more about natural burials. But for now I would just like to thank for their beautiful cemetery and for providing flowers on such a short notice.

This bill would be a game changer for the reuse and recycling system in Tennessee. It would reward companies for switching to packaging that is reusable or easily recyclable. Read the article for more info! https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/tn-bill-aims-to-cut-packaging-waste-fund-recycling/

This bill would be a game changer for the reuse and recycling system in Tennessee. It would reward companies for switching to packaging that is reusable or easily recyclable. Read the article for more info!

TN bill aims to cut packaging waste, fund recycling NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — A Tennessee state senator has filed a bill that aims to increase recycling and decrease landfill usage, with plastic waste the primary target and “chemicals of…

One of the biggest contributors to landfills in Chattanooga is from construction and demolition waste. Check out what this cool company is doing to prevent asphalt shingles from ending up in landfills!

The Construction Industry's Growing Waste Problem Globally around 2 billion tonnes of waste is generated every year and the construction industry is a large contributor.

How we saved $3,000 in our baby's first year buy embracing secondhand....

How to have a baby and save $3,000 How we saved $3,000 in our baby’s first year buy embracing secondhand.

Backyard harvest!

The baby slept for 3 hours this afternoon, which gave me the chance to work in the garden and harvest this beautiful bounty for supper 😋

Did you know Day Lilies are edible? The petals add such beauty to salads. I’m going to sprinkle this flower’s petals on our stir fry this evening.

Any guesses on what the greens are in this picture? It is a heat hardy green that thrives in our hot summers and is delicious in stir fry.

We had a blast being interviewed by Channel 3 News yesterday! Reporter Riley Nagel and the camera man had great questions and did a wonderful job of sharing our story.

Check out the Channel 3 website for the full story. We hope it will inspire more and more people in Chattanooga to take their own steps towards a more sustainable Chattanooga.
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Recycled sand is now available in Chattanooga!

When I tell people we live a zero waste lifestyle, people often respond by telling me how careful they are to recycle their old stuff. That is all well and fine, but recycling your old stuff is only one part of participating in recycling. The other, and possibly more important, part of recycling is buying products made of post consumer recycled content.

Now, with .glass we have the opportunity to fully participate in recycling those beer bottles and other glass items in Chattanooga. And it sounds a supporting a local business. What a win! It might be a tad more expensive than a big bow store, but consider it a part of the price of the convenience of buying bottled products.

They are available at Locals Only and

If you have a larger project, I’m sure Olivine can hook you up with a bulk order.

Looking for bread? All of the bakeries I’ve tried will allow you to take a loaf home in your own bag. This is a loaf from Whole Foods, but I’ve never been turned down anywhere else.

This was a last minute stop, so I had forgotten my bag. Fortunately I had a cloth in my purse which I simply used to wrap up the loaf.

My great great grandfather was a baker, so maybe my love for good bread comes from him :)

Plastic wrapped bread came out in my grandparents’ lifetimes, and I think it’s kind of crazy that every plastic bread bag they have ever used is still out there somewhere. I want to leave a different legacy for my grandkids, one loaf of bread at a time.

One of my favorite zero waste endeavors is making something new out of something old.

I made these shoes from my baby’s old cloth diapers. The back elastic of a cloth diaper is perfect for making the heels of a pair of shoes!

Craftism is when someone uses their crafting/sewing/etc abilities as a form of activism.

Fast fashion is a disaster for our earth and for the people caught in the system. These diapers were originally very expensive made by an ethical company. I bought them second hand. They have diapered multiple children, and now as they finally fall apart they are being remade into new things. Buying well, and then reusing, repairing, and remaking are all acts of rebellion against our culture of consumption. Craftism is my favorite form of activism!

We needed a cover for our compost bin to keep the rain out, so inspired by I used some old political signs that were quickly becoming eye sores in our neighborhood.

The bins themselves are from reused pallets. I LOVE repurposing things other people see as trash for our garden!

But also, there needs to be a better way for candidates to advertise themselves than these plastic signs. Any ideas out there?

Happy Tennessee Zero Waste day! Today our state is encouraging its citizens to share how they rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle, and re-earth to avoid waste.

This is one of our recent “rethink” examples. These are wax pencils. They are a zero waste alternative to dry erase markers! They draw well, erase great, never dry out, are odorless, and aren’t destined to a landfill.

They also write well on glass, so my 5 and 7 years olds enjoyed using them to draw pumpkins in our windows for Halloween.

Look around your house for products you use that are made of plastic or designed to be thrown away at the end of their life. I bet there is a zero waste alternative out there somewhere. And if there isn’t, maybe you will be the one to come up with a better way!

When we first started our zero waste journey, it felt overwhelming to change everything at once. So instead we slowly found alternatives one thing at a time. Focusing on one step at a time helped make the changes stick.
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in Nashville! Every time we drive through Nashville we stop by their refill store and load up on clothing detergent and dishwasher detergent. The soap is so effective that clothing detergent in the last pic should last a whole year!

This place is a zero waster’s dream! They even have sunscreen in bulk!!!

When will Chattanooga be ready for this kind of store?

We had some help today from our kiddos discussing zero waste solutions at

Our 5 year old helped carry our board and Baby Z helped by sleeping through the discussion ☺️

Thanks to everyone else who helped with the event, especially .waste.chattanooga for organizing it!

We are speaking at this event today at 2pm!

Come out today to learn more about zero waste solutions to Chattanooga’s recycling system. Plus there are some great prizes from and

Congrats to for winning the audience choice award at the recycling pitch today!

Come Thursday at 2pm to the Waterhouse Pavilion to watch the screening of a short film by .waste.chattanooga and to hear us talk a bit about how to reduce your own waste at home!

We are also doing a trash quiz with a cool reward: A full year of composting with TerraCycle!

This is today (Tuesday the 19th)!
Come hear 4 awesome pitches for creative solutions to Chattanooga’s waste management!

Everyone who attends gets to vote on which idea gets an extra $2,500 for their project!

See you there!