litterless.com

A few other suggestions oforplaces to browse are in Nothing New, Food Waste, and Travel, or for longer reads you’ll find that Essays is the right spot. (Promise! ) -I won’t update the Where to Shop and Where to Compost guides as frequently when I’m gone, so they may get slightly out-of-date. Please feel free to continue to send me updates to the guides if you have suggestions for places to add or remove, and I’ll address them en masse when I return later this summer, if I’m not able to get to them all while traveling. I’m grateful for your readership over the years and to the many thoughtful comments, bulk grocery store and compost service submissions, and the conversations we’re had here.

While we’re gone, I’m taking a hiatus from Litterless, both here and on social media; I’ll miss this space, especially when I encounter a new bulk grocery store (you know those are my jam), but I’m very much looking forward to everything else we’ll be doing while we’re away. The most important thing to bring, I think, is the knowledge that a big trip probably (certainly) won’t be zero waste. I don’t imagine that we will never buy a piece of packaged food, that we will always happen upon a bulk aisle when we need one, that we’ll find a compost bin in every locale. What we’ll do is our best: to walk, to use public transportation, to minimize the number of flights we take, to seek out recycling bins and to brush up on local recycling rules, to carry our water bottles and refill them with tap water wherever possible.

To be zero waste you have to store food in glass jars, you have to own a reusable coffee thermos, you have to… use a menstrual cup. Through my work on Litterless, I have a few menstrual cups: some brand-new and never used that I keep as props for zero waste workshops, a clear cup I purchased years ago that is now very stained but just as functional as ever, and a Dot Cup (pictured above), which I love because it doesn’t show stains and is manufactured here in Wisconsin. If just use a cup doesn’t feel like helpful advice, there are so many other options for a lower-waste period. These folks are better known for their reusable pads, but I like their period underwear, which comes in a wide range of styles, including a high-waisted version and boxer briefs (for anyone, but perhaps especially helpful for queer or trans folks).

We pick the leaves off the stems (laborious, but worth it - the stems are chopped and added to soups or beans), then layer them in a glass container with a piece of dry paper towel on the very bottom and a piece of slightly damp paper towel on the top. (We still have some paper towels leftover from older days since we basically only use them for this, but when we run out I’ll probably designate a few small cloths specifically for the purpose). -Storing chives, sage, thyme, and rosemary: Unlike parsley and cilantro, these do best stored dry, wrapped in a dry cloth or paper towel in an airtight container in the fridge. I’d like to say our lack of a salad spinner is what’s preventing us from doing this, but I think it’s more likely that sometimes even just getting them in their proper container seems like almost too much to manage on a weeknight evening.