Waste reduction & awareness
A two-week waste audit is the most clarifying exercise in this entire phase, and it's free. Most of us have no idea how much we throw away or where it goes, because the system is designed so we never have to look. So look. The goal isn't zero-waste as a personality. It's knowing your household's material flows well enough to redesign them on purpose. This is also where waste's solo run in the curriculum ends: from phase 2 on, what you learn here folds into composting, food, and water systems.
Start here
The Story of Stuff Project · ~21 min — The classic 2007 short on where stuff comes from and where it goes. Watch it before your audit; you'll categorize your trash differently after.
Epic Gardening — A worm bin that works in an apartment or a garage. Food scraps in, excellent compost out.
Buttons, patches, darning. Repair is faster than most people expect, and the audit will show you how much textile waste you generate.
First project
Two-week waste audit
For two full weeks, collect and categorize everything you would normally throw away: food scraps, packaging, recyclables, electronics and batteries, and true landfill waste in separate bags. Weigh and log each category at the end of each week. Then write a reduction plan that attacks your biggest categories first. For most households that's packaging, by an uncomfortable margin.
Other ways in
Worm bin in a closet
Set up a small worm bin (a stacking-tray system, or a single Rubbermaid tote with holes) in a closet, garage, or under the kitchen sink. Feed it kitchen scraps for two months. Produces excellent compost without yard space and proves the food-waste loop at apartment scale. The skills transfer directly to outdoor composting later.
30-day buy-nothing challenge
For 30 days, buy only food and medicine. Document every urge to buy something else and what you did instead: borrowed, repaired, substituted, went without. This addresses the consumption side of waste, which is where most of the embodied resources live. You might find you own more than you thought and need less than you assumed.
After the audit, waste stops being its own track. Your food scraps feed the composting systems in phase 2 food, and your repair habit grows alongside the construction track. See food in phase 2 →
Go deeper
Community Experiences
Loading...