The Diaper Warriors
Ryan Dyment, 39, finance director at EcoSchools Canada, Emily Hunter, 35, an event planner, and Phoenix, nine months
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Beaches
ZERO-WASTERS SINCE: January 2015
MONTHLY WASTE: One small grocery bag
The easiest part of pursuing a zerowaste lifestyle:
The baby. He seems perfectly happy to use reusable products.
Items that are banned in your home: Disposable diapers, squeezable snacks and new toys.
Items you own a lot of:
Reusable diapers and baby wipes.
Items you always carry with you: Reusable zippered bag for dirty diapers and containers for baby food and milk.
Waste-free product or service that you wish was available in Toronto:
Medical products for babies, such as skin creams and different oils and medicines. For now, we try to find packaging that can be recycled.
Sustainable habit you’re proudest of: Diapers are the biggest waste item for babies by far, and that’s what we prioritized from day one. The City of Toronto permits diapers in the compost bin, but only the fibre and organic matter are composted. The plastic ends up in the landfill. If parents switched to one or two reusable diapers per day, it would make a huge difference.
Your most ingenious zero-waste life hack:
We started a workshop called Diaper Dad to educate parents on the impact of baby waste and how to raise a zerowaste child. Beyond diapers, a bidet attachment for your toilet or shower makes the cleaning process easy and quick.
Omnivore, vegetarian, vegan or other: We’re vegetarian.
Where you buy groceries:
Bulk stores and local grocery stores. In the warmer months, we go to the Leslieville Farmers’ Market or the Evergreen Brick Works, where we can be almost exclusively zero waste.
What you use for cleaning:
Vinegar is our all-purpose cleaner. We also use dishwasher pods from Seventh Generation and washing machine strips from Tru Earth, which has compostable packaging.
On a scale of one to Greta Thunberg, give yourself a sustainability score:
No more than a seven. There’s a lot of room to improve.