Doua Benhida (right), a Dubaibased Zero Waste Speaker, sizes up the 5-day challenge undertaken by the three volunteers:
‘What’s interesting to see is that the zero waste discipline depends on your lifestyle: whether you’re are a student, an employee on the go, or desk-bound, some swaps may seem more challenging than others,” says Doua.
That said, what can be seen from this challenge with just three volunteers in just five days, with the simplest swaps, is the individual carbon footprint they were able to offset, says Doua. “Doing simple swaps, one step at a time, is the most sustainable change you can work on, and it has a bigger impact than you can possibly imagine.”|
Here is her feedback and analysis:
According to carbonfootprint. com, it takes roughly 1.3kg of CO2 to produce just 0.5kg of plastic, says Doua.
“Living plastic-free will enable us to reduce our carbon footprint, ideally, to almost zero. “Within just five days, the three volunteers were able to offset an estimated total 3,000kg of CO2 by choosing simple zero waste alternatives such as carrying their own water bottles, coffee mugs, reusable bags and even preparing their lunch to go and taking their own cutleries. “This enabled them to refuse single-use plastic water bottles, cutlery and plastic bags, along with other items.
“With simple efforts like these,
they achieved a huge offset of their individual carbon footprints.”
Living meat-free:
“Many of us are not aware of the carbon footprint caused by our meat consumption. Meat farming has a huge negative impact on the environment due to all the natural resources it uses up: from water, to land to energy. Reducing your meat intake as a first step would have a huge positive impact. “The volunteers avoided meat for five days. If they were to keep this up over the course of a year, they would be able to offset 3,991kg of CO2 a year. (Their five-day contribution is being multiplied by 52.)
On the other hand, “If the three of them kept to their meat diet, they would be producing and contributing to over 7,000kg of CO2 a year,” says Doua.
Buy local, eat local
“This was a tricky part of the challenge: the selection of products was quite limited and not available in all markets. In addition, when it came to other products such as dairy, volunteers had to choose some with packaging such as milk or yoghurt. So that conflicted with their plastic-free living for five days. “Some vegetables would be wrapped in plastic which leads to the question: should we choose local but in plastic? Or plastic-free but from abroad? Why should we have to choose? The carbon footprint of the plastic wrapping vs the travel of the food to get to Dubai is to be considered.
The option of having plastic-free and local should be available.”
Conclusion:
Being Zero Waste needs to become a lifestyle and easy for everyone regardless of status and lifestyle.
“We need to live in a loop where we buy, use and re-use. Currently, we are in a one-way lifestyle where we buy, use and waste. It is time to change and act before it’s too late,” says Doua.