Girl To Know: Lauren Singer

photo: @trashisfortossers

by Cassandra Chum

Environmental activist Lauren Singer’s trash from the past eight years fits inside a 16 oz mason jar. In adopting a zero waste lifestyle over these years and devoting herself to the zero waste movement, Singer has inspired many to be conscious of what they’re throwing away and how much of it can be reduced. Her journey began as an environmental studies student at NYU, noticing that despite her and her peers being passionate about environmental science and eco consciousness, they were all still using plastic heavily in their lives, especially during lunch.

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Zero Waste Office: Boxes and Packing Materials.📦 At @packagefreeshop, we ship completely plastic free. Here's our pack and ship philosophy: "All of our pack and ship materials are 100% recyclable and 100% compostable. We try not to put any packing materials inside of shipping boxes, but for any orders that are fragile, we use post-consumer 100% recyclable and 100% compostable paper packing materials inside of our boxes. Our packing labels are 100% recyclable, compostable, and plastic free. We seal our boxes with non-reinforced paper tape. It is 100% recyclable, compostable, and plastic free. We require that all shipments to Package Free Shop come 100% plastic free (that includes bio-based or compostable plastics as well). The less packaging the better. All shipments that are sent to us that violate these guidelines will be returned to the brands and their products will not be put on the shelf. Harsh? Maybe on the brands, but not on the environment, and to us, that comes first. Once we ship a package to customers we cannot control what they do with the packaging materials, but we do encourage all of our customers to reuse, compost, or recycle all packing materials." 📦♻️

A post shared by Trash Is For Tossers (@trashisfortossers) on Jul 1, 2019 at 8:52am PDT

photo: @trashisfortossers

Since then, she has created a blog called “Trash is for Tossers” supporting the zero waste lifestyle and its growing community. Her blog includes a documentation of her own zero waste journey, as well as recipes, skin care routines, travel tips, and other tips to make almost every aspect of your life more earth loving. Singer has also created her own brand where she is CEO, Package Free, dedicated to making the world “less trashy” by creating a positive impact on the environment. Since opening, Package Free has kept over 4 million plastic straws, over 3 million plastic bags and over 1.5 million non-recyclable bottles and cups out of landfills.  

photo: @packagefreeshop

While going zero waste may seem extremely daunting in a world overflowing with plastic, Singer assures us that it’s not as hard as it seems. But it doesn’t happen overnight; it takes is small changes accumulated over time. She says, “If you try and make that significant of a life change happen immediately, chances are, it won’t stick”. To start, she suggests we ask ourselves a couple of questions, like why we want to make changes to our lifestyle, and what’s in our trash now? We can all reduce our waste, no matter what lifestyles we live.

*Originally published September 2019, updated April 20, 2022

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