Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life

Excellent, excellent book! The author speaks from own practice and sticks to the principles presented in the book! You can tell that the book came as a result of her life experience and the solutions she had found to the challenges of living a zero waste life! The book presents lots of practical ideas and solutions, anyone can find some good advice in it even if not trying to live a zero waste life. The book can be highly inspiring and motivational. I highly recommend it! I haven't managed to put everything into practice, not because is not possible, but because I am not disciplined and organized enough. But I am not giving up, I am still on my journey and I know I will get there!

I've always been interested in ways of being less wasteful and helping the environment, but I've never really done enough or made a real effort to get started. This book collects everything together into quite a comprehensive guide to how you can reduce waste and become more environmentally conscious. It's full of a lot of good information that really helps you to get started or go a bit deeper on your journey. However, as others have mentioned, there are provisos. For a start, Bea is a bit of a yummy mummy character with a lot of time on her hands. She doesn't work, so she clearly has time to char almonds to make eyeliner, craft things out of felt and make her own jam. Obviously most of us with 9-5 jobs do not. That's not to say you can't implement some of the ideas though - just probably not many of us are going to switch to moss for toilet paper, cocoa for blush and vinegar for conditioner. She does seem to take things to rather an extreme: maximising right turns to save fuel (!), making all her own 'makeup' from arrowroot powder and suchlike, and making a fuss about the tiny bit of paper on the back of a stamp. This doesn't really resonate with most people. We could all make a huge difference just by buying veg loose at the market, switching paper towels for cloths and avoiding bottled water or takeaway coffee, for example. Bea's 110% approach is a bit off-putting to some. That said, Bea gives us a lot of information on how to be zero waste in a way that isn't smelly and tree-hugging. You don't have to wear sandals or tie flowers in your hair if you don't want to. I think everyone should read it, and if you only implement around 1/3 of her tips you'll already be doing a great job. Many of them are not practical if you have a job or don't live next to an organic farmer's market. However a lot of them are very very effective, and if people start improving their habits just a bit, she will have done an amazing job. Thanks Bea.

This is a super book to help you on your eco journey. Very practical and down to earth and with some really good ideas.

What an amazing book. I have been reading Bea's blog for sometime but having it all put together in one place, with a lot of extra bits was just great. Easy to read, well researched (she does this day in day out) and truly inspirational. You get a lot of book for your money. It's like the modern version of the tightwad gazette, but the focus is on being green and kind to the planet, with the upside of saving your cash too. If you are remotley interested in 'green' lifestyle you will love this book. Hope she does more!!

I began this book with an open mind, and at first I thought that what the author had undertaken was pretty impressive. And let's be fair, it is impressive. She has thrown a tremendous amount of energy, time and imagination into figuring out how to reduce (potential) waste from entering her home. She outlines how she went about it, and she goes into quite a lot of detail. If you want a zero waste home, this is the book for you. I had several problems with the book: The first problem is that as a UK reader, it's difficult to put most of this into practice, because we simply don't have the bulk shopping opportunities here that there clearly are in the US. My second issue is that despite the undoubtedly admirable nature of the efforts made by the author to reduce waste in her orbit, one can't help thinking that someone with this much creative energy is wasted in a single domestic setting. I would have preferred to read her story about how she designed and manufactured an eco-effective product of the type described in 'Cradle to Cradle' one of the books that she says was an inspiration to her. The impact of her efforts, and the efforts that she's exhorting others to make, are small and unlikely to make the sort of difference that is needed to prevent catastrophic climate change. I'm not sure I have time to consider whether I keep bathroom products that were given to me as gifts because I feel guilty about getting rid of them or whether I want it because everyone else has one. That doesn't seem to me to be a good use of anyone's time. While I can see that reducing 'stuff' is a good idea, the author's approach often seems more akin to purging. I'm not sure that I need to be rescued from my moisturiser just yet. It seems to me that the author may have been confused at times about whether what she was attempting to create a minimalist home or a zero waste one. There were a lot of suggestions that might result in very tiny savings in time: store the bread knife with the bread, toss salads with your bare hands (really?), and how to give yourself a zero-waste pedicure (really? really?). The final thing that really got up my nose were the comments about how to handle diapers/nappies. As the mother of two children who wear nappies, I felt quite irritated to read 'If I had a baby at home, I would reduce by implementing elimination communication (EC) a method that can get a baby diaper free before his first birthday'. If you're not familiar with it, it's a method of communicating with a baby so you know when they need to go and can hold them over the toilet. That's totally fine for her to suggest, but it feels a bit holier-than-thou to have her say what she would have done, given that her children are out of diapers. So I would say useful and interesting, but also quite annoying.

I really enjoyed this book and how it made me stop and think. Too often the green movement forgets that a) hemp and tie-dye are not for everyone, b) people are busy and c) and an organic lifestyle seems too expensive to the average person. Bea hits the spot by showing how a green life can be time- and money-saving and stylish and I liked her humorous take on things. Some key points she makes are that recycling alone isn't really the answer that we need to cut down what comes into our homes ('refuse'), that when it comes to rubbish, there is no such thing as 'away' and that by hoarding items we are stopping them from being used by someone else. I do understand comments from other reviewers that some things are "US-centric' , e.g. if you're outside of London it is nigh impossible to buy food, apart from fruit and vegetables unpackaged and in 'bulk'. However it doesn't stop me looking for these things and the book has made me reassess how to cut down on packaging and disposables in the home. The take home message that memories not things are important certainly struck a chord in the approach to Christmas.

I found this book interesting concerning the ideas that Bea promotes, and full of useful hints and tips. However, I felt some concepts were a little counter productive in practical and zero waste terms. How far one can implement some of it depends on many variables, such as geographical location, climate, access to bulk buying and adequate storage for such items, size of household (single/ family) and even age limitations, definitely influence the practicalities. I was also puzzled as to why a book titled "Zero waste home" appeared to be concerned about decluttering and reducing what one might possess. To me this is irrelevant to the subject of zero waste and environmental issues. This book is thought provoking, and I found that for me personally, it helped me to realise that I would not be implementing quite such a radical approach to living! I care very much about environmental issues, and detest the sort of waste that we encounter nowadays especially with plastics and single use items, and will continue to live these values and encourage others likewise, and will work on reducing as much waste and pollution as possible, but perhaps with a gentler approach!

I read this book over and over as I am attempting to reduce waste in the home. The author's commitment to her lifestyle is inspiring even if you are unlikely to adopt all of her practices. Not everything she does in the USA and France is possible in the UK, for example, there is nowhere yet near to where I live to bulk purchase dry food minus packaging, but her household management tips are worth trying. Some of the ideas may require further investigation but they are a useful starting point. This book would be a great present for anyone beginning to establish their own household as well as anyone interested in reducing their impact on the environment.