Ep 03: Zero Waste Gainesville with Nina Bhattacharyya (Pt. 1)

Welcome to the third episode of Patrons and Partnerships, presented by the Library Partnership Branch of the Alachua County Library District.

During the pandemic, when so many of the Library District’s programs have gone virtual, we thought it was the perfect time to begin podcasting. We hope you enjoy hearing about the different partners working to support East Gainesville, interesting stories from our wonderful community members, as well as current happenings around the Alachua County Library District. 

Our guest today is Nina Bhattacharyya, the Founder of Zero Waste Gainesville.

Visit the Alachua County Library District website to browse our collection and to find other resources and services offered at your favorite, local library!

You can view a transcript of this podcast on ACLD's YouTube Channel.

Transcript

0:00

Hello, this is Darba. Welcome to another episode of Patrons and Partnerships. Today our guest is Nina Bhattacharyya[music] Hi, Darba. Thank you so much for having me here today. My name is Nina Bhattacharyya, and I’m with Zero Waste Gainesville. What led you to start zero waste Gainesville? Well, I started Zero Waste Gainesville in 2017, and I initially got involved in the zero waste effort from a lifestyle perspective. So I started following a number of zero waste blogs, looking around my house and within my life, and trying to identify ways to reduce waste. Around the same time, I became aware of an initiative being pushed by the city government to also start a zero waste initiative, and I wanted to start a community organization to show support for that effort. Can you explain the concept of zero waste and what does a zero waste lifestyle look like? Sure, absolutely. Zero Waste Gainesville has adopted

the Zero Waste International Alliance definition that states: 1:35

“Zero waste is the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.” Now, unpacking that a bit, a good way to visualize this definition is going from a process of that we are in currently-a linear economy- essentially where resources are extracted, they’re used to produce goods and products that we use, and at the end of what we deem is their useable lifespan, we dispose of them in a landfill or we incinerate them. And what we want to do with Zero Waste is really move from that type of system to a circular economy, in which, instead of putting those resources in disposal in a landfill or incinerator, they are captured and they are reused and recovered to create new resources. We also really emphasize rejecting and reducing from the onset. So that’s a good way of kind of visualizing the system- moving from that linear system to what is called the circular economy, where nothing is wasted and can be reused and repurposed again and again.

Darba: 2:57

What kind of challenges come from zero waste living?

Nina: 3:01

So zero waste living definitely has challenges, but it is actually easier than most people realize. I guess from the challenges perspective, you know, a lot of us go out in our community and we make purchases, and there’s often waste associated with those purchases. So it really takes some thought, in terms of entering a zero waste lifestyle. We really promote people to start off with what we called a waste audit, so actually do an assessment of the waste they produce. For example, if you wanted to do a waste audit, it’s really simple. All you would do is, you would identify a specific period of time in which you would collect your waste, and typically that’s like seven days. And at the end of that period, after the end of that seven days, actually take your waste, put it out on a tarp and identify what’s in there. Are there food scraps? Is there packaging associated with food? Are there paper towels? Really kind of take a look at where your waste is coming from. And then from there, you can identify ways you can reduce it. For example, if you’ve got a bunch of paper towels, an easy swap for those is to use reusable rags, or if you’ve got Kleenex that you have in your trash can, you can consider purchasing handkerchiefs, and you’ve already reduced that paper waste. Another really great swap is if you have food scraps that you noticed you throw away, such as vegetables and eggshells and coffee grinds, look into different composting options in the community, or start your own composter here at home. Those are just some examples of really identifying where that waste is coming from in your life and then working to find ways to reduce it.

Darba: 4:55

Why is it important to lead a zero waste life?

Nina: 4:58

There are multiple benefits, both personally and also for the community in leading a zero waste lifestyle. First of all, the environment. Whenever we are using products that’s using natural resources, and when you’re disposing of products, you’re also discharging those to the environment thru landfills or incinerators. And so when you’re reducing your waste, you’re helping to clean the air, clean the water, protect land-all from those resources that are being utilized to produce the stuff we use every day would not be needed. We really promote a very simple lifestyle, so just use what you need. From an economics perspective, it helps promote green jobs. You can also save money by leading a zero waste lifestyle. So here in our house, we use the smallest trash can provided by the city, the smallest trash cart. And that actually saves us on our GRU bill. In addition, because we really focus on the items we really need to purchase, we save quite a bit of money by not purchasing excessive items. And then from a community perspective, promoting zero waste lifestyle and policies also helps create green jobs for our community.

Darba: 6:27

I’m already beginning to see ways that I could participate! If one of our listeners is interested in pursuing a zero waste lifestyle, how should they get started? Does Zero Waste Gainesville have any resources?

Nina: 6:40

Absolutely. So I mentioned earlier that Zero Waste Gainesville promotes doing a waste audit as a way to initiate a zero waste lifestyle. I would like to direct your listeners to our website, zerowastegainesville.com, because we have a lot of great resources on there. For this past year, for Zero Waste Week, which was at the end of January, we actually built out our website to include activities that people can do, from a waste audit, to learning about food waste and composting options in our community, to ways to reject and reduce and refill, we’ve got a ton of resources under that Zero Waste Week 2021 web page that people can go through and start reducing their waste at home. So for example, for the waste audit, we have a video which shows how to do the waste audit. We also have material templates that people can fill out to track their waste and identify ways to reduce it. We also talk about our community composters here in Gainesville. We actually have at least two of them here in town who will compost waste for you, and in addition, we have different composting options that you can start at home, from doing a bin-type composting system, to a vermicomposting system, which involves worms. So a lot of really great resources on composting on our website. And finally, we’ve got another series of videos and PowerPoints that people can dive into to learn more about how to reduce their waste. And also, when you make purchases, we really promote research before purchasing to make sure you’re purchasing a quality good that will last a long period of time.

Darba: 8:36

We would love to have you back again to discuss Zero Waste Gainesville’s engagement with the community. Is there anything else you’d like to share that I haven’t asked?

Nina: 8:46

Sure, I would like to just mention that Zero Waste Gainesville has a mission that’s twofold. We promote a zero waste lifestyle and we provide resources and education for people to learn how to adopt those types of practices within their own lives. We also do advocacy at our local government, the city and county, where we’re really pushing for zero waste policies to be passed and adopted, because we recognize that zero waste, to reach zero waste as a community, really involves everyone. It involves us at the individual level, and it involves our elected officials and local government acting at their level. It involves businesses as well. So we really try to operate on all of those levels, to help our community reach our zero waste goals. So I would just encourage for people to again visit our website, zerowastegainesville.com, to follow us on Facebook and Instagram, because we post about different things that are going on in the community of which they can stay engaged and learn about what’s happening.

Darba: 10:02

We thank you, you’ve certainly shared a lot of information with us today and we have a lot that we can use to help with Zero Waste Gainesville.

Nina: 10:10

Thank you again for having me. It was a pleasure![music]