An Almost Zero Waste Life by Megan Weldon
Learning How to Embrace Less and Live More

Looking for ways to minimize your waste and make the earth a better place for all? This book definitely has many ideas to help you whether you are a novice or have already been working on this for awhile. Sure, I have seen many of the ideas before and even started to collect ideas but this book has most of those ideas in one place simplified and easy to understand. Not all of the ideas will be useful to everyone but any little change any person makes will improve the environment for everyone.

What I liked:
* The recipes for everything from cleaning products to makeup
* Ideas on how to cut down waste in the kitchen
* Gift ideas including how to wrap items without paper
* Use of cloth and recycling of cloth for many purposes
* The layout and design of the book
* The many ideas collected in one resource
* That the book covered issues like parties, holidays, children, pets, housekeeping and more in regard to decreasing waste.
* The nonjudgmental way the subject was presented

What I did not like:
* Knowing that many of the ideas will not be easy for me to implement where I live
* That this information arrived when I am in lockdown during a pandemic

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I recommend it to others? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – RockPoint for the ARC – this is my honest review.

4.5 Stars

An excellent introduction to zero waste, with many (realistic) steps both big and small. Megean Weldon is good about reminding you that every step you take matters, and you don't need to take them all at once.
She covers every room of the house, and specific areas such as kids, travel, pets etc. At the end of the book is a great 30 day challenge, although it is a bit repetitive if you have read all of the book (but it would serve as an excellent reminder).
My one criticism is that Weldon really doesn't consider people who aren't able-bodied. While she is good abut recognizing that not everyone can do everything, I would really have liked her to recognise that a lot of the suggestions in the book are only an option for people with certain privileges such as being able-bodied, living in areas where it is safe to cycle, having a local zero waste shop etc.
All in all I do highly recommend it though, take what you can use and leave the rest.

Great book! It nicely covers the topic of zero waste. I love the design. The book is divided into sections – different rooms and occasions. There were suggestions in the book that I already know and use, but I found a few new ideas that I have to try out.

I like the recipes, meal planning ideas, and recipes for DIY cosmetics and cleaners. I like that the author gives tips and suggestions and doesn't persuade you that you have to do something. Zero waste life is not easy. It can be very stressful sometimes - the author admits that.

This was such a fun and beautiful book to read! I love to think about ways to reduce my waste and support the environment. This was a simple, easy read however very informative with plenty of tips that seem easily attainable. I look forward to trying some of the beauty tips and loved the zero waste gift ideas. I highly recommend this lovely book!

Thank you, Quarto Publishing Group and NetGalley for a digital ARC!

A great place to start for living a life that produces less waste. The author is down to earth in perspective and her suggestions are realistic and easy to follow.

A really great introduction to zero-waste philosophy with a lot of helpful tips! It can get a bit repetitive since the main theme is "reduce, reuse, recycle"—but that's a lesson we all need to get hammered into our heads.

This book is a useful guideline to understand how much everyone can do at home to reduce waste. Given your own circumstances and financial options you can pick and chose as much as possible. Of course, not every idea is applicable to everyone's situation and the book is explicitly directed at American readers who seem to need to catch up a bit on a generally more sustainable lifestyle. Is that so? I don't know.
Some suggestions in the book seemed a bit strange to me, but I live in Germany, so maybe they just don't apply. Others are impractical, if you do not live near farmer's markets or have to order stuff online. Sustainable products often cost twice as much as the plastic stuff. This has become a huge market, everyone wants to profit from it.

As the book says, not every suggestion is meant for everyone. But to just take a step back and think twice before you buy stuff or before you throw it away is the first step we all need to take. After that, do some more. This book might help you to see where to begin. There are more possibilities that one would assume.

This book has some good ideas and tips on creating less waste in your every day life. It certainly makes you think about how much you use every day. The only downside for me is because I'm based in the uk some of the items are applicable here.

Practical and helpful tips to lead a more sustainable, almost zero waste life. The suggestions work for a variety of lifestyles and budgets. I particularly enjoyed the ideas around food waste, such as cooking with scraps, and using food as a fuel energy source.

Two years ago, a friend and I became obsessed with lowering our trash output. We spent a lot of time discussing options and ways to reduce our household waste. She was determined to live a waste free summer. I was less determined, but very supportive of her goal. When I saw An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life, I decided it was about time to explore a waste-free lifestyle again.

Weldon decided to embark on a zero-waste lifestyle after walking through her neighborhood, cleaning up trash as an Earth Day project. She expected to fill a small bag, instead she filled multiple trash bags, which helped to kick-start her hard look into her waste lifestyle.

An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life is an amazing beginners guide to transitioning into a zero-waste lifestyle. The book is filled with great information about non-wasteful alternatives in all areas of the house. It also has great tips for incorporating zero-waste into your holidays, your life with children, shopping and travel.

Honestly, even though An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life was filled with great information and a ton of awesome recipes to help you along your zero-waste path, it did all seem a little overwhelming. I don’t think that has anything to do with Weldon’s book. It more has to do with the fact that we’ve been trained to go for convenience and changing that mindset is going to take work. Sometimes even hard work. I think the way to combat that would be to use the 30 step challenge that Weldon included. (A great tool, btw!) I’m going to try to pick one step per month and work on trying to implement that one change per month. Maybe I can even get my friend to join in on the challenge.

If you’ve been toying with making some changes to your environmental impact, I’d highly suggest giving An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life a read. There are going to be things you’re not going to want to try, but I can guarantee that you’ll at least find a few ideas you’ll be excited to get working on!

I have read almost every single book out there on zero waste at the moment so while there is not much left for me to learn, there are definitely books out there that are better than others. This book is so fun and the drawings and layout of the book is a real plus. Without even considering the actual information contained in the book it is beautiful to look at and really easy to read.

The content is very well done as well. Though this may not be the most in depth book it is written in a way that is easy to digest as well as flip through to a specific section if needed. The addition of recipes (both food and DIY) are helpful so that you don't have to look those up separately and the sections are practical and helpful. While some of the tips are very well known to me at this point I felt like they all fit well into the book and would be a great starter for someone new to their zero waste journey.

I love this book! It’s helpful and encouraging. There are times when you read books like this and immediately feel like you don’t measure up. Like you aren’t or haven’t been doing enough. I never got that feeling, I felt like I could do one of these zero waste tips and I would have made even a small impact. I do a lot of these things now, and love reading ways to up my contribution in living a more thoughtful, waste free life.

I have to admit I went into this book with a bias. The past couple of years, I have been on the constant lookout for ideas to alter my regular habits to make a difference (environmentally). Since I had time on my hands, I looked up a lot of small things and a couple of big changes that I could implement. 

I have been dragging a cart full of glass bottles to a zero-waste store to refill my soaps and bulk groceries. I have switched to soapnut for my regular laundry and with all of this, I am well versed in this lifestyle even if I do not use all that information in my daily life. I am only describing all this in detail only because this knowledge meant there was little that was new in this one. This is a useful book for those beginning this journey. It lists ideas in beneficial ways that will stick to your mind and ease the transition. It has recipes for some do-it-yourself products which eliminate waste by repurposing it as well as finer details on reducing waste in general. All in all, it has good ideas but quite a few of them are already well practised by many. Those who are just thinking about investing time and effort into reducing waste (like a friend I spoke to last weekend mentioned wanting to do) will find this as a simple and helpful push in the right direction.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is solely based on my reading experience and my prior knowledge of the Zero-waste lifestyle.

Some nice information that one may see in other sources and may see for the first time here. Goes into different rooms of the home and get a 2-week meal plan.

Lots of great ideas in this book. I’m always looking for ways to reduce the waste in my life so I appreciated the suggestions found here.

What can I say, this book completely threw me because it exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be just another book on how to reduce waste. But it was far more than this, it was full of facts and recipes. I thought I was quite up on zero waste, but this taught me a thing or two. Great recipes from your household cleaning to beauty to baby recipes. I can’t wait to try out the dry shampoo recipe! I also thought that the thirty steps to zero waste challenge was an amazing idea, something for everyone to get involved in.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

I liked this book, it came with a bunch of no nonsense, non judgmental advice on how to live waste free. None of this I felt was revolutionary or new, but it was certainly nice to see all that information compiled in a book.

An almost zero waste life is not only a book detailing ways to use steel straws to save the turtles, but Megean Weldon goes into depth about each individual item at length. She gives detailed DIY items such as environmentally friendly soap and recipes to avoid food waste. Several items that she lists are fully backed by reasons why other environmentalists should use these products/systems but then she goes further and details why the whole family could easily get on board as well. As for me I felt that each explanation stamped out the tiny bit of doubt in my mind that I couldn't reasonably adapt this into my life.
To be honest some of the suggestions are still ludicrous even after the great explanation, such as the suggestion " If you're having a family dinner, put a large pan or pot in the middle of the table and make it a fun family-style experience". So you mean to tell me to save a little bit of dishes, I am going to be eating from the cesspool in which my entire family's mouth has been. Yikes... Also, some parts of this book are very fleshed out yet some are overwhelmingly vague that I had an almost WTF moment in my mind. To further explain, she details in her "Feed the Hungry" section that EPA recommends that businesses donate excess food waste to farms.... If you are interested in doing this, be sure to read your state's fine print.." In case you felt the need to reread the section I am recalling, there is really no other information. Does she know where to look? Who , what, where?? Parts like these made it horribly lopsided for her argument that conveyed a facade that maybe she didn't know enough about the subject from an observer. For suggestions/misshapen arguments like that I do not give this 5 stars.
BUT! This book has ultimately helped me with tips and tricks that after years of researching, I have not found already. With tiny intricate plans to follow that I have not found anywhere else, I believe that anyone could get something out of this book, even the non-environmentalist.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This was such an enjoyable, quick read about an incredibly important topic! Living more sustainably and reducing my carbon footprint are goals of mine for 2020 and I appreciated how many useful, easy tips were included in this book. The author lays out eco-friendly tips, swaps, recipes and more in an easy-to-read format, supplemented by fun illustrations and photos. My favorite feature was the list of 30 sustainability challenges listed toward the end of the book; each one acts as a doable step for living more sustainably.

Such a wonderful quick-reference guide to keep handy as you begin making sustainable choices!

With increasing awareness of climate change and global warming, there is a need to make drastic changes not only among governments but also as individuals. Megean Weldon proposes an almost zero waste life, ensuring that the products that we consume daily do not end up in landfills but are purposed and safe both for humans and the environment She notes that humans from previous generations have been living without trash because their ways of life encouraged frugality and everything has a purpose.

In this book, Weldon provides step by step alternatives that readers can use to shift to a more environmentally conscious lifestyle by providing DIY recipes, checklists and challenges that they can easily implement incrementally.

One great thing that she emphasises is that this the journey to zero-waste is not about perfection because we all have different stories, potential and limitations. Knowing this is important to people who are prone to eco-anxiety.

An Almost Zero-Waste Life is a great and beautifully designed resource to have on hand for anyone thinking about making green lifestyle changes.