The Great Rivers Sierra Club is hosting author and environmentalist Stephanie Miller as part of a panel discussion entitled "Zero Waste Living: You & Your Community" on Friday, September 27 at 7:00 pm in the Collins Industry and Technology Center on Murray State University's main campus. She will discuss her book, Zero Waste Living, the 80/20 Way: The Busy Person’s Guide to a Lighter Footprint, and practical actions individuals can take to reduce their carbon and waste footprints. The panel, moderated by Murray State University professor emeritus Terry Strieter, will include Matthew Chadwick and Chris Chapman. WKMS Morning Edition host Daniel Hurt ahead of the presentation.
"I spent a career focusing on what the government and private sector could do to address environmental climate change issues," Miller began, "and I had a bit of a blind eye. I was a bit paralyzed, to be honest, in my own life—even though that was my professional life—on what I could do as an individual. About six years ago, when I left the organization where I was and decided to take some time off, I tried to figure out what I could do to address this kind of paralysis in my life."
"I did a lot of research, dug deep, and talked to a lot of experts on plastics, on waste, and realized that all this time, there were actually quite a few things I could have been doing in my own life that would have made a very big difference at the time, even though I was in a busy career," she continued. "You know, I wish I'd known these things. So, I wrote a book to tell people about what I learned in doing this personal experiment and how easy it would be for others to take on any number of these things in their lives as well."
Individual Change
Miller stressed that she believed that systemic solutions are a necessity to fight climate change and make a meaningful difference. She said that government regulations and private sector initiatives are needed, but there is a third leg to the stool. “You really need individuals engaged as well," she explained. "Because who's going to vote for the elected officials that will put the right regulation in place? Who is going to go to the businesses and send them the right signals? It's the individual. So, yes, it's a great feeling to have an impact in your own life on reducing your waste and having a lower carbon footprint. But absolutely, collectively, if enough of us are doing the same things, we send signals to the government and private sector about what change we want to see.”
"When I was in my office job, I would easily go through two plastic water bottles every single day," Miller said. "If you add that up, it amounted to 600 or 700 bottles that went in either the recycle bin or the landfill. Every single year, that's a big impact for one individual. Never bothered to add it up before, but I did the math—not a difficult equation—and realized, 'Wow, that's a lot.' The first thing I did on this journey was to just, very simply, carry around a reusable water bottle everywhere I went and then eliminate that entire source of waste in my life. I would like to think it sends a good signal whenever I'm carrying around my beautiful reusable water bottle for others to do the same."
Food Waste
Miller said that her biggest surprise was that food waste was one of the biggest sources of waste and impacts on climate change. She said while a big focus of her work and many others in fighting climate change and shrinking the carbon footprint was on renewable energy or energy efficiency, in fact, food waste was one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
“It accounts for 8%, which is more than the aviation sector accounts for in terms of greenhouse gas. I had a blind spot about that. But what was even more interesting and exciting was when I did a little bit more research and realized that in this country, about half of the food waste problem gets created at the household level. I was assuming, oh, you know, you've got supply chain issues. You've got losses from the farm, and there are and then losses when it gets to grocery stores," Miller said. "But almost 50% of the problem lies with us at the household level. What was super exciting about that was to realize that if we are the biggest part of the problem, we could also be the biggest part of the solution. And I've got a handful of, I think, pretty life-changing tips in terms of reducing your waste, around how to get rid of the food waste in your life.”
Miller said it could be as simple as 'out of sight, out of mind' when it comes to food waste, even down to the packaging of food. “The number one thing that has made a difference in our family was storing everything in the refrigerator in transparent containers because we've all had that moment when we have the leftovers that somehow ended up in the back of the dead zone of the fridge. Open it up two weeks later, lift the lid, and we don't even recognize what was in it. My theme here is, if it's visible, it's much more likely to be consumed by someone in the household. Put it in a glass jar. Put it in a Pyrex container. You see it, and you're more likely to eat it. That has really led to a drastic reduction in the food that we are wasting in my household. Tips like that that I think are pretty easy to implement but really make a difference—those are some of the things I'd like to touch on, I hope, during the panel.”
The Great Rivers Sierra Club hosts author and environmentalist Stephanie Miller as part of a panel discussion titled "Zero Waste Living: You & Your Community" on Friday, September 27, at 7 pm in the Collins Industry and Technology Center on Murray State University's main campus.
More information about the Great Rivers Sierra Club of Western Kentucky can be found here.
