Our consumables go through a lot before they get to a stage where we can actually consume them. Everything we buy uses lots of raw materials, oil and chemicals during production, manufacture, storage and distribution, and has environmental impacts (such as waste, CO2 and other emissions) at every stage. Throwing things out before they're completely finished means they end up in landfill or washed out into rivers, rotting away and polluting the planet. More stuff then needs to get made which starts the wasteful cycle all over again.
It might seem easier to open a new jar of something when the old one's only got a bit left in it, or order more paint even though there's still half a tin in the garage from last time, or throw out those leftover veggies because we bought new ones, but it just creates a terrible mountain of waste and disregards all the energy and resources that went into making it. For example, about 6.7 million tonnes of food, much of it still perfectly edible, is thrown away every year in the UK, and ends up rotting in landfill sites producing CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
As things get more expensive, especially food and oil and energy, we are quite literally pouring money down the drain when we throw out usable things. So use the other side of the paper, make a delicious inventive meal from all those leftovers in the fridge, use up that pen and pencil completely, mend that tiny hole in your sock, and get full use out of those clothes you spent good money on. Use things up till the very end until they're completely finished, and they'll reward you by saving you some cash because they lasted longer, and leave less impact on the planet.
Carbon saved by all-consuming things:
There are endless items in the home which we waste that can be used up completely. The biggest source of waste is arguably food, as well as consumables like shampoo and toothpaste, and items we'll generally buy less frequently like clothes and shoes.
CO2 due to food. We throw away huge amounts of food each year. CO2 emissions resulting from food waste is around 315 kg CO2 per year.
Please take a look here
for more details.
CO2 due to clothing. Each week we throw out textiles that result in around 2.4 kg CO2 per week or 124.8 kg CO2 per year. We'll round this down slightly to take into account the small amount of genuine rags that can't be all-consumed any further = 120 kg CO2 per year.
CO2 of general products. According to our calculations the embedded carbon in a product is around 0.78 kg CO2 per pound (£) spent - see here for full methodology. If we say an average consumable product costs about £2.80 (e.g. things like toothpaste, soap, pencils, a notebook, shampoo or even paint (paint will obviously be more, but pencils will be less so we can assume things will average out)) this comes to 2.18 kg CO2 every time you don't have to buy a new item because you held on to it and used it all up. In reality this CO2 value is likely to be more because there is added CO2 and other GHG costs associated with transport, packaging and landfilling waste.
If we make the broad assumption that you could save yourself 4 new products a year (1 every three months) because you used up what you had already this would come to a saving of 2.18 x 4 = 8.72 kg CO2 per year.
Therefore all-consuming things results in CO2 savings:
= 315 + 120 + 8.72 = 443.72 kg CO2 per year = 36.98 kg CO2 per month, or 8.53 kg CO2 per week.
