Low Waste vs Zero Waste: what’s the difference?

First things first, to be clear, in our current global set up, there is no such thing as a true zero waste lifestyle. Zero waste is, at the moment, a goal, or an aspiration, that we should all be working towards in the long term, but in order to achieve this business, governments and individuals have to make some changes in the way we buy and consume our products. For more on what zero waste vs low waste means to us at the Dog Grocer, and how we’re working with these models in our business activities, see below.

What does Zero Waste Mean and why is it important?

Zero waste, in its purest form, is about reducing the amount of rubbish that we send to landfill. At the moment our economy revolves around what we call a ‘linear’ model, which means that the majority of things that we buy end up going from our homes, straight to landfill. On a global scale, households and business produce between 2.1 and 2.3 billion tonnes of waste a year and our landfill systems, and planet, can no longer cope (for more on the effects of landfill on the environment see this National Geographic piece).

The Zero Waste movement is about trying to move us away from this linear model and towards a more circular economy for our waste. This means reducing, re-using and recycling our waste before it goes to landfill to try and minimise our impact no the planet. So having a zero waste lifestyle basically means looking at all of the products that you use in your daily life, and seeing whether, through changing your shopping habits and the way you use your products, you can reduce the amount of rubbish you put in your bin at the end of the day. For businesses, this means trying to buy products that help customers to achieve this, whether through prioritising products that come in recycled packaging, or thinking of inventive ways to ensure that the lifespan of a product can be extended through re-use.

A zero waste lifestyle has become so important to our understanding of how to create positive change for the planet that the UN has started its own ‘international day of zero waste’ and the UK run’s a zero waste week every year.

Why Low Waste and not Zero Waste at The Dog Grocer?

As we’ve already highlighted, zero waste, whilst the thing we should all be working towards, is also incredibly difficult in our current society. On an individual level, a zero waste lifestyle can be incredibly hard to achieve for a variety of reasons, including access to products, price and limited choice.

For businesses, particularly independent shops, it can also be tricky to offer customers genuinely zero waste purchasing options if manufacturers of the products we sell aren’t building these principles into their products from the start. This is particularly true of the pet industry, where a lot of manufacturers still supply their products in unnecessary plastic packaging, or where leading manufacturers of things like toys, harnesses and collars, and beds still aren’t thinking about how they can use more sustainable, or recycled materials, in their production lines.

That’s why at the Dog Grocer we can’t quite yet claim to be a ‘zero waste’ dog shop, as in order to supply you and your dog with all of the things that you need, we will sometimes have to use our suppliers that don’t meet our preferred zero waste ideals. So instead we describe ourselves as a ‘low waste’ dog shop. On a practical level this means that, whilst we will always prioritise buying products from zero waste manufacturers first and foremost (where those products are also affordable from a customer perspective), some of the things we have in store may have a small amount of waste associated with them when they arrive in store with us.

However it is our hope that by buying some of those items in bulk, and offering them to you as customers as refills (rather than packaging them up in our own branded packets), we will still be significantly reducing the amount of waste that ends up going to landfill. We will also act as a Terracyle hub for old toys, harnesses, collars and beds to give you a place to take your old or unwanted dog products where they will be guaranteed an environmentally friendly second life.

How is the Jess Fox and Hound Dog Grocer working towards Zero waste lifestyle for your dogs?

Just because the pet industry isn’t quite where we want it to be in terms of zero waste, this doesn’t mean we aren’t going to be working towards this in the long term! In fact, pushing manufacturers of dog products towards creating environmentally conscious products for us to sell will be at the forefront of what we do in store! We are already working with a number of suppliers to help reduce the packaging that our products come to us in and, (most excitingly) we are also the exclusive stockists of some incredible zero waste brands that have, until now, only been available online.

For more on our products, and the values that come with them, take a look at our product list online. 

And for more on the principles and initiatives that we are using in store to maintain our eco-friendly promise, see this blog here.