We are happy to announce that now you have an easy way to support Waste-Free Dayton on a monthly basis, and receive member benefits in return. We have joined the Buy Me a Coffee platform, and for just $5 per month, or paying annually with at least $50 per year, you can become a Waste-Free Dayton Supporting Member for 2024.

We’re coming to the end of our third calendar year as a nonprofit, and there are of course ups and downs along the way with any organization. We are extremely pleased with how the year went for us, and it was fitting to celebrate the year with our supporters at our first ever holiday party recently. To recap 2023, let’s start with our 3 focus areas, Plastic Pollution, Reducing Waste, and Community Rejuvenation.

The end of year holiday season started several weeks ago - you could argue it started after Halloween. If you’re like me, a procrastinator when it comes to shopping and holiday preparations, this post will still be timely and useful. These tips can also be useful year round.

Make a Difference Day, recognized on the fourth Saturday of October, is the largest day of volunteering in the nation. It’s a great opportunity to get out in your community to serve others. Since we started doing litter cleanups in 2021, this is our third Make a Difference Day, and like the previous two, we are holding litter cleanups over a two day period

Scott Johnson lives in East Dayton, in Walnut Hills. He enjoys working with his hands to repurpose or bring beauty to the things around him. As someone who likes to stay up-to-date on technology and news, he also likes to incorporate sustainability in what he does and believes that we should take care of the earth and each other.

Kathleen is the owner of Pink Moon Goods. She also loves hosting fun gatherings at her store to bring the community together and discussing things like art, gardening, and ethical and waste-free living.

We have another Humans of WFD for you, and this month it is Charlie Greene.

Charlie is a local entrepreneur and advocate for native plants, selling plants through his business Tadmor Greenes. He loves Dayton, and you can sometimes find him singing karaoke or presenting some of his artwork around town. Let’s hear what he has to say!

On the final day of Plastic Free July, we encourage you to practice advocacy by telling others about the problem with plastic, and telling your elected officials. Whether a planned conversation, or just a spur of the moment exchange, telling others why you’re passionate about an issue is an important step in bringing more people to a movement.

You may have seen the stunning pictures (stunning in a bad way) of the clothing dump in the Atacama Desert in Chile, which is one of the world’s fastest growing dumps of discarded clothes. Or perhaps you’ve heard how Western countries lead the world in secondhand clothing exports, which are overwhelming the Global South. These are just two of the examples of how fast fashion is negatively impacting our planet, and the vulnerable groups of people that are going to feel that impact the most.

Summer traditions for a lot of people include going to and hosting get togethers and backyard cookouts. While a lot of things we do as a society that aren’t sustainable are because of time and convenience, there are easy and practical steps you can take to make your parties more sustainable, and rewarding!

One of the best summertime drinks is fresh-squeezed lemonade! And if you are able to get some lavender and mulberries, you can add some for a little twist in flavor and color! We love to make this drink because it tastes amazing and it’s essentially waste-free.

On Earth Day this year, Saturday, April 22nd, we held our third consecutive Earth Day litter cleanup. Like last year, we did more than one cleanup during Earth Week, and we had other events and participated in other activities during the month.

To make real change on any issue, we believe the first step is raising awareness. Awareness without action will not lead anywhere, but in order to build a movement, you have to tell people and get them to care. Raising awareness is an important aspect of our focus areas at Waste-Free Dayton, and when we were contacted in late January to be a part of an art exhibition coming to Dayton called Trash Talk, it didn’t take long for us to say yes to the opportunity.

I just finished listening to a podcast from The Carbon Copy, titled “The make or break moment for America’s energy transition.” In the episode, the host, Stephan Lacey talks with two individuals who were both highly involved in the conversation and development of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Jigar Shah, the director of Loan Program Office at the U.S. Department of Energy, and Katherine Hamilton, the Chair of 38 North Solutions. Shah explains the IRA as the “how” for the climate movement. For years, environmentalists have known about climate change and what is needed to avoid the most permanent and damaging consequences. The question has been: how do we make the necessary changes?

We’re already several weeks into the new year, so this article may be a bit late, but we wanted to share this overall look at last year, and share some of our plans for 2023.

Last year we posted a similar article in December 2021, “Tips for a Waste-Free Holiday Season”, in which we focused on sustainable gift wrapping, giving handmade, secondhand or experiences as gifts, and shopping local. In this post, we will expound on some of those areas, with the addition of a few new tips. As we discover or hear about new tips from others, we will update this post throughout the month.

Prior to a couple of weeks ago, we had not heard about The Forever Walk, an initiative started this year by Chris and Sabrina with the goal of traveling across the U.S. on foot and picking up trash along the way.

Earlier this month, we attended the Charity Bingo Night at the Yellow Cab Tavern, not because Waste-Free Dayton was the charity beneficiary, but because our friends at Access to Excess were there to benefit from the generosity and community mindedness of Yellow Cab and The Pizza Bandit.

After experiencing so many ups and downs emotionally as a climate and sustainability activist over the last few years (e.g. the U.S. withdraws from the Paris Agreement, then the U.S. is back in the Agreement; hope for a Green New Deal, those hopes dashed), the United States Congress finally passed a significant piece of legislation earlier this month to address climate change, which President Biden signed into law on August 16th. Finally, something to cheer about!