Make a difference again this week with your Changeletter!

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July 2026: waste & climate change

Each month, we break down our topic into four weekly modules. Catch up on previous editions here.​

This week's module: ACT

• ✅ DREAM | imagine a world without X where you decide what the variable is
• ✅ LEARN | learn about actual, systemic solutions for waste around the world
• 🎯 ACT | actions you can take asap for a waste-free future
• REFLECT | Art, poetry, and commitments

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Here's what we'll learn today Reader

Hi! If you are reading this, I have a lil personal request. In a few minutes, my baby nephew who was born last week is having open heart surgery. Any prayers, well wishes, or whatever you'd like to put into the universe would be so appreciated.

I've been with family this week helping with baby stuff, and it's made me reflect on how fragile and miraculous life is. (YES I KNOW THIS IS SUCH A CLICHE, LEAVE ME ALONE)

Like...we get to live HERE on this PLANET and be ALIVE?

It reminds me of a quote from Becky Chambers' A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which is one of my favorite books and certainly my favorite solarpunk text.

Yes, smoke is clogging our skies and arteries, and yes, we're living through the consequences of unchecked greed of fossil fuel CEOs, politicians, and billionaires, but we have so so so so much to fight for.

Today's Changeletter is for my baby Asher <3 and all the medical advancements that have made it possible for newborn babies to have freaking open heart surgery. All this was implausible, impossible, until someone made it happen.

Your bite-sized action plan Reader

1. Cancel your Amazon Prime account. I know, I know. It's convenient. It's cheap. But you can still order stuff online, and even on Geoffrey Peesos's website, without a paid Prime account. You can even use a buddy system. Find a friend, or four, and pool a single subscription so the rest of you can cancel. When I canceled mine a few years ago, my consumption shrunk dramatically. I still order stuff here and there on other people's Prime, but only when I need it.
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2. Watch the documentary Buy Now. Consumption isn't something we do as easily as breathing, but that's how companies treat it. The amount of propaganda to keep us addicted to buying stuff is unreal, and this documentary addresses it. Host a watch party with your friends!
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3. Start composting and more importantly, advocate for composting in your area. One of the experts who came to chat with us at Soapbox about waste said that if there was only ONE takeaway from her Q&A, it would be that composting matters SOOOO much more than people think. Even Tr*mp's EPA acknowledges this, so you know it's bad: "Due to its quick decay rate, food waste in landfills is contributing to more methane emissions than any other landfilled materials. An estimated 58 percent of the fugitive methane emissions (i.e., those released to the atmosphere) from municipal solid waste landfills are from landfilled food waste." And methane has 80x the warming power of carbon dioxide.​
   1. Check if your area already has composting, and if so, make sure to take advantage of those resources
   2. If not, write to your local representatives (e.g. city council) asking them to fund municipal compost. All you have to do is introduce yourself and make the ask!
4. Support local repair businesses. So much stuff is thrown away because we are trained to be lazy, or we assume that it's broken forever. Also, because sometimes, the cost of repair exceeds the cost of buying something new. But next time an item of clothing is torn or an electronic is malfunctioning, at least take it to your local tailor/repair shop and have a conversation with them. Who knows, maybe you'll write legislation together about getting your city to fund repair!
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5. Think about buying refurbished. I bought my past few phones from Backmarket, which sells repaired/refurbished electronics.
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6. Find out what happens to your waste, and if possible, take a tour! This is a fun one especially if you have kids, because all kids are obsessed with garbage trucks, I don't make the rules. Do you know what happens to the stuff you throw away? It's quite easy to find out if you look it up, and many transfer stations/waste facilities offer tours!
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7. Talk about it!! There are SOOOO MANYYYY types of waste, whether it's food or textiles or electronics or something else. Talk to your friends about how it stresses you out! Talk to them about how your local landfill is closing early because your county has been throwing away too much stuff (true story)! Talk about how throwing food in the garbage instead of compost is actually illegal! (also true story for Seattle)
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8. Get involved in legislation. It's an exciting time to be a trash queen. Not only do we have Jimothy as a mascot, but so much is going on on a systems level, like Extended Producer Responsibility laws. It's so much easier than you think. Many representatives have office hours and newsletters. The first step is to figure out what's going on around you, and then expressing what you care about!

There is so much hope for our world. We have all the stuff we need to heal our planet. We do not need more of stuff, but we DO need more people like you who care about addressing this challenge and not calling it "inevitable."

Inevitability is propaganda designed to make you feel despair. Don't give into it, and don't let Geoffrey Peesos have the last word.

For you and all the babies who need us to create a better world,

Nivi

P.S. here's the EPA graphic

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