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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: LEARN

• ✅ 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

Last week, I asked you to live out a world without X where X could be a variable of your choice, including:

• A world without plastic
• A world without apathy
• A world without rush

Reply and let me know how that went! It's PNW Climate Week this week so I'll be slow to respond (okay fine I am always slow to respond) but I read every single response and get around to it, even if it's a year later.

Today, we'll be learning about what the corporate playbook for creating a throwaway society is, and some initiatives to put the burden of waste back on producers.

Waste is overwhelming, but it's also one of the areas within the climate crisis where I feel the most hope. We CAN solve waste, on an individual, household, business, and policy level. (We can also stop stressing out about if our 1 plastic cling wrap is recyclable (it's not usually) and use that time to badger our representatives.)

Composting, for example, is a super simple, super high-impact climate solution, and you can effect systems change on a municipal level, which rocks. And we're living in a time right now where policy is being passed to put the burden of waste back on producers. There is hope!

That said, I know things are scary especially if you live in areas impacted by wildfire, war, or other disasters. Here's a link to Canadian fire relief efforts and Venezuela's earthquake search and rescue. I will also use this moment to redirect your attention to Gaza, which has been under siege non-stop for the past almost three years, and doesn't have many formal relief structures. Journalists, aid workers, and diplomats have been systematically killed. The crisis hasn't gone away, but the aid has, so I'm sharing this roundup of mutual aid to help families directly.​

To end in this weird whiplash (hopelash) sandwich, I will end my intro with one more hopeful thing. E. Jean Carroll has received her $5.625 million dollar settlement after being sexually assaulted by the sitting president of the United States of America. The people persist, and sometimes we win.

Let's chat about some more ways we can win, especially when it comes to waste!👇🏾

Your bite-sized action plan Reader

Many of us have grown up in a throwaway society. I have vague memories of being able to pop the battery out of my phone, but mostly, when something's broken, I don't know what to do with it OR it's cheaper to get a new thing. So I've chucked that broken zipper and the whole dress, or my phone with the cracked screen, and bought things.

Surprise, surprise: this take-make-waste design is intentional. It's not about consumer demand; it's about corporate engineering.

The video I'm sharing today is how that engineering and subsequent greenwashing happened, using McDonald's as an example. I've also linked some articles on the most hopeful solution that can create (and is creating!) massive systems change around the world: extended producer responsibility.

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3 key takeways for today:

• Landfill space is finite. Many landfills are closing ahead of schedule because we produce too much waste. We are literally running out of room for our garbage.
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• McDonalds have known they're greenwashing for decades when it comes to their packaging. Companies will spend so much more money on PR and "sustainability research" marketing than actual sustainability, and this playbook has worked year after year.
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• Legislation is key to hold companies to sustainable standards because they won't do it on their own. The general category of laws we need are called Extended Producer Responsibility, which basically says the creators/producers of waste must pay for it. Some examples are Washington State's recent Recycling Reform Act and Europe's Right to Repair Directive. The repair article is incredible; I learned that "the European Commission found that prematurely discarding products instead of repairing them annually generates 35 million tons of waste and 261 million tons of greenhouse gases through additional resource needs, energy consumption, and waste incineration — equivalent to roughly 8 percent of the E.U.’s total greenhouse gas emissions."

Here's the video again! It's short and perfect for a quick break during your workday.

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Plus a bonus takeaway on food waste and composting: on an individual/household level, if you can compost, DO IT! Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, counted as ~80x more potent than CO2, and EVERYONE has food scraps. Save your food waste from landfills if you can avoid it! This is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do on an individual level, and on a larger scale, you can push implement composting in your municipality or business.

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