Meet Lauren and Kelly from Toronto - they live minimalist lifestyles and host the popular podcast Millennial Minimalists. Minimalism and zero waste go hand in hand - we're all trying to live with less, and to live happier, healthier lives. While millions around the world are trapped in the cycle of overconsumption, Lauren and Kelly and finding ...…

The conversation continues with Meera Jain, better known on Instagram as the GreenMum, as she discusses zero waste living in Toronto. Laura and Meera talk about shopping habits, accessibility issues, and returnable container programs.

Meera Jain, better known as thegreenmum on Instagram, lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. She focuses on reducing her carbon footprint, keeping herself and her family healthy, and living low waste. In part one of our conversation, Meera and Laura speak about Toronto's new initiative to compost diapers (!) and we find out what Me ...…

Bite Toothpaste Bits started with two questions: Why does toothpaste come in plastic tubes and what exactly are we putting in our bodies when we brush our teeth? More than one billion toothpaste tubes end up in landfills every year, but Lindsay McCormick has come up with a better solution! Her company, Bite Toothpaste Bits, replaces the need fo ...…

Alex Bruce is a champion cocktail maker from Toronto who's competed on the world stage. He wanted to serve healthier versions of the classics, with less sugar and less waste, so he opened The Lark restaurant with his wife Celine LePache, and serves healthy and organic options both on the menu and drink list. Their daily operations are sustainab ...…

Ross Beaty is a geologist and entrepreneur in the international minerals field. He currently Chairs Pan American Silver Corp., Equinox Gold Corp., and has founded and divested many other resource companies. He is also an environmental philanthropist, primarily through The Sitka Foundation. He Chairs the BC Parks Foundation, serves on the Adviso ...…

Star of the television show Free Ride on the Discovery Channel, Rob Greenfield, joins the Countdown to talk about his journey from South America, his bike ride across the United States, his book Dude Making A Difference, and his philosophy on consumption.

Rachel Revoy joins the Countdown for her third episode as we talk about Christmas trees, Christmas travel, and even Christmas food. Warning: we talk a little bit about meat! Not that much though. We also talk about the commercial from Iceland that was banned for being "too political", because it shows how destructive palm oil can be. Music Cred ...…

Rachel Revoy from Quinte Waste Solutions joins us again to speak about her own personal countdown to zero waste from a holiday perspective! Join the countdown as we talk about zero waste and low waste options for Christmas this season, including everything from wrapping paper to flying over the holidays. Stay tuned for an upcoming part two epis ...…

Meet Shane Price, the founder and CEO of Green Circle Salons, and find out how this Canadian from Toronto has changed the way American, and Canadian, salons get rid of their trash. Did you know that our hair can be used to make absorbent pads that can clean up oil spills? That's a much better end of life for hair, rather than ending up buried i ...…

Kyle Calian founded the Regeneration Magazine, a collection of environmental stories and interviews with climate leaders and entrepreneurs who are making positive, sustainable change. The magazine is biannually available in digital or print, and Issue No. 4 of The Regeneration Magazine will be published this winter and will feature green energy ...…

Kristin Lawless (previously published as Kristin Wartman) is a Certified Nutrition Educator, an author, and an independent journalist focusing on the intersections of food, health, politics, and culture. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Newsweek, VICE, Huffington Post, and Civil Eats, as well as in academic journals su ...…

CNN calls her the mother of the zero waste lifestyle movement and The New York Times calls her the priestess of waste free living. Her book Zero Waste Home has been printed in over 20 different languages, she's spoken in 55 different countries, and her family of four only produces one jar of trash per year. Join the ZWC as we find out what Bea' ...…

Matt Wilkins is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt's Center for Science Outreach who works as the Resident Scientist at Head Magnet Middle School, developing and teaching STEM curriculum. He collaborates with science, math, English, social studies, and Spanish teachers to build rigorous, engaging, interdisciplinary lessons that help students m ...…

Host of The Zero Waste Countdown Laura Nash met up with revolutionary fashion designer Daniel Silverstein, better known as Zero Waste Daniel, at his design shop in Brooklyn. Fast fashion is quickly causing our planet a lot of problems - it's using too much water, too much oil, too many petroleum-based dyes, dumping too much effluent into rivers ...…

Meet Linn Frisinger, co-founder and CEO of Swedish Stockings who joins Laura in episode 26 of the ZWC to talk all about her sustainable company. Their high quality stockings are made from polyamide reclaimed from a big problem in our oceans - fish nets. Often called ghost nets, loose fishing nets tangle up and kill marine life and release micro ...…

Do you know what's in your makeup, or what to do with the container and packaging once you're finished with it? Meet Melodie Reynolds, CEO and founder of Elate Cosmetics from Victoria, British Columbia. Her products are ethical and sustainable with bamboo packaging and only ingredients that are good for your skin and healthy for the environment ...…

In Australia food waste is estimated to cost the Australian economy around $20 billion dollars each year. Australians throw away about 5.3 billion tonnes of edible food each year. In the United States it’s estimated that 415 kilograms (or about 915 pounds) of food is wasted per person each year and in Mexico it’s about half that. In Canada, $31 ...…

Jay Sinha cowrote the book Life Without Plastic: The Practical Step-by-Step Guide to Avoiding Plastic to Keep Your Family and the Planet Healthy with his partner Chantal Plamondon. They also have their own store Life Without Plastic where we can find healthy alternatives to items typically made from plastic. Well researched and scientific, Life ...…

Do you ever walk into a supermarket and get that sinking feeling in your stomach, as you look around at all that wasteful plastic and unnecessary packaging? Imagine getting your groceries in a plastic free environment with no plastic bags and no plastic single use containers. A place with fresh fruit and vegge, friendly staff, plenty of vegan o ...…

Have you ever heard of collective action? It's basically when a bunch of people make a change in their own lives that, collectively, ends up making a big difference. The average female will use approximately 11,000 sanitary products in her lifetime. So what if one person switches to reusable period products, but then another woman switches, and ...…

Meet Joanna Ruda. Her company Jo Kaminska Ethical Jewelry has been funding the Jo Kaminska Foundation for years, which focuses on educating others about the dangers of single use plastic overconsumption. Originally from Poland she’s spent many years living in Sri Lanka and she’s spoken to the UN multiple times regarding plastic pollution. But l ...…

Canada has entered the world stage when it comes to the environment and plastics recovery and reduction. Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre and Minister of Environment & Climate Change Catherine McKenna knows what's up when it comes to reducing single use plastics - she's also a diver and a swimmer and has seen first hand that the oceans ar ...…

Meet Josh Walters (front right), one of the men behind the new Feedback App sweeping Toronto’s quick service restaurant scene. When a restaurant gets close to throwing out leftover food they post a discount on the Feedback App instead. Hungry deal seekers can use the app to find restaurants close by offering discounts in realtime, thus decreasi ...…

What is BPA, where is it found, how is it getting inside us, and why is it potentially dangerous to human health? Which age group is most exposed to BPA? Lorna Harries is an Associate Professor in Molecular Genetics at University Exeter Medical School. “She developed an interest in gene regulation and alternative messenger RNA processing in end ...…

The flower industry packs a large carbon footprint by using airplanes for transport, refrigerated trucks, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, plastic packaging, cellophane, little plastic trinkets, and balloons and ribbons that end up on our beaches and can strangle wildlife. What a mess! Local farmer Melanie Harrington of Dahlia May Flower Fa ...…

The Director of Environmental Defence Canada, Tim Gray, joins the Countdown to speak with us about legislation in Canada that's leading to waste reduction on a massive provincial scale. Five cent plastic bag charges have shown to be more than 85% effective in reducing plastic bag use and Environmental Defence is pushing Ontario to introduce a b ...…

Our mindless overconsumption is out of control on a planetary scale and our oceans are being emptied at an alarming rate. A lot of fish that are taken from our oceans today lose their lives but aren’t actually consumed by humans – what’s happening to our oceans? Julia Barnes is the award-winning filmmaker behind Sea of Life. For as long as she ...…

Sustain makes healthy, sustainable clothing from organic, natural fibers that are good for your body and good for the world. Unlike traditional manufacturing processes they avoid using petroleum-based dyes and toxic chemicals that harm the environment and can absorb into your skin. Sustain's selection of plant-dyed clothing is made with certifi ...…

Join Laura in Toronto as she speaks with Jessica Panetta, the Marketing and Communications Manager for TerraCycle Canada, as we talk about how TerraCycle started, how it works, how you can participate, and how you can get your workplace involved. A Zero Waste Box on top of a bench made from TerraCycle recycled plastics TerraCycle is Eliminating ...…

Keya Chatterjee speaks with us from Washington D.C. about her book The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby. We discuss how she calculated her baby's carbon footprint during his first year of life, the difference between cloth and disposable diapers, her experience with elimination communication, and she give ...…

The Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency (OCRRA) is in charge of facilitating the proper disposal of solid waste in the county. Proper disposal is a constantly evolving term, and OCRRA has been a leader in this evolution, having won numerous national awards; most recently the 2017 Solid Waste Association of North America’s Gold Award for Co ...…

China recently announced it will no longer accept contaminated plastic recycling from the West, leaving municipalities in England and North America scrambling. Why isn't Quinte Waste Solutions affected? Quinte Waste Solutions was one of the frontrunners of the blue box program in Ontario, Canada, going strong now for 28 years. More than that, Q ...…

Children's clothes are bought cheap these days with dire consequences for the environment and foreign workers. Cheap clothing often ends up in landfill sooner than we expected and while it's briefly worn by our children, cheap clothing, especially waterproof outerwear, gives off toxins that were used in its production. Enter: Faire Child, from ...…

Daniela is a personal chef from Ottawa who's perfected healthy, often waste-free meals on a budget. She grew up in an Italian-Canadian household where it was important not to waste food. She helps her clients meal plan, reduce their waste, reduce their meat consumption (if they choose), reduce unnecessary plastic, and reduce stress on working p ...…

Meet Kaveri Marathe: she recently started a social enterprise called Texiles in the Washington, D.C. area that's aiming to remove clothing from landfill. Americans send 13 million tons of clothing to landfill each year where material decomposes slowly and releases harmful greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. In fact, the annual environmental i ...…

Dariya and Dominic are avid adventure seekers with degrees in Environmental Science and an unstoppable passion for conscious living. From city day walks to weekend warrior hikes to 6 months trekking the Pacific Crest Trail, they have refined their gear and style to have as little impact on the environment as possible as they venture off into th ...…

Oil and gas production creates a lot of heat that could be harnessed and used in Canada, along with heat produced by the earth itself. Kim Vinet, pro big mountain skier and geologist from Revelstoke, British Columbia, works for Epoch Energy and is leading the way forward when it comes to renewables in Canada. Are dams a green source of energy? ...…

Jay Brandes, professor and researcher of Chemical Oceanography at the University of Georgia's Department of Marine Sciences in Savannah, is currently conducting a study on microplastics in marine life off the coast of Georgia. He's already made a startling discovery! Should you still be eating seafood? We discuss microplastics, microfibers, mic ...…

We speak with Kim Vinet, pro big mountain skier and geologist, who recently made a career switch from the oil and gas industry into renewables. We talk about how the love of skiing and the outdoors leads us to care for the environment and work to preseve those outdoor spaces for the future. Kim gives us tips to reduce our energy footprint and a ...…

The convenience of single-use plastics, from water bottles, take-out utensils, and straws to food wraps and grocery store containers has taken over our way of life. Studies are beginning to warn us that plastics contain chemicals leaching into our food and drinks with potentially devastating consequences for our children's health as well as our ...…