The products at GoodsAgain are upcycled from materials which are otherwise discarded and destined for landfills or oceans. For each product, we are diverting waste and converting it into a new and unique product. Some of the examples are: Our bags are made from excess textile waste from the factories- apparel waste or upholstery fabric excess or excess denim which was a waste for those factories. GoodsAgain has bags, accessories and home products from an innovative newspaper collection where old newspapers are put to use by weaving thin strips of paper with a thread Our boho jewelry is made from materials such as old magazines, remnants of yarns, sewing fabric waste, soda can pull tabs etc. All of our wraps are made from pre-loved sarees. Besides that, my business is online and I work from home. So my work location is my home, I try to reduce waste as much as possible on an everyday basis.. Few things I do regularly at my home: Use cloth rags 95% of the times for cleaning purposes which cuts down a significant amount of paper towels Refill my handsoap, laundry soap, bathing soap, dishwasher detergent through a local refill shop which significantly cuts down multiple big plastic containers Reuse glass containers (like the one from pasta sauce, jam, etc) in my kitchen, thereby reducing the need to buy new empty containers and reduce packaging waste Cook food at home from scratch most of the times, thereby cutting down packaging that comes with ready to eat meals Use tea leaves which can then be composted instead of using tea bags which otherwise go in trash Compost in my backyard so most of my kitchen scraps go there which significantly reduced my curbside trash and trash bags every week I do bulk shopping for dry goods as much as I can. This again saves a lot of packaging waste. Calculations: Amount of trash generated by an average American per day =: 4.9 lbs (EPA.gov) Amount of trash generated by an average household of 4 people per day : 4.9 X 4 = lbs = 19.6 lbs Amount of trash generated by an average household of 4 people per week : 19.6 X 7 = 137.2 lbs Average curbside trash bag in our household = 20 lbs per week Reduction in trash generated compared to average household : 137.2-20 = 117.2lbs per week Reduction in trash generated per year : 117.2 * 52 = 6,094 lbs Reduction in trash generated per year in tonne : 6,094/2,000 = 3.04 tonne Average cost of waste disposal in NJ = $70 per tonne (taken from the calculation sheet) Savings in disposal cost = 3.04 * 70 = $213