Last week I was fortunate enough to be part of a panel about zero waste for the local business chamber. I say fortunate because another one of the panel members, Teresa of Boulder Blooms, told this amazing story about stretching. She defined stretching as looking beyond what you are currently doing to see what else can be done; something that isn't easy, something that isn't obvious.
In Teresa's case, stretching was removing one of the last elements of her packaging that wasn't compostable or recyclable. The mere fact that she has transformed her packaging to the point that only a couple items remained as waste is impressive in of itself. What is more impressive is that she isn't planning on stopping until 100% of her materials are recyclable or compostable even if the material is sent to her by a distributor. One of the last items remaining was a heavy duty plastic strip that is used to bundle flowers shipped to her shop. After much searching Teresa found a place that would recycle the plastic strips but only if they are cut up to exact specification. Given the amount of strips the flower shop receives in a week and the amount of work required it just wasn't realistic to prepare the strips in-house. However, not deterred by this obstacle, Teresa kept searching and was able to find a disabled woman in town who had started a small business prepping items such as plastic strips for recycling.
I was so motivated by this story about stretching I am going to back to my office and see where I can stretch. I know I am stretching when I find something that isn't easy to recycle, something that takes some effort, and something that feels really good when I finally figure out what to do.