Welcome to episode 164 of the first 40 miles.

If you're new to backpacking or if you're hopelessly in love with someone who wants you to

love backpacking, then this podcast is for you.

We'll talk about the essentials, how to lighten your load, and how to make the most of your time

on the trail.

I'm your host Heather Legler. And'm Josh Legler and this is the first

40 miles. Today on the first 40 miles we are always up for a challenge and a recent challenge was to have a zero waste

backpacking trip. No wrappers, no garbage, no junk. We'll share what we did and how it worked out. Then we'll review an all natural

way to package and protect your food that uses no plastic, foil, or mylar.

And you'll learn a backpack hack that will turn your used food packaging

into tinder.

All this, and that's about it. Today on the first 40 miles.

So I think I was introduced to the idea of Zero Waste when I was bumming around YouTube

watching some minimalism videos. Every once in a while I got on a big minimalism kick and I just think it's inspiring that people can

live with so little and their videos are always so clean looking. Like the walls are all white,

the sofa is white, their bedding is all white it's like they live in a sanitarium sometimes

But no I think usually they have a vase of flowers or something. So anyway I love that kind of thing and

YouTube started recommending the Zero Waste videos to me and the whole idea of Zero Waste

is that you try to eliminate packaging from your life.

You try and use mason jars or stainless steel containers, things that can be reused without producing any waste.

Like when you go to the grocery store you might use your own reusable bag and grab produce right off of the pile and put it into your

own reusable bag rather than buying prepackaged produce or putting the produce into the plastic bags that the store provides.

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