About Us
Who We Are & What We Do
We provide the highest-quality zero-waste products at the lowest prices possible.
Each product on our site is hand-selected by us for its ability to reduce waste without sacrificing convenience.
Before listing a product on our site, we consider practical usability, lifetime value, shipping requirements, competitive affordability, and end-of-life disposal scenarios.
We ship orders using minimal, Eco-friendly packaging, and we ship using USPS for all deliveries. Read more about our eco-shipping methods.
We also offer a 30-day return policy to ensure that your purchase is what you expect.
Our Mission Statement
To reduce waste on a realistic scale, we believe that sustainable and eco-friendly products must be affordable and practical for all consumers. In order to achieve this goal, we prioritize sourcing products domestically. However, if affordable options are not available in the US, we will source from other locations. See this post for more info.
Our goal is to make it easy for the average person to switch to zero-waste products and provide the best value long-term.
We feel that buying zero-waste products instead of plastic products is the best way to take care of our needs and the Earth's needs at the same time.
Who We Are
We are a 100% family-owned and operated company located in the rural countryside of Idaho. Our 5-acre farm is teeming with life and wonder. We have free-range egg-laying chickens, wild turkeys, rabbits, owls, hawks, skunks, raccoons, and squirrels on our property.
We grow a lot of our own food in our large gardens, which are enriched with our favorite zero-waste product: compost. Every year, we produce hundreds of yards of grade-A compost using local materials such as manure, leaves, and wood chips. This compost is returned to the Earth, providing life and nutrients to the soil.
Thanks to all our neighbors who bring us their leaves for free!
Finished compost!
My Zero Waste Beginnings
Hello, my name is Brian, and this is how I came to start Zero Waste Outlet.
This journey started several years ago when my father died of esophageal cancer. It was the most challenging time I have ever had as we were close. But from the grave, he saved my life.
A few years later, Beth scheduled me an appointment with a doctor. I haven't had a doctor since I was in my teens. After telling this new doctor about my father's death from esophageal cancer, he ordered an endoscopy to check my esophagus for the same.
At that clinic, I enquired about doing a colonoscopy, even though my tummy symptoms were mild, and I thought these symptoms were normal due to my diet. They agreed to do both procedures at the same time but mentioned that it was uncommon at my age to get a colonoscopy.
I woke up from that procedure and faintly heard the doctor say to Beth that she was putting in a stat request for a scan to see how far the cancer had spread. Thankfully, they caught it very early.
If I had waited nine more years, or if my father hadn't died of cancer, or if Beth hadn't forced me to see a doctor, or if he hadn't referred me to the clinic, I would be dead before then.
Thank you Dad, for the last, and the biggest gift of all.... 😪
Several painful surgeries later, I was frail, venerable, and scared for myself and my family.
The frustration and depressing feeling that my life would never have any real meaning or purpose hit me hard.
Thanks to my father, modern medicine, and the heroes who understand it, I'm now cancer-free, but it made me think about my life and what I would do with the rest of it.
I needed a big life change and wanted to do something that made a positive mark on the world and not just be another rat in the race to the end.
Then one day while recovering, I got a delivery from Amazon...
This order was in a HUGE box that was ten times the size it needed to be and had a few loose plastic pillows, but not enough to protect anything.
The package could easily be used by itself for shipping. There was no need for the big box or the plastic pillows that did nothing.
It made me sick to see it. This one order had SO MUCH TOXIC PLASTIC WASTE! And we bury it all in the ground for the next generations to deal with?
Millions of these packages are delivered every day!
How is that sustainable?
What is wrong with the world?
What impact does plastic have on our bodies, the environment, and how do I get away from this toxic junk?
I was frustrated and amazed at the amount of waste, but that package provided me with a calling I could not resist.
My new life goal was to try and change this backwards, planet-trashing mindset and offer practical alternatives to wasteful practices.
So I can thank Amazon for the idea of Zero Waste Outlet!
Zero Waste Outlet Was Born
After researching the problems with plastic waste and what it means for life on our beautiful planet, I learned how to build a website and start an online business.
We launched with a dozen or so products, and I realized that ZWO was precisely what I was searching for. And what we needed as a family.
We have been growing ever since.
We now carry over 160 different products, and we are adding more every month.
Starting ZWO has been one of the best things I have done in my life, and for our family.
The amount of support and positivity within our ZWO Eco-Family is fantastic!
We hear how our products and packaging are helping others reduce waste, and it makes us feel so good knowing that we are making a difference in the world.
Our Eco-Family is one thing that we never expected as a result of doing this, but it is one of the most significant rewards we could ask for!
We are so grateful to YOU for this incredible journey.
Thanks for being part of this with us, and let's reduce some waste together!
- Brian
About Brian
I was born and raised in Idaho, and I have a passion for the outdoors and nature. I love camping, fishing, and star-filled nights by the fire.
My grandfather and father loved gardening and taught me to appreciate the natural processes our world needs to sustain life.
From the time I was 14, my father and I grew vegetables for the local farmer's market.
We both worked hard to make sure our produce was the best available, and we took pride in knowing that our food was grown in the same soil as my grandfather's food.
Our gardening business took a turn for the better when we introduced heirloom vegetables from around the world to our customers.
The hard part was convincing our customers that the world's ugliest tomato was also the world's best tasting tomato!
But once we gave them a sample, we had the most loyal customers at the market!
Years later, after my father died of cancer, my wife Beth and I moved to the country.
We wanted to live simply and teach our children about living in harmony with nature and the rewards of hard work.
With 5 acres, we can grow all the food we can eat. What we don't eat is given to friends and family.
One of my favorite pastimes is to make compost from local manures that I use to build our soil, just like my grandfather and father did!
About Beth
I was born in Arizona, raised in Northern California, and transplanted to Idaho in my early 20s. I have found my calling in the quiet farmland outside the busy city life.
Coming from a big city, I instantly fell in love with Idaho and the people in it.
Both of our kids were raised here, and I know this is the perfect place to raise a family.
From the sunsets to our wonderful neighbors, I enjoy the simplicity that our small farm provides our family.
Starting in my teens, I began cooking and collected many of my family's recipes from my mom. She had some of my grandmother's recipes.
I soon fell in love with the idea that my cooking brought joy to the people closest to me, and I realized that food is my love language.
Since moving to the country and growing our own food, I'm spoiled with the freshest food any cook could imagine!
Collecting eggs every day and then walking to the garden and harvesting fresh greens and herbs to use in our next meal makes my heart happy!
We recycled and composted regularly but found that most of the plastic we were throwing into the recycling bin was not recyclable.
This revelation forced us to take a closer look at the amount of plastic we used.
We started using glass jars instead of plastic cups, brewing coffee in a French press instead of our plastic coffee maker, and so on.
Brian and I stopped buying cheap products that didn't last as long as they should. So we made an effort to purchase things that would last longer or that were Eco-Friendly.
This lifestyle change slowly turned into Zero Waste Outlet.
We are proud to offer Earth-Friendly products that we believe in!
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