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Alt Text Included Comics Sustainability comics

Zero Waste comic, frugal ways to be sustainable!

Zero waste lifestyle can most of the times be pretty inaccessible for low income people. But in reality the low income people are already living a zero waste lifestyle like no tomorrow! This zero waste comic is about just that. An anti-capitalist look into the lifestyle and it’s problems.

Cover of zero waste comic. Title: Not #ZeroWaste, I Just Grew Up Poor Picture: H-P is sitting on a box drinking tea, looking annoyed. Behind him there's a compost bin, a broom, plants on a shelf and clothes on a drying rack.

I made this comic back in 2019 still being quite new to the zero waste idea. I have lived frugally and quite sustainably all my life. It hasn’t always been because of my sustainable life values. Mostly it’s been due to my working class background.

For some time I had to take the comic off of the internet, because the platform I used for my web shop started doing crypto/NFT business. I don’t condone that, as that is absolutely not sustainable! But now I have finally added the comic back online, this time on itch.io! You can get it here:

And here are some preview pages if you feel like you’re not sure if it’s a good purchase yet:

Text: Poor person's 1st lesson I don't throw away anything without thinking it throug first Image: H-P holds a t-shirt and thinks Text in thought bubbles: Can I reuse this? Can I repurpose the material myself? Can I give it to someone who uses it? Text: and if none of those work: Can I recycle it? And now if that doesn't work either, it's going to the normal trash bin in your home. Big text: But wait! There's more! Image: H-P peeking into the page from outside of it's borders. He looks bewildered. Text: There's a better step! My personal favorite! It starts before I even buy anything new!
Image: H-P is squatting, holding pants and looking at their manufacturing information and washing info. Text in thought bubbles: I need a new pair of pants... What fabric is this? Will it last long? Can I buy it second hand? Can I ask my friends if they have extras they don't need? Big text: Point being: I think before I buy! Text: Fun fact (not fun at all, very sad) Pants are a very bad example because the fashion industry is horrible and nowadays it's cheaper to just buy 5 pairs of pants that break easily than one pair that lasts 5 times longer. Let's not get into this too much though, this is only a mere reminder to smash capitalism asap. I don't buy much from general stores anymore. All of my clothes are second hand, but yes, I own pants from a certain swedish brand that has a name that consists of two letters.

Actually… Why wouldn’t you think it’s a good purchase? It’s absolutely free! You can of course leave me a tip (and I’d really love if you could), but that’s not mandatory.

Maybe one more page to really convince you this is the zero waste comic of your dreams!

Text: I use baking soda and vinegar to clean basically anything. It's good for the environment and I happen to have a lot of allergies so those are great options for me! I don't get allergic reactions from them! Image: H-P kneeling on the floor with a rag, vinegar bottle and a jar of baking soda. text: So what do I wash with them!? Image: Overflowing laundry basket Text: Laundry (baking soda to wash, vinegar to rinse) but only if they're not that dirty. I still use normal washing powder for more dirty clothes. Image: Shining clean oventop and kitchen side table text: cleaning surfaces (baking soda with water) Image: two jars. one of them has baking soda in the bottom with lid closed. One has no lid and a horrifying ghost shaped odor cloud emerges from it. text: Getting rid of smells (just put baking soda in it and wait) Image: H-P has a pencil in his hand, he looks like he just finished drawing the two jars. he says text: and everything else too. I'm not gonna draw it out, just believe me. Why did I even start drawing these!?

This comic has gotten some raving reviews! Such as this one:

“However, it uses a lot of space to blame environmental distress on politics and ostracize viewpoints.”

3 star review on Goodreads

If that’s not what you want to see, don’t read it. The book is first and foremost about the political change we need to both help the planet and make life fair to low income people. I wouldn’t name a comic “Not #ZeroWaste, I Just Grew Up Poor” if it wasn’t about the unfair resources we all have. A general happy zero waste comic isn’t titled like that.

Other zero waste comics?

If you like this type of content, I suggest you go read my newest adventures in sustainable living, meaning my No Buy Year -comics! Yes, you heard that right, I’m not buying stuff for a whole year.

Ps. Despite these pages on this blog post having alt texts, the comic PDF is old and doesn’t have those. So it’s not readable with any kind of a screen reading device.