About

Living with less waste (whether you call that zero waste, ‘near-o’ waste, low waste or simply ‘doing what you can’). Reducing plastic. Taking steps towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Trying to make better choices in an imperfect world.

You care about our planet and the consequences your actions have (oh I know that you do ). You’re looking for ideas to reduce your impact and tweak your habits (along with gentle encouragement, boundless enthusiasm and heaps of support)… and yes, you’re in the right place!

Talk rubbish with me!

I teach others how to take action to live with less plastic, less waste and less stuff. My focus: the practical and do-able steps we can take to change our habits and make better choices.

Since 2013 I’ve been giving talks, delivering workshops and running courses on living with less waste and steps towards sustainable living. I’ve written two books (available worldwide: you’ll find them in all good bookstores). Turns out, I’m not the only one with an interest in reducing their waste and a desire to have a positive impact on the planet!

I’ve spoken to community groups, schools, workplaces, local and state government departments, conferences and festivals. In 2016 I had the opportunity to speak on the Tedx stage (about the non-disposable life). I’ve also been interviewed for various media outlets including the BBC and the ABC, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, WA Today, Channel 7 and Channel 9.

I was a founding Director of the Plastic Free Foundation (the not-for-profit organisation behind the official Plastic Free July campaign).

Pretty much, I love talking about living with less waste with anybody and everybody who will listen!

Individual actions matter.

What started as a personal journey in 2012 evolved into Treading My Own Path when I realised I wanted to share what I’d learned. Beginning as a simple website with just a few blog posts back in 2013: it’s now a popular sustainable lifestyle website with almost 100,000 monthly visitors and more than 300 articles sharing tips, insights, how-tos and advice for living a better life with less stuff and less waste.

I currently write a weekly(ish) blog post, and I send out a monthly news round-up to my lovely subscribers (if you’d like to join our community, you can do so here. You’ll also receive a free eBook as a token of my appreciation. See it as a little entrÃ©e of the kind of things I write about on these pages.)

I love creating content. As well as my weekly posts, I’ve written a number of ebooks and created other resources to help you live with less waste.

My first physical book was published by Hardie Grant books in 2019, available in good bookstores worldwide. It’s called Less Stuff, and it’s about changing our relationship with our things, from a zero waste perspective. My second, the Less Waste No Fuss Kitchen, is published in Australia, the UK, the USA and Canada in June 2020.

Embracing a life with less waste…

“Because there is a better way to live than accumulating more and more, and tossing it in the trash when we’re done. Letting go of the excess means making room for new experiences and time for doing what we truly love. Who doesn’t want more of that?”

Lindsay Miles

A focus on solutions (not problems)

When it comes to waste and sustainability, we hear a lot about the problems. Yes, I like to understand the issues, but I also know that too much doom and gloom doesn’t motivate me or spur me into action. When it comes to learning, I want to know what I can do!

So here, we don’t dwell on problems. Yes, we do touch on them – it certainly isn’t all rainbows and unicorns either. But I’m interested in shifting the focus. I prefer to talk about solutions. If you’re keen to understand the issues, know what you can do about it, and start taking action – then you’re in luck! This is exactly what we are about. We’ve already got something in common!

A should and should not free zone

I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to share what I do, why I do it, and how I came to make these choices. I want to help you navigate the issues, and decide what’s going to work for you. I want to help you choose your next steps – because change looks different for everybody.

We all have different situations, life experiences, energy levels and priorities. Changing habits is hard enough without an extra unhelpful dose of judgment thrown in. So this is my promise to you – none of that from me! There’s no such thing as ‘perfect’ anyways. We’re all just doing what we can.

Allow me to introduce myself!

Hello. I’m Lindsay! It wasn’t that many years ago that I was the one with the full-to-overflowing recycling bin (and I was pretty proud of it, too). I thought I lived in a pretty sustainable way. I purchased things that said ‘eco-friendly’ on the label, and I always (well, almost always) took my own bags to the shops. Never mind that I’d fill those bags with plastic-packaged products and so much single-use packaging! I’d mutter under my breath that someone should do something about all the excess and waste.

It simply had never occurred to me that I could start with me, and the way I lived. I couldn’t bear waste, but I thought my responsibility ended with recycling. Little did I realise that was only the beginning…

A challenge, and a documentary

Everything changed in June 2012. I came across a flyer in my local library (I’d just moved from the UK to Perth, Australia), with a challenge and a question: ‘could you give up plastic for the month of July?’

Give up plastic for a month, I thought. No problem, I thought. I’m pretty green already; I take my own bags to the shops! How hard could it really be?

The poster was advertising a community screening of Bag It, a documentary about plastic. I went along. I credit that documentary as my light-bulb moment. Cliche alert – that movie changed my life! That night, after the screening, was as if I was looking around my home (and in my fridge and in my bathroom cupboard) for the first time. I could see plastic was everywhere. And I’d never noticed. Had I been walking round with my eyes shut for my entire life?!

Honestly, I felt pretty embarrassed. Because I did actually think I was some kind of sustainability superhero for (over) filling my recycling bin, and all of a sudden I realized that there was so much more that I could do.

I’m not even talking about big changes. Just simple swaps, like buying carrots without a plastic bag, or switching the shower gel to bar soap.

Now I was looking at the situation with new eyes, I could see so many solutions!

Once you see it, you cannot un-see it

I soon realised that this plastic-free challenge wasn’t going to be a month-long attempt. As the month rolled around, there was still so much more to do. I couldn’t just cruise back into ‘plastic August’. Nope, this was a one-way ticket. No turning back.

I started out focusing on plastic waste, but soon I turned my attention to other types of waste: other packaging, anything single-use, food waste, and the rest of the ‘stuff’ – the other things that we buy.

The way I see it, if I want the world to change, I have to start with me. It was no good just wishing for it to be better, and doing nothing about it. I have to be the change I want to see. That’s not the say I think it’s solely the responsibility of individuals. We need corporations and governments to play their part too. But the two are interconnected – we can’t have one without the other.

I may not be able to do everything, but I can do something. We can all do something. Sustainability isn’t just about big-picture stuff like “saving the rainforests”. It is as much about the little things we do and the choices we make every day. Collectively our choices have massive consequences, and if we make them wisely, we have the power to bring about real, positive change.

This is my journey. I’d love it if you came to join me on this path!

Lots of love,