Fwd: Join Us This Tuesday, October 6, at 7 pm ET Online for an Conversation about Holiday Waste
Yayoi Koizumi
Please share & spread the word. All are welcome.
Yayoi
From: BYO - US Reduces from BYO - US Reduces Newsletter <usre...@substack.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 2, 2026 at 1:47 AM
Subject: Join Us This Tuesday, October 6, at 7 pm ET Online for an Conversation about Holiday Waste
To: <in...@usreduces.org>
Join Us This Tuesday, October 6, at 7 pm ET Online for an Conversation about Holiday WasteGuest speaker Malia Becker from the Center for Biological Diversity’s Simplify the Holidays will share practical ideas for reducing waste as we head into the holiday season.
We’re sending this month’s newsletter in stages, starting with the most time-sensitive news: our next BYO-US Reduces Gathering is this Tuesday! More network news, resources, and recommended reading will be coming soon. Please register for Tuesday’s nationwide online gathering at 7 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. CT / 5 p.m. MT / 4 p.m. PT using the green button below. Click the green button below to register now!
Malia Becker works at the Center for Biological Diversity, where she leads creative outreach campaigns addressing overconsumption, inequitable consumption, alternative economies, and the wildlife extinction crisis. She’ll introduce Simplify the Holidays, a wonderful collection of ideas and resources for reducing waste and consumption while making celebrations more meaningful. With Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the winter holidays approaching, this is a perfect time to talk about gifts, food, decorations, gatherings, packaging, and all the consumption that can come with celebrating. Beyond the practical tips, we’ll also explore a bigger question: How do we create a culture in which celebration does not depend on buying and throwing away so much stuff? Come learn, share your own ideas, and talk with BYO organizers and reuse advocates from around the country. Click the green button below to register now. Can’t Join Live?A recording of the guest speaker presentation will be posted on our YouTube channel: Please subscribe to the channel to be notified when it is available. As a small volunteer-run network, we are unable to respond to individual inquiries about recordings. Recordings are announced in this newsletter and posted on our YouTube channel, so please keep an eye on both rather than emailing to ask when a recording will be available. This helps us preserve our limited capacity for organizing and producing the programs themselves. Around the NetworkRecording Now Available: Doun Moon of GAIA on BioplasticsThe recording of our recent BYO-US Reduces gathering with Doun Moon of GAIA is now available, and we very highly recommend watching and sharing this presentation. Doun gave an delightfully clear and informative presentation on bioplastics, compostability claims, microplastics, and the problems with replacing one disposable material with another. This was an excellent gathering and an invaluable resource for anyone working on reuse, waste reduction, plastics, or local policy. If you weren’t able to join us live, please watch the recording, learn from it, and share it with others. Watch the recording:  And once again, please check out GAIA’s bioplastics pdf fact sheet.
This is the kind of resource worth keeping in your files and returning to. Share it with local organizers, community members, policymakers, businesses, and anyone who is being told that bioplastics or “compostable” disposables are an easy solution. Keep talking about bioplastics. Keep sharing the evidence. Don’t let this issue fade from the conversation. BYO-US Reduces Made the International PressWe are also very excited to share that BYO-USR’s recent gathering with Doun was covered in The Manila Times, a historic national English-language newspaper in the Philippines founded in 1898. The opinion column, “Bring Your Own: A Meaningful Way to Reduce Waste,” highlights BYO as a practical and meaningful way to reduce single-use waste, and connects our webinar discussion on bioplastics, compostability claims, microplastics, and reuse to a broader international conversation about waste reduction. We are deeply grateful to Doun for such a strong presentation, to Marit for featuring the gathering in her opinion column, to the global GAIA network for its important work on bioplastics and zero waste, and to everyone who joined and contributed to the discussion. Read The Manila Times article here.
Our Website Is Getting a RebuildYou may have noticed that our website is temporarily offline. Don’t worry, BYO-US Reduces isn’t going anywhere! We are changing the web hosting service but have kept our domain and are moving to a new hosting service while rebuilding and substantially updating the site. Yayoi is working through a lot of content to make the new website clearer, stronger, and much more useful for people who want to learn about BYO or organize in their own communities. It is already starting to look really good. We are hoping to have it back online soon, possibly before Tuesday’s gathering, but there is quite a bit of work involved, so please bear with us while we get everything ready. A stronger BYO-US Reduces website is on the way. Below is a draft preview in the works.
Take ActionHelp BYO Reach One More CommunityDo you know someone in a nearby town or on a campus who might be interested in BYO? Perhaps a co-op member, refill shop owner, student, or neighbor who is tired of throwaway packaging? Invite them to one of our gatherings or introduce them to us. They don’t need to have a group already. Sometimes a local program begins with one person and a conversation. Register Your Local BYO ProgramWe’ve updated our local program registration form to make it clearer and easier to use. Registered programs are added to our national map and invited to our Google Group and national gatherings every other month, where we share updates, hear from speakers, and help one another work through local challenges. Starting a program, or know someone who is? Thank you for bringing your cups, sharing your ideas, and making room for BYO in your communities. We’re glad to be doing this together. We hope to see you Tuesday! If you haven’t registered yet, please use the button below. In resistance to a throwaway culture, Team BYO-US Reduces
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