We buy too much trash.
The average American generates 4.9 pounds of municipal solid waste per day. Microplastics have been found in human blood, lungs, and placenta. Landfills across the country are filling up with products that were designed to be replaced, not repaired.
Most of this waste comes from everyday products. Kitchen supplies, cleaning products, bathroom essentials. Things we buy on autopilot without thinking about what they’re made of or where they end up.
A better way to choose
Buy Less Trash helps you find lower-waste, longer-lasting alternatives to the products you already buy. We extract structured facts from product pages (what it’s made of, how long it lasts, what happens when you’re done with it, how it’s packaged) and organize them so you can compare products and make informed choices.
We don’t editorialize. We don’t pick favorites. We show you the facts, label where they come from (brand claims vs. third-party certifications), and let you decide.
What we look at
Every product is evaluated across four dimensions. We extract data for each from the product page and organize it into a structured format.
Materials
What is it made of? Recycled ocean plastic and organic cotton are not the same as virgin PVC. We classify every material and show you the difference.
Durability
Will it last? A stainless steel container with a lifetime warranty will outlast a plastic one with none. We track warranty, repairability, and reusability.
End of life
What happens when you’re done? Can it be recycled, composted, or returned? Or does it sit in a landfill for centuries?
Packaging
How does it get to you? Cardboard and compostable mailers are better than styrofoam and bubble wrap. We track packaging materials and recyclability.
Try the scoring calculator
Select product attributes to see how they affect the score. This is the exact same logic we apply to every product on the site. Change any input and watch the score update in real time.
Product attributes
Score breakdown
This calculator uses the same scoring functions as the rest of the site. The composite score is used internally for sorting but is not shown to consumers. Product pages display the underlying facts instead.
What we can’t tell you
We organize publicly available information. We don’t run a lab, we don’t audit supply chains, and we can’t verify every claim a brand makes. That’s why every fact on a product page is labeled with its source: certified means a third party verified it, brand claims means the manufacturer says so, and inferred means we derived it from the material type.
We also don’t score brands. Carbon footprints, labor practices, and supply chain ethics are important but too speculative to assess without verified data. We focus on what we can observe about the product itself.
Help us get the facts right
If you notice something wrong on a product page (a material we missed, a certification we overlooked, or a claim that’s outdated) you can submit a correction right from the product page. We review corrections before applying them. Think of it as distributed fact-checking.