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Did you know that a person produces 3 pounds of garbage every day!
Isn't it hard to believe?
But as long as you think about it, the daily takeaway boxes, courier boxes, plastic bottles, milk tea cups, snack packaging, discarded paper towels, melons, fruits and vegetables... These daily garbage add up, may be 3 pounds are said to be less.
Among these garbage, plastic waste is the most tricky because it is difficult to recycle and difficult to degrade.
According to statistics, humans have produced nearly 10 billion tons of plastic, and the recycling rate is less than 9%. The rest cannot be reused and can only be incinerated and dumped into temporary landfills, while those stacked in the open are dumped into the sea.
Plastic garbage, scattered on the land and the ocean, killed countless animals and humans themselves.
Nearly 15 million marine organisms die each year from eating plastic waste or getting entangled in plastic waste
However, for young people living in the fast pace of the city, it is really difficult not to produce garbage.
But the transnational couple that Fang Jun wants to introduce to you has achieved a "zero waste" lifestyle in practice.
They haven't ordered takeout, no plastic bags, and even sanitary napkins for 6 years!
Yu Yuan, a post-90s girl, and her boyfriend Joe, have been pursuing a "zero waste" lifestyle for nearly 6 years since 2016.
In the past 6 years, the most incredible thing they have done is to produce only a small glass jar of household garbage in half a year.
And the garbage in this glass jar is only 500 grams, which is only one-third of the garbage produced by a person every day.
Such a "perverted" result was achieved because Yu Yuan and Joe refused to take out, rejected disposable plastic products, rejected non-recyclable items...
Don't you have a hard time believing that there are people in this world who can live like this?
But you can never imagine that such a girl used to be a hoarder who liked to "buy, buy and buy".
In Yu Yuan's once 15m² rental house, it was piled up with all the loot she bought online. During that time, as long as the salary was paid, she would quickly spend it, which was a perfect combination of "hoarding maniacs + moonlight clan".
In the 15m² rental house, luggage and clothes are piled up on the bed
It wasn't until after the Spring Festival in 2016, when the landlord's "eviction order" of moving out within two weeks of the landlord's limit of yu yuan suddenly arrived, that she felt the despair of facing a bunch of useless things.
"The room was so small, so many things, but it was endless to pick up. There were four or five hundred pieces of clothing alone, most of which had not been worn several times, and they still did not know what to wear when they went out every day. ”
At that moment, Yu Yuan suddenly realized that she had been drifting north for so long, neither savings nor happiness, only a pile of useless and discarded debris, and her heart was sad and irritable.
Clothes that several hangers can't fit
After cleaning up and counting all his belongings, Yu Yuan found that only 20% of the things that could really be used were available.
Helplessly, he could only give the remaining 80% that could not be taken away to the neighbors.
But what Yu Yuan did not expect was that after giving up so many things, she was not lost at all, but felt an unprecedented ease and ease.
And by chance, Yu Yuan saw on the Internet the Lifestyle of Bea Johnson's family of four, producing only a small can of garbage a year.
She realized that such a minimalist life was exactly what she longed for.
Yu Yuan's idea coincided with her British boyfriend Joe.
"I usually only wear second-hand clothes, and I like to wear old clothes and wear them torn," says Joe, who is passionate about minimalist living.
Joe's doll, Bear, is older than his own
As a result, the two donated most of the items that could not be used, and from then on, they no longer easily "bought, bought and bought", did not order takeaways, and did not use any plastic products... Insist on living a "zero waste" life.
But this "zero waste" does not mean that no garbage is produced at all, but to reduce the generation of garbage from the source to the greatest extent, so that the vast majority of items in life can be recycled.
Yu Yuan shopping will carry cloth bags with you
Seeing this, some people may say: "No matter how many people don't waste, it is impossible to produce only a small can of garbage for half a year, right?" ”
But when you see their 60m² rental house, you will find that Yu Yuan and Joe are really difficult to produce garbage in life!
In 2016, Yu Yuan and Joe moved to a 60m² rental house, and the furniture visible to the naked eye can be counted with two hands.
A bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a mirror, three chairs, that's all.
The most fashionable big red recliner at home was thrown away by other residents of the community.
After Yu Yuan picked it up, he liked it very much, and washed it clean, becoming a comfortable corner of the family.
With the continuous reduction of goods, living in a 60m² house is inevitably a bit wasteful, so they moved to a 20m² one-bedroom apartment in Beijing Hutongkou.
There are fewer and fewer things, and the home is becoming more and more empty, but the mood of the two people is becoming more and more comfortable.
Open Yu Yuan's wardrobe and neatly place her clothes all year round, coats, trench coats, cashmere skirts... The total number of zeros and zeros adds up to exactly 50 pieces.
Compared with the past when she had hundreds of clothes and did not know what to wear every day, the clothes that are now streamlined can match hundreds of ways to wear.
In addition to dressing up, Yu Yuan and Joe's lives are also full of "zero waste".
In her kitchen, there was no plastic in sight.
And for kitchen waste, they can also "turn waste into treasure"——
Place food waste in stainless steel containers and refrigerate.
After waiting for 7-10 days, pour it into the compost bucket, mix it with the soil and dried leaves, and decompose naturally to become black gold soil fertilizer.
Then take it to the community garden, add natural nutrition to the flowers and grasses, neither pollution nor increase domestic garbage.
But relying on these alone is not enough to not produce garbage in life, so Yu Yuan also prepared a set of "secret weapons"——
Every time I go out, I bring stainless steel utensils, cloth bags, cutlery, handkerchiefs...
To eat with friends at a restaurant, Yu Yuan would bring his own tableware.
If you want to drink a cup of milk tea, you can also pour it directly into the stainless steel water cup you carry with you, eliminating all disposable plastic products.
Perhaps for many people, Yu Yuan's "zero waste" lifestyle, some of them cut the door, so that people can't erase their faces.
But she enjoyed it, "What we have is less, but the troubles are also reduced, and the heart is more and more full." ”
Yu Yuan and Joe, who are inspired and cured by "zero waste", also hope to make more people aware of this way of life.
So they resigned decisively, gave up their high-paying jobs, and emptied all their savings to start a zero-waste packaging store called THE BULK HOUSE.
Gradually, their small shops entered the public's field of vision.
A variety of fabric shopping bags, stainless steel thermos cups, stainless steel straws, handmade soap and other environmentally friendly items in the store have attracted many customers to come to buy.
This "zero waste" lifestyle also motivates more and more people to start to contribute to the protection of the environment.
In THE BULK HOUSE, Yu Yuan has set up a corner to share and provide second-hand items, where everyone can put things they don't need, and if you need them, you can also take them for free.
But also remember: please take only the items you really need.
In addition to this, there is also a "Recycle Bin" in this store.
Customers can take the empty packaging of various toiletries they have used up, such as toothpaste boxes, empty bottles of shampoo or shower gel, etc., and Yu Yuan will regularly mail these materials to a special environmental protection company for processing.
In the past few years, more and more people have begun to understand, accept and support Yu Yuan's "zero waste" lifestyle. There are also more and more media outlets to interview Yu Yuan, and even she has been invited to give a TED talk.
In this talk, she shared the "6R Golden Rule for a Zero Waste Life":
- Refuse – rejecting what you don't need
- Reduce – Reduce what you need
- Reuse – reuse, waste, make the most of it
- Repair – Maintenance
- Recycle – Recycling
- Rot – compost degradation
She also said, "In the "zero waste" life, there are always more ways to think of solutions than difficulties, and in the process of solving, you will find a lot of fun, and gradually become a life home." ”
Of course, the "zero waste" life advocated by Yu Yuan does not make everyone consume, but emphasizes rational and moderate consumption.
When you become more and more aware of your real needs, you will not be easily carried away by consumerism, and you will not blindly and irrationally hoard goods.
And Fang Jun's sharing of Yu Yuan and Joe's story today is not asking everyone to blindly emulate this minimalism, after all, everyone can choose their favorite way to live.
I just hope that everyone can have such an environmental awareness, if you can streamline unnecessary waste, it is also a good thing to benefit others and benefit the earth
Finally, a passage to give you Yu Yuan:
A person's power may be very small, but if everyone uses less of a straw, less of a plastic bag, a little more rational when consuming, responsible for themselves, responsible for their wallets, responsible for the earth, then this power must be very powerful, and the world will become a better place.
Images and materials for this article
Provided by Xiaohongshu @Carrie Yuyuan THE BULK HOUSE