Zero Waste is not recycling more, but less | Bea Johnson | TEDxMünster
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 มิ.ย. 2024
- In her presentation, Bea shares her tribulations and secrets to achieving Zero Waste. She covers the importance of applying her 5R's in order (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot) and shatters misconceptions, proving that the Zero Waste lifestyle can not only be "stylish", but also lead to significant health benefits, and time and money savings. She manages to talk about her personal journey with humour and without preaching. She brings an intimidating topic down to a manageable scale, lending a unique perspective and making Zero Waste less daunting. Her non-judgmental approach will inspire self-reflection and change. Bea talks about her lifestyle with passion and provides many practical solutions to living simply and reducing waste, but more importantly, finding happiness in our consumerist society.
Together with her family Bea Johnson doesn´t produce more than one jar full of junk each year. In her bestselling book „Zero Waste Home“ she explains the five principles of a home without waste: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot (and only in that order). Anyone who follows those principles will not only save more time, but also live a healthier life.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx
I truly admire what Bea has achieved and she is a great role model for the consumer society we have become. I’m with her on waste reduction as a goal for an household and I avoid plastic as much as possible. Unfortunately, not everyone will achieve a "zero waste life" tomorrow nor in the next decades. Additionally waste is also generated by industries. Therefore, we should combine solutions and we should not blame incinerators. Indeed, waste that is processed through incineration is a fantastic source of energy. In Sweden, more than 20% of their energy comes from waste incineration. Modern incinerators have a very low CO2 emissions rate which has dropped by 99% in recents years, a lot better than petrol. Again, Bea is doing the right thing (bravo, really) but solutions should be combined and not blamed.
i dont think she even expects everyone to adapt the same extreme lifestyle she has. some will. others, like myself, will adapt some aspects of it, like buying in bulk (trying to do that when i move and have a bulk store in my new home town) and using plastic as little as possible. its about making some changes. everyone could stop buying plastic bottles, start using bamboo toothbrushes instead of the plastic ones, and not buy plastic bags. those would make a huge difference if majority would make those changes. and they are very easy to make.
@@mann7298 her lifestyle is no extreme. Just the opposite. Extreme are those ending with garbages every day...
@@lorenzoblum868 it definitely can seem extreme to people who dont live like her. some dont have the possibility to live the same way bc of their environment. also many are not taught and brought up in the same environment so ofc its extreme change for them if they would go to the same lenght. pretty sure you got what i meant but you just had to nitpick on how i worded it?
She truly is inspiring! I also love her sense of humor
I met her in bali and OMG she was such a delight just amazing. She is so amazing in person. She made me give up all my paper towels and refuse plastic bags. Amazing woman
So she is promoting the idea of an environmentally friendly life while at the same time taking a vacation on the other side of the globe?
@@SweBeach2023 I was just about to make the same observation.... Maybe she flew a paper plane...?
@@SweBeach2023 you expect us to stay at home all the time and get along with walking? You do that then
An amazing speech! Love her outlook. This woman is awesome 👏
yesss more people need to watch this!!
9:15 ,one more way of avoiding business cards is taking a pic of that card from ur mobiles
that's a great idea!
Nitin Gulati that's what I do too
You're still producing cloud waste....
Just like this comment.
Pen and paper would be the least pollutant
The business card thing: I take a picture of the card on my phone, hand the card back to them and say, "here, I know these cost you money."
Great talk..why is this not more prevalent in the USA?
She's brilliant!
Bravo!!!👍👍👍
Miss Johnson is amazing!!!A great role model~~
💖💖💖🌟🌟🌟🍎🍎🍎
YES!! Happy Earth Day, fellow Earthlings! 🌏
Great talk! Truly inspirational
Bea, well done, very good presentation, agreed with you to Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot to ensure we recycle less and with that in mind we can ensure environmental sustainability and achieved the ZERO WASTE goal.
She is such a hero to me.
Just amazing......she deserves a noble....salute to her!
As always, she is a really mind-blower
So placent to heard she.
amazing woman
useful information!
What a dud of a crowd. She is quite a dynamic speaker and makes some funny comments. These people just sit there like lumps on a log.
The Germans don't understand humour, bless 'em
They are germans, they need some time to judge if it's appropriate to laugh.
But they will send their LOL reactions and applause later via Whats App.
You have obviously never met Germans. 😉
Germans have a unique and low key sense of humour.
im pretty sure it would be rude to be loud and hollering during a presentation at a place like this
This lady sure knows how to start a presentation
And she makes so much sense. Bea president!
Yes to all that!
Yes, I've heard this about recycling...didn't know if it was true.
Béa tu es formidable!!!! ❤️
just second video watching her and.i start to think what to do to eliminate things
A true eco goddess
Agree in everything....
If we really want to become zero waste, then we should start farming and gardening our own food. Instead of toilet paper just wash our privates with water.
We will be spending money on what we need for the farm only and that's it. It's less pollution and no need for packaging or even going grocery shopping. It's a lot of hard work but we will stay in shape and be feeding ourselves. It's a win win situation.
They still do that last part in India...
that's very inspiring. i can do more to eliminate waste!
I love her speech, I love her shoes
Yes you are right, recycling requires energy to process.. what if you obtain required energy from waste ?
Как здорово, что жизнь без отходов распространяется по всему миру!
👌👌bravo . I love this
The "plastic lumber" is still recyclable. If the product is given the right recycling number like "2" or "5" after re-shaping the plastic.
She is so gorgeous
Grr...and we PAY them to come get our garbage!!!!
Hard but it is ny aim when I graduate.. I'm working on this so hard.
I wonder if these tips, especially #2, held-up during quarantine?
Her statements on freebies made smile, this is always is hard for me. I hate rudeness, so it is hard
It makes me sad that even as recently as the summer of 2019, one restaurant I visited was still totally not prepared to switch to cloth napkins instead of disposable ones! Gurr! They just went on about not knowing who would clean them, because they certainly weren't going to.
Bring your own
What did people do before plastic? Was all liquids contained in glass?
Jack Jammen I remember hearing stories from my grandparents of people bringing their own containers to the store. For everything-literally everything. Glass and metals (like tin cans) mainly for liquid.
Kate Carmichael There used to be a milk man, who collected the empty glass bottles.
it's really hard because buying everything online is cheaper than in stores nowadays :'(
what do you think of the idea of creating an articulated industry for the disposal of complex waste?
This woman is truly amazing. Following on Bea's cool humour tone, I have to say that despite those amazingly long legs, she wears shorter trousers to avoid the extra textile waste :))
When u tell people these kind of things though, they look at u like ur crazy or call u green
listening to this while I chop all my not recyclable plastic into another plastic container
Allô Béa. J’espère que vous allez bien malgré les contraintes de la pandémie. Question pour vous : est-ce que vous allez ajouter d’autres vidéos à votre chaîne TH-cam où on doit vous suivre sur une autre plateforme ? Passez une belle fin de semaine!💕
I have mixed feelings about this talk.
I agree with her about seeking out reusable items, refusing freebies and reducing where you can-and I even had a "I never had that idea before, I wanna try that out!" when she described using reusable floss and Q-tips and bandages. So I don't intend for my comment to sound like I'm bashing everything she says. But I don't agree that buying things in bulk or asking clerks to sell things to me out of their packaging helps reduce waste.
I remember reading the chapter in "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" (a book that I feel has transformed my life) where Marie Kondo discusses stockpiling and why she tells her clients to not do it, and thinking afterwards "Wow, that makes so much sense, I wish I could tell my dad to stop doing it with everything." The short version is this-when you buy large quantities of an item, like, say, pasta or kitchen wrap or Q-tips, you have more difficulty tracking how much you have of that item and keeping that item easy to access, and at a threshold you enter the mindset of "I don't have enough of this item, what if I need it? I need to get more of it" in which there is no amount that would make you feel more secure. I actually found that when I took her advice and stopped bulking on items-in my case, for example, vegetables, fruit, lip balm, pens, stickers, condoms and lube, recipes and TED talks I'd saved on Facebook, ticket stubs and theatre programs I kept as mementos, and even money I'd taught myself to be ashamed of spending-I was actually able to reduce waste, particularly food and packaging waste. Because I went through the items with less greed or FOMO, with more consistency and purpose, and when I did use an item I felt more gratitude for having that item in my life and the resources and energy and labor that went into producing it (I'm reminded of A.J. Jacobs's TED talk about thanking all the people responsible for his coffee).
So I avoid trying to bulk or otherwise have large quantities of something except in very rare cases. Perhaps her family goes through unlimited pasta, salad and breadsticks and she can make bulk quantities work for her, but I feel that stockpiling isn't the best advice for most households. Instead, focus on reducing and trust that if you can't reduce it or reuse it any further, what you have left is actually not going to waste.
When she talks about buying bulk, she doesn't mean buying large quantities or stockpiling (as in Costco, etc.). She's referring to the bulk section in many major supermarkets where you only fill the amount you need into your own reusable cloth bags/containers. I hope that makes sense.
What Mouna Salahieh said, and also, when she refers to buying in bulk, she’s probably talking about the dry foods that you use a lot (rice, pasta, beans, etc.). Next, you said that you felt like her asking to put things in her packages was wasteful, I think you misunderstood. She isn’t asking them to remove things from plastic packaging and it put it in the packaging that she brought. She’s not going to use that plastic that they WOULD have put it in by bringing her own. Like bringing your own container to a restaurant to put your leftovers in rather than use the styrofoam one they usually give you.
The word 'bulk' can be confusing in zero waste. It means the seller buys in bulk, grains, nuts, veggies, oils, spices, etc and you buy only what you need in your own container.
Por favor alguien tradúzcala al español 🙏❤️
El libro de ella está en español
What is the option when ordering food to a restaurant?
Ask them to put them in actual dishes, when they are delivered to you just put it in your on dishes and give the restaurant dishes back to deliverer
I mean, I use towels and "rags" way more than paper towel, as do most guys I know, cause they're just way better all the time.
goof for you
What about when mopping up oil and grease spills? You can't get the grease out of cloths.
lemsip Actually, I learned a trick in Auto class for that. Throw oily rags in a metal container (so they don't catch fire) and there are companies that do heavy duty cleaning. So, if you just take the cloth, use a degreaser, and a bit of care, you can clean it.
@@paulinemoira8442 It depends on the cleaners. There are some that use environmentally friendly cleaning chemicals.
The second tip about shopping bulk is impossible in my country... I went to an eco store and everything was
1. EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE
2. Not even normal food! Everything was "eco", "bio" and in very little amounts. Not a food like normal salt, sugar, bread, spicing, meat and dairy. Not a food you could feed a family with! My mom watched for a few seconds and told me there was nothing worth buying... I'm so disappointed!
In cases like this, I'll buy staples packaged in paper before I'll buy in plastic, or glass before plastic.
Yes, they line paper with plastic, but in theory it should be less
You know it seems the third is most hardest of all the step
No bulk places anywhere near me :-(
Holly Adamou : Once upon a time, nobody had a Starbucks near them. Things change.
Smithpolly :-)
Holly maybe you have some farmer's market? Sometimes they do sell things like dried legumes, nuts, seeds, dried fruit etc in bulk or non packaged :)
Holly Adamou I know a lot of hispanic markets sell in bulk
There is a app called bulk locator that tells you where bulk stores are. Also a farmers market is a great option too.
superstores could provide thick paper bags instead of plastic and anyway everything is dupmed in same landfill wether you recycle or not.
in italy there isn't buisness card stonks
How can plastic wrap be substituted?
Andrew James beeswax wrap is what people usually propose
Yes beeswax wrap, or mesh or fabric sacks (I used that for a portion of pretzel sticks today) or metal bento boxes.
Takes that initial investment, but totally worth it
I use the Beeswrap and I actually love it!!
Please contact Isabelle Constant, LLC. I would like to connect with Bea Johnson on a zero waste initiative for the planet.
Un capisco
The reaction I had reading the title of this video is the same as reading the title of Jennette McCurdy's book (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
My husband told me this morning that it is unsafe to buy from bulk containers because there are rats in the market how do you know that they don't get into the containers
Terri Sanchez then buy from farmer's markets. at least 95% of the time, they are trying to get customers to come back so they keep their products clean of pests and other unmentionables.
All the bulk containers that I've seen have lids on them. You've seen bulk containers that don't have lids?
There are serious health standards markets must adhere to, and are regularly inspected. Such food areas are generally significantly more hygienic than the average household. ;) Just see for yourself and decide if it is for you; don't just listen to your husband. :)
Factories and food packaging plants have rats and insects in them too. The FDA site has a page "Defect Levels" which lists how many animal/insect parts or feces is allowed in a product.
Everything is bulk before it gets packaged, chances are the rats have already had their fun with the produce before it reaches us in "safe packages"
But again recycling is better than not recycling there are people that can never adjust to zero waste lifestyle and it is sad but it is the truth. So this kind of promotion like recycling is bad is not the best in my opinion. If you could live by these rules it is great and i try to do this too but if someone decides to start with recycling instead of doing nothing that's great too step by step to a better planet.
she looks a bit like Gisele Bunchen
I'm surprised to see someone who's so on spot with zero waste who still eats animal products....
Some animal products are waaay better for the environment than vegan ones. Take for example faux leather (plastic, never decomposes) vs leather (quality product that last practically forever as far as quality and is a natural piece of animal that will decompose back into the earth)
Amy Sternheim Bone meal and blood meal is not necessary. I grow a lot of vegetables organically every year. Compost is so much better than any fertilizer.
Lots of GREAT IDEAS which when practiced with VEGANISM is the #1 best combined way to slow the massive damage humans have already ungratefully inflicted on the only planet we’ll ever get. Peace
What about condoms? They are one form of waste that doesn't have an alternative.
The latex in condoms is biodegradable. (Latex is an all-natural substance made from the sap of rubber trees.) For the most part, latex condoms and lambskin condoms can be broken down.
As for the packaging (individual wrappers and the outer boxes), they too can be made of biodegradable paper.
(Source: www.verywell.com/can-condoms-be-recycled-906643)
I feel like if you make no waste everywhere else in your life the environment will forgive a few condoms :)
Cara Mia
She neglectes to mention prescription and otc medicine you can’t get those bulk and you can’t go with out some of them...
Also where do they send worn out rag bits and I have watched two of these with no mention of toilet paper. Even if you use rags at home or water 💦 when your out your not. And school supplies so no disposal pens but what about ink cartridges, or do they never print ...
So Unsure I have seen a video where she talks about zero waste school supplies. She fills a fountain pen from an ink well. Idk about the tp but I assume she uses cloth. Probably 100% organic cotton that gets composted when it's too worn.
what about toilet paper?
unbleached, biodegradable toilet paper
Shawna Edwards just wash up with water
Shawna Edwards A bidet. Much cleaner and uses considerably less water than the manufacturing process of toilet paper.
Washable ones
I don't use toilet paper anymore. They are sometimes dangerously produced. Now I'd rather use water to clean my body
After knowing about the lives of the Holy Saints of Catholic church on YT and all the sacrifices and fasting and martyrdom they made... What she asks is barely nothing. Take the Cross.
As long as there are humans we will have waist.
... how do you go without toiletpaper or new clothes when they get holes in them... I don't buy it, shes not going "zero waste" its really not possible in our society today. There aint reusable toilet paper... ok nows shes starting to sound unsanitary. I mean its good, but this might be too far.
Admirable though
I agree with you that many of her suggestions wouldn't actually work (buying in bulk leads to more food waste, clerks have to deal with packaging after you ask them to take the packaging away, etc.), but I think you might be taking her use of "zero waste" too literally. Most people understand it to be a figure of speech or a shorthand for "as little waste as possible". And at the beginning of the talk she says that her family still produces a jar's worth of waste a year.
Liam Murray When she says buying in bulk, she doesn’t mean buying in large quantities. She means that she goes to the store with her own container and fills it with the amount of food that she needs, avoiding plastic containers in the first place. There is no food waste at all.
Bulk stores don’t have packages, so you don’t have to ask to take them away.
There is always a better alternative than new and single use products ... For example: toilet paper --> bidet and/or reusable washable wipes. New clothes --> second hand clothes ...
I hate to be THAT vegan but..... the amount of waste that animal products produce vastly outweighs all of these efforts. A shame as she's clearly very environmentally conscious and probably doesn't realise- so good on her for trying!
Adrian Brendon Béa is not vegan!!!
Well people could just buy their own animals and kill it themselves. Fresh meat with no packaging.
If you really care about the environment you need to go vegan. watch Cowspiracy and see the real harm you are doing.
Lorrayne Hurley zero waste, vegan, walking everywhere/cycling. the most guilt-free way to live
oo and do not have kids,...
Not everyone is required to go vegan it’s a choice you make yourself
Vegans go vegans only becouse they feel bad plants take up space to
You're right. Though, her point is also contributing massively to be more impactful to a sustainable environment. A vegan can harm many animals and the envrionment if they dispose a lot of waste and plastic. But someone who is zero waste may be supporting a very unethical and harmful industry. Veganism and zero waste are points that absoloutely should be combined!
No, don't agree with her. To live with as low a footprint as possible, we need to evaluate both sides of the coin. Say for example that she need to use the car to bring all her containers to the store while I buying the stuff the normal way are able to use my bicycle. I wouldn't be surprised if her footprint was larger than mine.
If this lady really cares about the environment then she shouldnt be ordering CHEESE.
titi girl She also put it in her own container
It's not just about what packaging it comes in. Cows produce a lot of methane emissions (greenhouse gas much stronger than CO2). Their waste also causes a lot of water pollution also, causing eutrophication - 'dead zones' in bodies of water where no sea life survive. Growing crops to feed them such as soy, corn or wheat to increase milk yield can cause deforestation and food insecurity in poorer countries.
Cheese can be made out of sheep, goat or cow, Titi. But do not ask any French girl born in France not to eat cheese ! It is purely delicious ! :-))
Bet she threw away her old coffee jars, jam jars and tupperware before splashing out on Kilner jars. The same with her make up before deciding to use crushed charcoal, paprika powder and cocoa powder instead. Zero waste is nothing new. Jocasta Innes was using thrifty methods when it comes to home decor and furniture a long time ago. Many people have been using a few of these ideas for ages. She's just taken them all and conglomerated them.
lemsip : A lot more people haven't been using these ideas at all. Give the woman some credit.
She's jumping onto the bandwagon and claiming credit from the people who went before her.
lemsip : Did nobody ever reuse and repair old furniture before Jocasta Innes?
If I decide to live zero waste, I will not throw my tupperware or plastic jars.
Well said. Unless they are toxic do not throw them away or use them to store non food items in.