Here is the full transcript of author Bea Johnson’s TEDx Talk: Two Adults, Two Kids, Zero Waste at TEDxFoggyBotto conference. This event took place on April 23, 2016 at Washington.
Listen to the MP3 Audio: Two adults, two kids, zero waste by Bea Johnson at TEDxFoggyBottom
Bea Johnson – Guru of the Zero Waste Movement
The average American generates one ton of waste annually. My family: one jar of waste per year since 2008.
Our journey started back in 2006; we read some books, watched some documentaries. And what my husband and I found really made us sad thinking about the future we were going to leave behind for our kids. So it gave us the will to change our ways.
I got super motivated in trying to find waste-free alternatives. I tried lots of things like canning and those — some things were good ideas; others, not so much.
Canning was a good idea, but I do not recommend using stinging nettle on your lips in lieu of lip plumper. It really hurts, believe me. I do not recommend using moss in lieu of toilet paper either. You see, moss dries, so the next day you end up with — you know those scouring pads? Yes, not very pleasant. I don’t recommend that.
I also tried using “no poo,” which is a way of washing your hair without shampoo. You’re supposed to wet your scalp, massage some baking soda in, and then rinse it with apple cider vinegar. But after six months, let’s just say that the oil of my hair migrated down to here, and I ended up with frizzy ends. Not quite the hairstyle I was looking for.
But I think I hit rock bottom, when one night I went to lay down next to my husband, and he looked over, rolled his eyes, and said, “I am so tired of you smelling like pickled herring, Bea. It’s really not sexy”. So that’s when I realized that maybe I had gone too far, and maybe I should find another alternative to shampoo.
After all this trial and error, we found balance. We found that for Zero Waste to be sustainable in our household in the long run, all we had to do was follow five rules in order. Now, don’t you guys even dare think that we bury our waste in our backyard, or we throw it in other people’s cans, or in the public bins.
The first rule is to refuse what we do not need. We’ve simply learned to say “no”. We say no to junk mail, we say no to single-use plastics, we say no to freebies. For today, in this consumerist society, we’re the targets of many consumer goods. But every time we accept them, we create a demand to make more. Every time we take a free plastic pen from a conference, it’s a way for us to say, “Please, drill more oil from the ground to create a replacement, and the replacement will be created”.
The second rule of the Zero Waste lifestyle is to reduce what we do need. So in our home, we’ve gone through a decluttering process. The beauty of decluttering is that it lets you share the things that you do not really use or need with other people. It boosts the second-hand market, which is extremely important for the future of Zero Waste.
In my kitchen in the old days, I used to have a jar filled with utensils. I had about ten wooden spoons, until I realized that I only have two hands. And when I stir, I only need one hand. What’s the point of having ten wooden spoons? One is enough.
This is a picture of underneath my sink. This is a space that used to be filled with cleaning products because I was listening to what the marketers tell us. They tell us that for each application, we need a different product. To clean the windows, we need a product. To clean the floors, a different product; to clean the bathroom, a different product; and we end up with a cabinet filled with toxic products that we don’t actually need. We found that we can clean our whole house just with white vinegar and castile soap.
This is our bathroom, and our medicine cabinet. So this represents all the products that we need in our bathroom. For example, to brush our teeth, we simply sprinkle baking soda on a wet toothbrush. On my eyes, I use burnt almonds; on my skin, I use cooking oil; and on my cheeks, I use cacao powder. The only problem with using cacao powder on your cheeks is that you have a chance of getting attacked by dogs when you walk down the street, but it hasn’t happened yet.