My Eco Talk Three

Why I Live a Zero Waste Life- Lauren Singer

Lauren Singer lives a zero-waste lifestyle and has done so for over three years. In her senior year at NYU taking the course-Environmental Studies, a classmate would come to class with bottled water, a plastic bag of chips, a big plastic bag, which she would throw into the garbage. She was frustrated.

So one day, she noticed everything in her fridge was plastic packaged and felt annoyed. She decided to quit using plastics from that day and moved away from plastic. And because plastics are everywhere, from toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc. So she decided to learn how to make some things herself and research online. She came across a blog called the zerowastehome.com, owned by Bea Johnson (a wife and a mother of four children from California) who lived a completely zero-waste life.

Lauren Singer learned about Bea Johnson and her family, and she was completely mind-blown. The idea that she could not throw away any trash inspired her. As an environmental management student who talked and campaigned for environmental sustainability, she discovered that she did not live by the values.

Steps

So first, she stopped packaged food by bringing her jars and bags to the store, and bugging goods from the market for package-free items. Secondly, she started all of her products. The first product that Lauren made was toothpaste made from baking soda. Late she could learn how to make all the other things like lotion instead of going to the store.

Thirdly, Lauren would shop second-hand goods that were recycled, like clothes that would not produce any new waste. Fourthly, she downsized and focused on all the necessary things, and she needed. After reducing, she discovered that she had fewer things in her life that were easier to clean and take care of.

Benefits

She saved money from making her products, buying second-hand, and downsizing.

She is now eating better. She doesn’t buy packaged and processed food. Her diet consists of fresh food vegetables, which have helped her feel better, her weight stabilizes, and now she is living according to her values.

Lauren advises that if you want to reduce your trash,

• Look at your trash and eliminate them.
• Picking up the low hanging thins. Small changes in habits include using reusable bags instead of polythene bags, stainless steel, or glass water bottles instead of buying plastic water bottles.
• Making your products gives you the advantages of customization and complete control of what you take into your body.

While running her blog trashisfortossers.com, Lauren discovered one question that seemed recurrent, “Dear Lauren, I truly love the products you make, and I want truly natural products. But due to friends and family, I can’t manage to make them myself. Do you have products I can go buy that are equivalent?”

She went looking for the products and found that even the natural cleaning products used harmful and carcinogenic ingredients. She later found out that cleaning manufacturers aren’t legally required to display elements of products on the product packaging.

Consumers are at the complete mercy of manufacturers hoping that manufacturers don’t use ingredients that won’t harm them. Lauren felt that consumers have a right to transparent and safe products for our homes and our environment. Then she discovered the opportunity, quit her job, and started a business.

She wants to be remembered for what she did for this planet, not the trash she left behind.