Lauren Singer hasn’t made any trash in over three years. Well, nothing except for the few things in the jar you can see above.
“When I tell people that, people think that I’m crazy, or I’m lying, or they ask me questions like ‘So how do you wipe your butt?’,” she told a TED conference in May this year. Lauren goes on to explain that she lives a zero-waste lifestyle, a conscious decision she made while in her senior year of an environmental studies degree at NYU. Lauren explains how she began to feel like a hypocrite for using plastic when she was supposed to be working towards making the world a more sustainable place.
Deciding to give up plastic isn’t easy, but it is possible. Lauren learned how to make her own beauty products to avoid the plastic packaging we find on everything from toothpaste to moisturizers. She started taking her own bags and jars to the supermarket, and buys only second-hand and recycled products. This is an interesting talk that inspires us to be aware of how much trash we make, and empowers us to take small steps to eliminate (at least some of it) from our lives.
You can read more about Lauren’s top tips for a zero-waste life, and all the ways in which her bold decision has had a positive impact here.
This article (This Jar Contains ALL The Trash She’s Made In Three Years) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com.
