How it all began ?
My zero-waste mission all started a few years ago, I saw documentaries and read about climate change, what caused it and what we can do about it. I started being more conscious and doing efforts. A few months ago, when I saw the documentary “True Cost”, I wanted to take it one step further. It made me realize how our current society has it all wrong. After seeing this documentary, I started to question everything; how come we are normalizing the use of plastic and how come consumerism has blown up so much? Why do we always need more? That is how I started a zero-waste mission, one (baby) step at a time … I started with the challenge to only buy second-hand clothes. Then I thought, why not document my experience and try to help other people to do the same? So, I started the Instagram page @sustainablerox. I had some really positive feedback, which pushed me to go even further; I started to avoid plastic, do a vegan challenge for 40 days, avoid taking the car, offset my carbon emission and so on. In the following paragraphs, I will take you through the different efforts I made and what difficulties I encountered.
Eating veggies!
First, I started to go vegetarian. What convinced me of going “veggie” was firstly the planet, did you know that eating 1000kcal of beef uses 13,8kg of carbon, while 1000kcal of lentils uses only 0,8kg of carbon? I also started to decrease my dairy-intake and since a week, I am doing a 40 vegan days-challenge. I actually find it quite easy !
Buy second-hand
Secondly, I decided to not buy any new clothes anymore, for at least one year. The aim is to continue this, but to allow myself to buy new clothes from brands that I know are 100% sustainable. Fast-fashion is not sustainable at all; the world consumes about 80 bln new pieces of clothing each year, which causes textile waste we cannot keep up with. In the US alone, we generate more than 11 mln tons of textile waste each year! There are so many things you can do with old clothes; you can repair or upcycle them, give them to someone who is actually going to use it, and so on. The options are infinite.
Avoid plastic
Thirdly, I have started to avoid plastic. I go to zero-waste shops as much as possible and buy in bulk. Not only for my food-shopping, but also for all my beauty and home products. I used to be someone that had so many beauty products, half of which I did not even use. Now, I started making my own hard shampoo, hydrating creme, I also use reusable pads and so on. Concerning my household products I also do an effort in making them myself or to use sustainable products. Working at Kazidomi helps me a lot to find the right products to use in order to be more sustainable and zero-waste. There are so many different options and as I am part of the purchase team I do my best to complete the zero-waste category!
Yes, it takes some time and effort to make the step, but once you are used to it, it’s actually very easy and even more convenient than before. People are more and more open and interested in the sustainability-subject. If you want to know more and need some tips and tricks, you can always go on my Instagram page, if you are interested :-)
