Trash bags

Pernilla:
I have nothing to say really, but I just wanted to make you a bit excited about Karins next post. She has some interesting stuff there.

One reason why I don't produce a lot of waste at home is because I eat out or not at all. How does that count?

Just for entertainment, here is a picture of two baskets I made. One is made from old clothes, one from old plastic bags. You get to figure out which is which. I'm not saying it's a world saver, but it's fun making them. And trashing clothes that are not worn out, not even a bit...it's a pity, isn't it?

I feel sorry for things that are not used to it's very end. I believe the things are sad that their life purpose wasn't fulfilled. It's very stupid of course, but if that was the common attitude, I think we would trash less.

Asparagus and hair

Pernilla: I was going to show you a picture of the asparagus soup that boyfriendo made from left over asparagus peel today. It's more of stock really, like a base for soup, and funny enough it taste quite like danish (wienerbröd). Perhaps the 60% butter could be an explanation. Unfortunately I cant show the picture because my camera is charging. But wasn't that just lovely? Using all the bits and scraps, very grandma style. Our waste this week is very little. I'm quite happy.

I'll talk about hair now. I have so far washed my hair with this clay powder thingy twice. The hair is a disaster but I think I must be doing it wrong. The scalp is very clean actually, but the rest is like a rubber mat. But people on the internet swear by it, so I'll keep trying. At least I can shape the hair very nicely into buns and knobs and such. I'm going to a wedding next weekend, so that will be a critical point. Must have nice hair on wedding.

Finding alternatives to products is one interesting way of reducing waste. My next hair experiment will be washing it with egg yolk. I'll try tomorrow morning. I seriously don't think this is the right way to reduce waste, but it's kind of fun trying these things out. (And I already have a boyfriend, doesn't matter what I look like. As long as it's temporary ugliness.)

UPDATE: Egg was not enough. I'll give it one last try tomorrow, wednesday. If it doesn't work then I'll go to Aveda who at least mimimize the amount of plastic in the packaging.

A sit down coffe

Karin:
So this is on the same note as your juice one Pernilla. Instead of getting take away coffe I stop, sit down and have it in a regular cup. This really is a win-win. First of all, it's so much better to have it from a real cup, I hate paper cups. Second, like you said Pernilla, are you really so stressed that you have to have your coffe walking, can't you spare that minute or two? It's so nice to sit alone at a cafe just looking at people and the city... Sounds super cliché but it's so relaxing. The power of now, right Tom??

Market shopping

Karin:
Went food shopping the other day on the markets, one amazing thing about living in Munich! There is one on a square in the center called Viktualienmarkt and then there is a farmers market next to my house every Wednesday and Saturday. It's so much nicer to brows around on the markets then being at the super market. But it takes time! And, even tough most of the produce is unpackaged they offer you paper wrappers and plastic bags with every thing you get. Tried to avoid it, not as easy as one might think... the german market people generally don't speak english, and I generally don't speak german:( Love the feeling of buying stuff from the producers, dirt on the potatoes makes me feel reassured they are from the ground and not a factory floor... hmm!



So this was the complete result of the shopping spree:



Apart from food I also got some washing liquid in resonably good packaging from the store, spf lotion and British Vogue.... Hmm paper, paper, paper, I was in the magazine store and I was contemplating weather or not to get a magazine since I didn't want the paper on my concience. But then I got super annoyed and thought that, NO, this is where I draw the line! I'm not going to miss out on culture and just sit at home beeing a vegetable. I'm not that keen to save the planet... or am I?? Now I feel super spoilt and bad. Vogue vs a tree... shit, the tree should win, non? Well, done is done, and I'm probaby going to keep buying magazines. I'm not prepared to stop that yet, this is where it starts to hurt for me, giving up on hobbies, interrests and entertaining habits.

Well, I will pass it on to someone once I read it so it will at least be to use for someone more than me...

Pernilla: Karin, I need to go to that farmers market next to you. I keep forgetting. Try to say "NEIN DANKE" to the people who give you bags...otherwise I don't know.
About Vogue - We just bought a newspaper that we will trash pretty soon. But the salesman looked so sad and besides our german teacher say we have to read more magazines.

The irony

We left our bin for compost in the garden after I emptied it in the big compost a few days ago. (It was smelly and I was going to pick it up again after work, then forgot about it until today.)

It's now gone. Our neighbors trashed it.

So now the yogurt bucket from last sunday will have to do as bin for leftovers. Another good reason to shrink our waste - it only holds one liter.

By Pernilla

New habit of the day

Morning. Crossed the market. Wanted juice. Instead of paper mug to go, I had it in a glass. I sat down for one minute and watched the people hurrying to work around me. Much better. It doesn't matter if I come to work one minute later.I'll always do it that way from now on.

Last weeks achievement

We trashed one bag this week. (Yellow.) It's quite small compared to the neighbors' bags, but I wish it was much smaller. There are plenty of things in there that I don't know what to do with: envelop windows, weird inseparable packages made from too many materials, and some god knows what. I'm sure we could have recycled at least half of it somehow. Lazy.

A few good things though:

- Fixed a lot of clothes. Not that I would have thrown them away anyway, but now they can at least be used again and not just lie in a pile. Less buying new clothes if your old ones work.

- Made sure to bring your own water in a bottle. If you fill bottles and freeze them, they serve as cooling for your other picnic food + you can drink it as it melts.

- Saved two stolen-when-drunk bananas and some forgotten (but nice quality) chocolate from death by letting them meet each other in a lovely cake along with some eggs. Very low GI. Bananas were browning, chocolate had gotten whitish - typically food you would just throw away.

- Overall trying to not waste food but eat it before it goes bad. (And without just solving it by eating a lot of extra semi-bad food.)

- Carried lunch sandwiches back without extra bag, said no to other carrier bags.

- Tried to find unpacked shampoo. Finally found a dry powder shampoo that you mix with water before usage. It came in a paper box. Was kind of excited until I found the plastic tube inside. Damn! Still excited to try it though. Weird!

-Writing on both sides of paper, just like the World Wildlife Foundation taught us to do in the 80's.

By Pernilla

Sunday

Todays outfit. Glasses: Tom Ford. Cardi: COS. Shorts: FCUK. Shoes: Private. Lips: Photoshop. Food without bag: tofu, milk, egg, müsli, rhubarbs, yogurt. Philosophy:Big packs of food probably less total package than many small packs.

It's getting hard now. I need inspiration.
First of all, think I was doing a lot already and I have a hard time changing the things I still do. I guess you can translate that into "That's everybodys problem" - Everybody's willing to sacrifice to a certain point but then think it's enough, right? and into "You can at least do something better than you do now."

I think one key thing is becoming better prepared. Food shopping, for example, must be at least somewhat predicted so that I 1. remember to bring extra bags and 2. don't just shop random food but food that I will eat before it goes bad.

I feel so often it comes down to tedious details, about whether yogurt should be bought in one liter plastic buckets (you can keep it) or half liter thin plastic or paper buckets (you can recycle it, less material) or not even bought at all since you will create waste whatever you do. (woo there! SACRIFICE! No way!)

I wish there was a clear manual. Buy this, not this, then do this, not that.

And food shopping for zero waste is a small hell if you like me also are vegetarian plus trying to avoid all white carbs. There are like five things I can buy in the store.

By Pernilla

Intangible joy

Pernilla:
A friend wants to do music. He says:

"There's something nice about things that disappear as soon as they're made."

Made me think of me and my creativity, which is all about creating stuff. Stuff stuff stuff.
And I wonder how much we are encouraged to make physical stuff, versus making intangible things like music, throughout our childhood. I can't even imagine the number of artifacts I created, but songs? Plays? New games? None.

How much is this affecting me? And what about our idea of buying and owning stuff for our satisfaction instead of, lets say playing together? Could you make teenage girls spend the Saturday jamming in the park instead of going to the mall?

Granma Style

1. Take your broken pantyhose that you dragged around in your bag for a week.
2. Cut in pieces
3. Use as hairbands. Brilliant.

(-So Pernilla, are you actually saying that you officially walk around with underwear in your hair? -Yes I am.)

Second salad solution

Pernilla:

At lunch we quite often buy salad from this Salad bar close by. Every time you waste one of these big plastic salad bowls. They are not great quality, but could probably last for 5 lunches or so. Of course you can eat there, but you just won't.

Today we were looking at all our bowls, started talking about it, and decided to make an effort to re-use them.

Of course, you could bring your own everlasting bowl. That would mean the staff would have to reset their scale when you pay. They probably wouldn't like that. And they'd be telling you off big time how annoying they think you are- German way - and you wouldn't do it.

So minimal effort would be to at least wash the bowls, keep them in the office, think about it when you plan to go to the salad bar, and bring a bowl. Should be easy.

Five bowls plus lids now patiently waiting for a wash and a second round of usage.

Sandwich Norwegien

Pernilla:

I suck, I know.
My French all time low: An on the road, crazily plastified NORWEGIAN sandwich (in France!), eaten in the car together with ehm, coke zero which is..I don't know. I have no excuses.

But the sandwich tasted so much like home I got tears in my eyes. It was absolutely great. I was so sick of French food at this particular moment, and eating something from my home area (oh right, so the Frenchies got it wrong - it's a very Swedish bread) totally made my day. But it was the most overpackaged thing they had. Oh, guilty pleasure.

Not easy, is it?

On the topic of toilet paper....

...a french No waste high point. Or at least a refreshingly good idea. No cardboard tube, just paper rolled up and kind of squeezed a bit.
It's not going to save the world, but it's nice. And seriously, producing all those billions of tubes, you know shipping them, transporting them back, burning them... it adds up. How many little things like that in our everyday life could just be remade in a smarter way? Love it!
Posted by Pernilla

One small step for mankind...

Karin:
I was going foodshopping today but when I got there...
...I realized that I had forgotten my reusable shopping bag, damn. I didn't want to buy a paper bag so I just bougt what I could fit into my handbag that I needed to manage dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow. Milk, bananas and an avocado.

I'll try to remember it tomorrow and do my foodshopping then... one of the small steps on the way to beeing more responsible (and flexible).

Week 1

Karin:
Time to sum up the week, so this is my garbage for this week:

And after I take away all the things that can be recycled:

Tadam!!!
Not zero, but pretty damn close! This is a part of a pasta package.
Also, there is fruitpeels and stuff in my balcony compost, it doesn't stink yet... But if it does we have a compost bin (brown) in my backyard next to the paper and household garbage bins:



For glas, metal and hard plastic I go 100 meters down the road...



And for soft plastics I have found a station inside my foodstore, so I'll just have to remember to bring it there...


I am amazed over how little the effort have been and how well I did, it's been fun too! Maybe it's just because it's all new, we'll see how much fun it will be in a few weeks unh...?

But looking at wat my flatmate produced over the last week (and she was away for three days!!) kind of puts it in to perspective. (Please note glas, non collapsed milk box, hard plastic and metal amongst other...)

goes up goes down goes up

Pernilla:
I'm now in Bretagne, staying overnight at a small guesthouse by the ocean with poppyfields outside my window and lilacs in flowery vases all around my room. (Hey Karin, how's that compost? is it smelly yet?)
The guy were staying at actually renovated some kind of french cowshed completetly and turned it into the lovliest of guesthouses.

And here's whats cool: he has two wells - one for water coming up, and one for water going down. Simple. Everything that goes down the drain pipes ends up in your own garden, in your own food, after a week or so. Suddenly you feel "hm.. Biodegradable detergent and shampoo might be a good idea here. Bleach? Chemicals? Highly toxic for water living organisms? Ehm , not so sure anymore."

Making your own waste your own problem and not somebody elses problem.

Karin:
Wow that's amazing and totally inspiring. The good old "get-a-taste-of-your-own-medecine"-trick always works!!

Pernilla: Yes I know! Love it.
I had a mini version of it: Everything I wouldn't throw away ended up in my handbag and in my luggage. In the end of the week I was dragging around a kilo of little paper wraps and shit. If you literally need to CARRY your waste, you make sure you minimize it.

Conference crashing

Pernilla: Not sure about this one, but anyway:












Instead of buying lunch, me and freelancer E just stole all the leftovers from a unguarded conference at the hotel. Very sustainable to eat it instead of making them throw it all away.

Felt cheap and a bit embarrassing? Yes. Was it because of time pressure and no veggie sandwiches at the bar? Yes. Was it replacing proper lunch? Not really. (But please notice the Macarons.)

Leaving the hotel

Pernilla:
Sordid. Seriously.
This is my weekend of garbage produced, and you know what, I refuse to bring it with me! I also refuse to convince the french piano teacher lady to sort and recycle it for me. (Perhaps she does, yes, actually let's pretend she does that. Eh, haha.)

This is not like a lot of garbage compared to, lets say Americans that use disposable plates and cutlery for every meal, but still I felt very unsatisfied. Sloppy. Not taking my responsibility. I have been avoiding things like taking every flyer, broschyre and so on that people want to give you. I've browsed through free magazines and decided not to take them BEFORE i actually take them with me. Etc.But still this is how much I threw away. (NOT counting any food leftovers which are the main part.)

I was a bad tourist.
One thing on my plus account though: I needed shampoo. I went into a pharmacy and the only travel sized shampoo they offered came in a 3-pack, in a little PVC transparent bag. I debated with myself for 10 minutes what to do (drove my boyfriend crazy as well) and then decided NO. I just really hate PVC. So now I'm washing myself with the free stuff you get in the hotel - it's body gel, not even shampoo. I now smell like a salesman of cheap copying machines. And my hair looks like Ronjas'. Oh, the Sacrifice.
And just realized, all those little bottles of body gel... I guess I have to keep them then.

Shopping = Throwing

Karin:
So obviously our trashing habits are directly related to our shopping habits. The only way to control what we trash is to control what we buy. One thing that I always claim to live by is quality instead of quantity. For example, buying one high quality garment/object that will last for years rather then low quality and having o constantly replace. In the long run my believe is that it's both financially and ecologically more sustainable. Easy in theory... but as a "poor" student reality sometimes look different. However, Pernilla and I had a very good discussion the other day about how you should cosider everything you accuire your responsability from then on. Considering what will happen to it after you get it, how long the lifetime will be and what will happen to it when you no longer want it. Going through that chain in the head one extra time before making a decition to buy something.

I have been looking for a blazer for quite some time and today I found two! One wich was 39€ and another at 125€. My non-paid-internship-wallet told me that the 39€ one was the way to go and I felt that I couldn't argue the extra 86€ even though the other one was nicer. I estimated how many times I would be able to use the cheaper one before it would start looking dodgy and guessed that it would most probably be in the charity-shop-dumpster before next summer. Also style wise it wasn't love, and it has to be love! So I went ahead and got the all-natural-material-well-made one. I have adopted it and I will take care of my baby. Hoping to look smart at client meeting tomorrow and many times to come...


Pernilla: Wow! Nice jacket, plus good moral choice. I hope. I think. Let's hope the quality thing pays off then!

Take away or eat here?

Karin:
Went to the awsome sallad/sandwich bar "Dean & David" for lunch on thursday with some colleagues. We were going to eat there but it was totally full so we decided to take the food back to the office. Fine, apart from the fact that it left me with this:

Napkin, wrapper, bag, plastic cup and straw... Lots of waste for one lunch! And if we would have been able to eat there it would have been none. So I'm going to try to avoid this when I can, from now on it's all about eating out!

So I ended up throwing the paper out at work but I couldn't bare to throw the cup. So I brought the cup and straw home and washed them out. I thought I could use this straw for my morning smoothies since it doesn't have the little "bend" that other straws have it's easier to keep clean. And this morning all of our glasses were in the washing mashine so I used the plastic one again! Yey, second life!

Pernilla, I can totally relate to you on feeling sorry for products when they don't get to do what they are supposed to. The cup looked proud to do it's job again this morning! :)

In swedish the word for disposable is "engångs-" wich means "one time use". So many disposable products can be used more then that!

Toilet paper

Pernilla:

I told my boyfriend that we're doing a "no waste"-project. He looked at me with big eyes, then just kind of exploded:
"Yes, fine, good but I'm not gonna not buy clothes for a year! And I want to use toilet paper! And toothpaste! Don't make me not do that!"
I told him he could use toilet paper and toothpaste.
(But actually - isn't flushing stuff down the toilet sort of cheating?)

And being a responsible non water when travelling...
is just so hard! It's completely impossible not getting my handbag full of little wrapping papers.

I think flexibility - still being able to be spontaneous, is a key thing here. And guilt.

At Madames

Pernilla:
I'm staying at B&B in Paris. The apartment is fantastic. The lady who has it is a piano teacher. There are french kids having piano lessons outside. I feel like being in a movie. (Oh, but not THAT piano teacher movie. A nice movie.)

And when it comes to waste control, zero. What can I do if she insists on serving me portion packs of yoghurts? (Eh, probably something like telling her not to, but it's a bit embarrasing, isn't it?) No to mention going around the city all day. Chewing gum, wrapping paper, paper cups - hard to avoid. I'll do my best.
Anyway, I was sitting there with my single portion yoghurt this morning and observing her collection of vintage packages. And somehow I came to wonder what happed with appreciating your things and keeping them forever because you like them? I imagine people loved and appreciated their stuff more when they had less, can that be right?

Imagine if you would tell your kid once a year that you'd go to a toy store, carefully pick one single toy, and that's it! That's the doll you'll be playing with for the next year, so you better be good to her!

What if we always had the intention of whatever I buy, I will have to stick with until it's totally, totally worn out and broken and gone!? There is no "buying a new one just for the fun / convenience / sake of it?"

Plane trash

Pernilla:
So I'm travelling. And while Karin is setting up composts, I feel a bit limited.

It started on the plane.


I was offered a newspaper that I kind of already read online, but paper papers are just so - nice. And it WAS very nice to read it.
Then this coffee was offered and I thought hell yeah. One cup, one paper wasted in less than a few minutes.

The spoon, sugar and napkin I hadn't even used, but before I tucked them down the cup to be trashed unused I realized they could be "good to have". I feel somehow sorry for stuff that was produced and shipped et alles, then just wasted without even fulfilling their life purpose of stirring my coffee for five seconds.

So now they live in my handbag waiting for a purpose to use them to come up. Uh, this "good to have" will become a dangerous one, I can tell already.