My journey towards a sustainable lifestyle started with one decision. I clearly remember the weekend when I went downstairs to dispose our trash. I was carrying 2 large bags of trash and it had only been a week since I last emptied the bins. 120L of trash in a week? It can’t be. Being a product guy, I had to measure this. So I started meticulously separating and weighing trash as regular waste, plastic waste and recyclable plastic waste. When you measure something, you start paying attention to how the numbers pile up. My biggest problem was with the plastic. There was a lot, much of it unnecessary. Amazon deliveries were the worst. Deliveries wrapped in cardboard boxes, paper to fill up the empty space in the box, bubblewrap around the actual product which again had a thin sheet of plastic, more cardboard, more plastic…all for something as trivial as a usb cable. Take-away food containers, single use plastic bags from the supermarket, food wrapped in plastic…the list went on. The numbers made me reflect. The numbers made me bring about change. Numbers may change your mind too.
Once plastic waste was reduced through several changes in buying habits, I moved on to composting wet waste. Once there was enough compost for my own plants, I had more to spare. So now I propagate some of my plants and plan to give them out to friends, colleagues to begin with. In return, I expect a pledge to weigh their garbage for a month. I hope the numbers will set a few on the journey to sustainable living.