As there is consumption, there is waste.
Hello! I’m Chenfan Zhang, an outgoing girl. I come from China, and also I’m a member of DICE. It is the first day I began my zero-waste challenge, and I will try to update this blog in the next two weeks to record what I try to do with this topic.
The reason I choose this challenge is from my dissatisfaction with my consumption habits — — I enjoy spending money and buying something. So if some terrible things happen to me which make me sad, I will try to buy something to make me happy. When I realize that, I already cannot control myself. That is why my house is always stacked with useless stuff, maybe used once or twice, but when I bought these, I thought it would be useful, it also makes my room messy. I mean nobody wants to live in a“dump,” at least I don’t want to.
That’s why I decide to take this challenge, and it is an excellent chance to let me take the first step to change.
I hope I can change my spending habits, saves not only money but also makes a better contribution to environmental waste, make my life much more straightforward and happier.
Let’s start!
4.10.2019 / Carry our packaging box
My roommate and I decided to go to a restaurant to eat a hot pot after classes on Friday. We overestimated how much we could eat and ordered a little more than we could eat. Fortunately, the restaurant was downstairs from our apartment. So we decided to take away the rest food using the box which I received from our studio. And I didn’t have to pay for packaging, waste food, or use disposable plastic lunch boxes. Even save some of the bills for my next meal.
5.10.2019 / Waste is hard to avoid
My napkin consumption is very high, and I never controlled it before. When I decide to make this challenge, I started to pay attention to the details of my life. And I find this situation, of course, a waste activity because you can use towels or whatever you can wash to avoid repeat paper.
I decided to put a little towel which my mom bought for me from China in my bag, so I can use it whenever I want to clean my hands. I can even wet it with water to clean up something sticky on my clothes, because it absorbs water better than napkins. When I went to Duomo to eat ice cream, it was handy to clean up melted ice cream that sticked to my hands.
So…… Did I not produce any waste today?
I think the answer is no.
As I was about to finish my ice-cream, I realized that the clerk had wrapped it in a napkin. And the ice-cream I bough was a large one, so, before I could finish eating it, it already melted, and I had to throw it away.
At dinner time, we order a beef noodle in China town, I’m too thirsty, so I ask the restaurant owner:
“I have a challenge about zero-waste, may I buy some water which is in a glass bottle, not in a plastic one?”
“We don’t provide this kind of water; we only have plastic bottles.” The owner said.
‘I’m so thirsty,’ I think.
Finally, I decided to buy bottled water; even if it makes some waste. Because I can’t bear the suffering of thirst, I really had to say water is the source of life at that time.
In the end, I found that even if I rejected some excessive packaging, disposable products, and so on, as long as I consume, I would generate a large number of receipts, which is also a waste.
So long as there is consumption, there is a waste. Even if I go to some activities, there will be a lot of leaflets and brochures. And it is out of my control. But fortunately I have a habit of gluing receipts into bookkeeping manuals, So I think in a sense it’s not totally useless.
But at least, I’ve got the sense, and I believe I’m going to do better tomorrow.
Chenfan Zhang
