The post-90s girl insists on zero waste and produces only one can of garbage in half a year.
"Zero waste" life practitioner Yu Yuan produces only one can of garbage in half a year; opening a store allows the public to contact and experience the concept of "zero waste"
On December 10, Yu Yuan was sorting out the merchandise. The store sold hand sanitizer and other cleaning liquids in "bulk" form. Customers need to bring their own containers.
Beijing News reporter Wang Jianing
On December 10th, the menstrual cup sold in Yuyuan's store was a recyclable menstrual product for women.
Beijing News reporter Wang Jianing
At No. 70, Beiluoguxiang, the green door frame and the red window seem a bit out of sync.
Yu Yuan, the owner of the "Zero Waste and No Packaging Store", puts hand soap, laundry detergent and shampoo made of natural plants and trees into large squeezable containers one by one.
She wrote "San Da Filled Area" on a thick cardboard cut from a cardboard box.
This is the "new" on the day of the store. Customers can bring their own containers to fill them, allowing the bottles to be reused and reducing waste.
A small glass jar on the store shelf contains less than 0.5 kilograms of all the garbage produced by Yu Yuan in 6 months.
She has lived a life of "zero waste" for more than 4 years.
"I put it here to remind myself to persevere, and to tell everyone that'zero waste' is not out of reach, nor does it need to be like an ascetic." Yu Yuan said.
"At the moment of moving, 80% of the things were found to be unnecessary"
After returning to Beijing after the Spring Festival in 2016, Yu Yuan received a notice from the landlord that the house had been sold, and gave her a few days to move.
She scrambled to find a house, clean up, and pack.
"It was during this process that I discovered how I have so many things, and many of them have not been unpacked." When moving, Yu Yuan threw away 80% of the items in the room in one go.
Some were given to friends or neighbors, some were left in the original house, and some were put into the trash can.
"Maybe it is because the more things there are, the more troubles, because it takes time and energy to store, maintain, organize or repair." She feels that she is forced to move quickly, pack things up, and let herself find that it's time to change .
With the remaining 20% of daily necessities, she moved to a small apartment.
With fewer things, life suddenly becomes easier.
"For example, I don’t have to worry about what to wear and what to wear when I go out every morning. I save a lot of time when I pack things, and I can pack them quickly when I move. There is nothing in the room, it’s clean and empty, and it’s very comfortable ."
More importantly, Yu Yuan feels that a minimalist life makes him more spiritually free.
"If I want to leave this city, I don't have to think about how to deal with so many things, just leave as I want."
One day, she was inadvertently attracted by a video on the Internet. It was about an ordinary American family of four, but there was only one glass jar for all the garbage in a year.
The hostess in the video was Bea Johnson, the originator of the zero-waste lifestyle that later had a great influence on Yu Yuan.
This is the first time Yu Yuan has come into contact with the concepts of "zero waste".
At that time, she couldn't avoid shopping and garbage, but she began to change her lifestyle consciously. For example, she would bring her own canvas bag when shopping for vegetables, and refuse disposable plastic packaging when she bought drinks.
In Yu Yuan's view, every practitioner of "zero waste" life will experience a process of change, and no one can do it in one step.
Therefore, there is no difficulty in adapting to this change.
"After I know enough about what I really need, I won't be blindly consuming like before. I watched a lot of documentaries at that time, and every time I watched it, I would re-examine the relationship between my life, my lifestyle and the earth environment In this process, I have also met more like-minded people, we influence each other, and the concept of consumption has become more rational."
"In 6 months, I only produced a can of garbage"
A glass jar is placed on the display shelf of Yuyuan Store.
It contains candy paper, courier bags, air tickets, pills, clothes tags, and ribbon bracelets issued by music festivals.
This is all the garbage left by her that cannot be degraded in the past 6 months, less than 0.5 kg.
Yu Yuan said that the reason for putting them in a glass jar and placing them in a conspicuous position is to remind themselves and others that if thrown away, these garbage will be mixed with countless other garbage and landfill, which may last for hundreds of years. It cannot be decomposed and becomes the chief culprit in harming the ecological environment.
"A lot of people will be scared by the zero of'zero waste', but it's actually not that difficult. For me,'zero waste' is already a common practice."
In Yu Yuan's refrigerator, there is a stainless steel basin, which is used to store kitchen waste such as egg shells, peels, vegetable leaf roots, and coffee grounds.
When it is full, she will pour it into the soil for landfill or compost.
When she goes out every day, she will pack her own tableware, water cups, handkerchiefs, and one or two canvas bags in her bag for possible vegetables, fruits, snacks, etc.
In the vegetable market, Yu Yuan never uses plastic bags in shops.
For household necessities, she rejects all plastic packaging and uses biodegradable toothbrushes, toothpaste tablets in glass bottles and recycled paper with sustainable forest certification.
After becoming a practitioner of "zero waste" life, Yu Yuan's biggest change is the choice and control of shopping.
When buying clothes, she must first look at whether the material is natural or biodegradable, whether the quality of the product is good enough, and whether it can be used repeatedly, and if it fails, she will choose other alternatives.
Yu Yuan once bought a pair of second-hand cowhide boots for RMB 4, which he still wears today.
Many of the clothes and accessories in the house are also old things she bought from the vintage store.
Yu Yuan said that before every shopping, she would ask herself if she really needs it?
"When you know enough about what you really need, you can restrain your desire to shop. When choosing, you will also consciously compare whether it meets the'zero waste' standard I practice."
"Opening this store is to let more people experience'zero waste'"
But it is not easy to find real environmentally friendly and energy-saving daily necessities.
Yu Yuan found that many people who are practicing or want to enter a "zero waste" life just like himself, because they deliberately search for these items, they spend more time and cost.
She wondered whether it is possible to open a store that specializes in selling these kinds of daily necessities, so as to facilitate similar people and provide a platform for more people to experience this lifestyle.
At the end of 2017, Yu Yuan invited Bea Johnson to China to share the "zero waste" life.
At that time, she shared her thoughts to the mother of the zero waste lifestyle.
Bea Johnson is very supportive of her. She told Yu Yuan, "If you want to do it, just let it go, and you will know if you do it."
It didn't take long for Yu Yuan to open his own "zero waste no packaging store" both online and offline.
After that, the offline store changed its location. On October 13 this year, the offline "zero waste no packaging store" finally opened in Beiluoguxiang.
"I always feel that there must be offline physical stores, because you can choose what you really need and fit through contact and experience." Yu Yuan said.
The commodities of the "zero waste and no packaging store" are mostly daily necessities, such as wooden tableware, glass straws, stainless steel lunch boxes, biodegradable recycled paper, and organic cotton mesh bags.
At the beginning, Yu Yuan did not know which manufacturers were formal and reliable, nor did they know whether the green environmental protection standards issued by the manufacturers were true. The quality of the purchased items was poor or the materials did not meet the requirements.
After that, she contacted different suppliers, compared the same product materials from different manufacturers, and constantly searched and inquired about information to see which ones were more environmentally friendly and which could be recycled.
Before mass purchases are put on the shelves, she will use the things by herself to test whether they are really easy to use.
The only paper towel sold in the store is the natural antibacterial bamboo pulp paper she uses daily. "It is a bamboo pulp paper with FSC sustainable forest certification, which can be used to flush the toilet directly, whether you live in a high-rise building or an alley. It can be used very conveniently."
The most diverse items are straws, glass straws of different colors, stainless steel straws, bamboo straws and reed straws.
Yu Yuan said that this provides customers with many different options to replace plastic straws.
"Plastic straws are one of the top ten pollution sources in the ocean. They are extremely harmful to marine life, but they are commonly used in real life."
Yu Yuan said that all these items have in common that they can replace disposable plastic products.
She seldom promotes the products in the store, and most of the customers are repeat customers or people who come by "Amway".
"I still hope that the most important way to promote these products is the customers themselves. They feel practical and durable, and they may spontaneously introduce them to others in need."
In this way, the sale of zero-waste unpackaged stores is in line with her original intention: not only selling things, but selling them to people who really need them, encouraging everyone to buy what they really need and reducing waste.
Beijing News reporter Wu Jiaoying