THE UGLY SIDE TO ZERO WASTE // my non aesthetic zero waste life pt 2

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

SHOP ANA LUISA HERE to get their Buy One, Get One 40% just in time for Mother's Day: shop.analuisa.com/as-environmentalist

[@UnpaidInternJR]

I think you've collected so many 'ugly' items that as one big collection, they're no longer ugly and could almost be called an aesthetic! The Upcycle aesthetic lol

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

honestly yeah it's all so ugly that together it's become quirky!

[@BronsteinEmily]

This type of message is so important to new zero wasters. My non aesthetic zero waste...this year I'm going to try No Mow May for the first time. I live in the midwest and normally the lawn starts to need mowing in late April or early May. This year I'll be letting it grow to increase flowering weeds for early pollinators and to waste less energy used to mow. I'm excited to see what it looks like. I'd love to never mow it but I don't think that would be possible. I also have an abundance of ugly containers and boxes. I'll only buy attractive containers if I thrift them or get them at a rummage sale.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

yes!! new zero wasters i feel like they think they have to match the aesthetic but that isjust not true!

[@caitlinspellman6679]

Hey! I use "non-reusables until they are truly not reusable anymore and then switch to a more natural, buy one time and last forever of said "thing" from a local store or go without until we find one. We use cloth everything so no paper products needed. Super washing soda and borax, just a little and double rinse-hose to outdoor garden. Line dried. Cotton rags for cleaning and a bar of soap for dishes. I try to make all of the things that cause trash, for example. mayonaise, ranch dressing, bbq sauce, ketchup. My son and I got yeti cups for christmas and use a water purifier and refill our yeti's. Any throw away plastic is saved as to become a trash bag (try to pick up trash on walks with the dogs) or compost food holder. We ride bikes and only user our older car for trips to State Parks . We don't buy many electronics and we use them until absolutely no coming back. LOL. I taught my son early on my basics interests which are food and travel. Living sustainably helps us do that and you get to use your imagination a little bit. Nothing wrong with slowing down and being intentional. Thanks for your tips and tricks!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

yes same!!! i mean why not!! i love all of these things thank you for sharing :)

[@AbigailLee218]

thanks for a realistic house tour

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

yay for being practical!

[@WonderboxGamerGirl]

Videos like this are so important especially when several companies are preying on people to spend lots of money to be sustainable.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

YOU ARE SO RIGHT!!

[@bambiren5920]

My favourite "ugly" way to live zero waste? I collect virtually anything I find on the ground: hairties, bobby pins, random containers (I collected a glasses container today). After a good wash and boiling if possible they're perfectly fine to use and even if I end up not using those they're still perfectly fine to give someone else or in the worst case get rid of. Always better than on the ground tho!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

omg i also find trash and use it hahahahah i love it!

[@bambiren5920]

@@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist this is honestly the same mindset I have when losing stuff: hopefully someone will collect it and make it their own!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

@@bambiren5920 yes!!

[@SimplyKindlyMandy]

i do this too!!!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

@@SimplyKindlyMandy yesssss

[@anaalves3658]

👏👏👏 I can totally relate to the bucket in the shower 🚿🙂. I lived in Cape Town South Africa and we had a long draught, every had to save all the water that they could. We bought a big container to catch all of the water from our washing machine and then used a small pump and a hose, which ran through our front door, to water some of our garden, we had a beautiful tree which we wanted to keep alive. Luckily we had a lot of indigenous water wise plants and hard landscaping in our garden, actually all of the boulders came from a construction site, it needed to be dumped somewhere else so we paid for the transportation and for a stone mason to break up the granite rock into more manageable sizes and used it in our garden. I have gone to the trouble of removing all of the labels off my recycled glass jars, I also reuse old toothbrushes for cleaning as well as old clothes and socks. There are so many ways to be more environmentally friendly that don't cost you a cent, changing your habits makes a huge difference 👍😁

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

saving every drop of water! Love what you do!

[@xochilguevara3429]

I feel like yours is my sister channel, if I had a channel, which I don’t. I love that even your videos aren’t “aesthetic”, like having shots of blurry slo-mo stems with a single leaf being delicately placed into a clear jar of water, etc. This is so my style 😄

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

oh i actually try really hard to make my videos nice.....

[@xochilguevara3429]

@@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist Oh, sorry, I don’t mean they’re not nice; they’re very very nice. Professionally and smoothly done. I just mean I like your minimalist style rather than something floofy.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

@@xochilguevara3429 ohhh haha

[@almamurphy2990]

TLDR; I am seen as "weird" at work because I take home recyclables and food waste for compost I am a lead cook at a local college. We *feed* about 150 students daily, 3x a day((enrollment is only about 350)) And we don't recycle at our main dining commons, beyond cardboard boxes. (I did convince Student Life to get a recycle bin at our small Cafe, but I have to sift through it to properly sort. But hey, atleast there is a place for recycling there!) But in our main kitchen, empty plastic are just thrown away. So I collect all the empty yogurt containers, condiment containers, milk jugs, empty cans, empty bread bags, tortilla bags, salad bags(our lettuce for salads come in plastic bags, so I try cutting them open at the very top to save as much bag as possible), empty juice jugs, olive oil jugs, vinegar bottles- ANYTHING I save. I wash out. And I bring home. We have to ask our y manager for permission to take things home, and he always looks at my funny when I bring him my big box of recyclables to take home. I asked about getting a plastic bin, but my manager says its a "scam"( along with composting). We used to have an organics bin to compost, but over the years everyone stopped trying. So I also kindly asked my coworkers to keep their scraps(like carrot peels, onion ends, apple cores, pineapple tops, brown lettuce, orange peels, coffee grounds from our cafe, even food from the salad bar that are wilted, organics that have passed the "5 day" limit, allllll that) and since we make a lot of food from scratch, there is A LOT of food waste. So I collect everyone's scraps at the end of the day, and will reuse any of the plastic containers to take them home and dump in my compost. My freezer got FILLED over the winter and I had to stop collecting because I will bring home atleast a 5lb bag of waste every DAY from work. Since becoming more eco-conscience, it hurts me when I go to work and see that I CAN do something, but nobody tries to help. Because I know I end up missing some things that I could have grabbed. But I do my best

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

i am the work weirdo too! I collect recycling for my entire office, I set up a recycling program! Goof for you! I can't believe you have to ask, ugh! All this hard work pays off, YOU GOT THIS!

[@cassiemeyer1164]

One thing i struggle with is keeping stuff around to be upcycled one day. I live in a tiny house so i have to be so judicious about what I keep. I wish i could keep everything! Luckily my mom lives in a normal sized house nearby and i have storage space there. So that helps! 😊

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

that's so fair! I struggle with that too!

[@DeadHorse666]

I think the plants in bottles are beautiful and I'd love to find a way to keep a plant in them and put them wherever I can since I drink so much beer. In terms of aesthetic, anything plastic is what I find to be ugly but almost every glass jar and bottle is beautiful so I don't even have to try. Antiques that are designed to be purely fictional however still manage to be beautiful and they're already on the planet and will outlast you and everyone you love so they can be passed on hoping they won't get to someone who paints them white. I have the corner of boxes in between my organ and piano and I've had it get nine feet high with the chandelier preventing them fro toppling over before having to use several to pack things and one as a dust cover for my type writer.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

thanks for sharing! there are so many ways to display plants :)

[@oliviaswan6751]

I have many ugly ways to live zero waste but the main one I do is collect recyclable items to send to terracycle or just recycle at a local recycling place. like toothpaste tubes, my moms disposal razor heads, foam, scrap metal, and much more in our closet downstairs. She says I’m hoarding recyclables but I want them to end up in the right place hahah.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

omg i forgot that one! i have a bag of toothpaste tubes in a box somewhere waiting to be sent hahahahhahah

[@azuritevalentine6199]

Doing zero waste this way rather than aesthetic that's for the rich people. Thank you for maing these episodes they are most helpful

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

thank you so much!

[@reissval]

It's April in Texas. Our grass has been brown and dormant since fall. We'd like to put in a rain barrel collection system. If I had my way, I'd replace the yard with succulents and lavender mulched with gravel. Completely drought-tolerant and more practical than Bermuda grass.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

i mean yeah grass naturally dies in winter, but not so much in vegas since it's warm here year round. I love the rain barrel!! succulents would melt in this heat....and also we don't have much control over our lawn since we are renting

[@shaunaburton7136]

I have a couple of pieces of clothes that have multiple patches and I hope people can wear old repaired clothes with pride. Only works with natural fibers.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

I've repaired many plastic-based clothing items...

[@shaunaburton7136]

@@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist that’s cool! Clothes that I had with spandex or other synthetic stuff usually just breaks down , becomes misshapen or is stained. But maybe there are ways to repair the synthetic fabrics

[@mamasgun21]

I’m so grateful for this little series of non-easthetic zero-waste. Though there is nothing wrong with a clean, crisp aesthetic, but it it’s not financially or environmentally cohesive to me to make the changes for my life to look like that. So I relate a lot to this video. Makes me feel more ok with my home ❤️ instagram hat not been the healthiest for my journey with minimalism and zero waste

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

you're so right! the aesthetic can be for some people, but it really isn't the cheapest option. I love my cheap lazy zero waste and know others relate :) get on tiktok! tiktok is soooo much more real and raw than IG

[@qweenprince]

I also have a jar for used cotton swabs on the bathroom counter!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

love it!

[@millao2190]

Love the video! I read somewhere, that human hair should not be put in biowaste, hair breaks down very slowly, it can take decades. In Finland (where I live), some companies have started making oil spill mats from donated human hair, and thats really cool!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

it just depends. mine is very small pieces since my hair is so short and i don't trim often. now if you're cutting off several inches that is a different story

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

that is a great option tho!

[@carolinehaavaag-jrgensen1423]

Love the first video! And this! Thank you for making sustainable living so simple ♥️

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

yay thank you for watching the new one!!

[@francesrl5]

I think your plant propagation in the kombucha bottles is cute!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

definitely one of my more aesthetic things hahahaha

[@chronichails]

My HOA hates me too. In my area we only need 80% of the neighborhood to vote to dissolve it.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

gosh they are the worst!!

[@ronjatuovinen6907]

I buy my candies in paper bag and reuse the bag as bag for my bio waste (i can't compost, my apartment is absolutely tiny) and i have never bought a bio bag/paper bag

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

great idea!

[@ruhan6417]

Would your HOA be ok with you creating a “rock garden” for your front lawn? Those are always super aesthetic and allow you to get some native plants and cacti/succulents in. Or maybe faux turf? Of course these are things y’all would need to buy and if you really don’t care about it then it’s whatever lol

[@tuanoini]

What a brilliant idea!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

nope. idk if i mentioned it but they will only let us replace the grass with desert landscaping, which is what you described, if we hire an agency which is very expensive

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

believe me I CARE!!! this is a huge issue out here but they won't let me do it myself

[@lilithhenry]

i do admire your dedication towards zero waste lifestyle, but I don’t think that I could do this. For me aesthetics matters too and I could not manage to find my peace in a house where nothings is matching at all. I try to reduce my waste and to go for some sort of plastic-free but I like my minimalist aesthetic because of my anxiety tendencies. It’s not to critize your living at all, but I don’t think that I could apply this that far as you do. It is fantastic though, and I wish that a clean aesthetic isn’t bothering me that much that I feel the need to put myself in it.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

you CAN have both aesthetic and low waste! Your style should not destroy the planet. Thrifting is a great way to do this :)

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

thanks for the support! I hope you find ways to make your style more eco :) btw I never say nor can I force anyone to do anything!

[@lilithhenry]

@@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist oh I'm so sorry if you felt criticised by what I wrote, it wasn't my intention at all. I am really admirative to your dedication. And nor didn't I said that you forced anyone to follow your lifestyle. I just meant that I'm far from dedicated than you are and it is only because of my flaws. And btw I thrift most of the stuff that I could, but where I live, thrifting isn't really a thing and the stuffs that you could found are mostly crappy things that won't last or are already broken or rusted. Not the kind of things that you found in America or in Europe. I try to DIY most of the time, like for my work table that I bought second hand and that I customise myself with materials that I already had. The table was made from solid metallic materials, but the glass top broke troughout the transportation back home, that's why I had to fix it with some broken wood panel that my father collected. It saved me so much money, fit my taste better and was the most low waste alternative that I found back then, but still, it wasn't a zero waste project. Really you are an inspiration to me, I hope that one day I could get rid of my aesthetic obsession and become much more pragmatic. But for that, I need to calm my OCD anxiety first.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

@@lilithhenry oh I wasn't feeling that way! Many people think that I'm out here trying to force them to do every single thing that I say and that is never my intention. I am simply sharing my life :)

[@erineginn]

How do u not get ants or fruit flies with the compost sitting on the counter?

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

guess it just depends on the climate! bugs don't really thrive in vegas. if i was back in japan it would be a different story

[@juliaiwaszczenko]

my ugly low waste side is freezer filled with compostable waste stored in plastic bags left from bread xD

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

hahahah i feel that!

[@naomikuo120]

What kind of soap do you use to wash dishes so that the waste water is ok for your plants? ~I appreciate your channel!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

any biodegradable soap! I use CONCENTR8ED dish block. They should label if their soap is biodegradable, if it doesn't say that, it's no good!

[@SarmHart]

Hi! I thought I’d check out the link for the jewelry but, it’s not in the description. ☺️

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

oh no!! thanks for letting me know adding now!

[@Reiko29DBS]

Why dont you use one of your imperfect foods boxes as your trash "can"? :) I use an old box as my bathroom trashcan

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

perhaps! it just takes up more room

[@madebyannalam]

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person who uses their mailer bags as trash bags. 🤣

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

it's just too good of a use!

[@KS-jf2jf]

You are so funny! Love it!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

oh thanks haha i don't try to be my content is pretty serious stuff

[@KS-jf2jf]

@@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist oh I know, just the way how you come across and say oh this is so ugly 😊 I just found you and appreciate how down to earth you are, and you have such simple, easy to implement suggestions. My motto is also "progress, not perfection". I love your channel. 💞

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

@@KS-jf2jf oh haha thank you so much!

[@ber1779]

Let’s see… we have the box stash, check, bag of bags, check, I have a stash of dental waste (toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, floss containers), contacts waste, beauty waste, textile waste. They’re all empties that I’m going to recycle with Terracycle. If anyone saw our attic (that’s where I store them), they’d think I was nuts for collecting garbage in my attic XD. I don’t compost, but if I wanted to go really crazy, I would use my pet rabbit’s poop for fertilizer. (Not crazy, but meticulous I mean lol)

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

hahaha i am glad I'm not alone! i love terracycle!

[@nhicheeze]

i love this :)

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

thanks so much!

[@aimeeseek]

Is it okay to refill a cheap plastic bottle once?

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

don't see why not

[@cassiemeyer1164]

Ok i fucking love mochi

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

she is just the best haha

[@kevinnelson1314]

Love love love ugly zero waste 🥰

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

YESSSSS!

[@erintannehill]

I think ugly is subjective 😂 I do a lot of what you do with jars and boxes. I don’t use liners or bags for my bathroom trash. Believe it or not, it doesn’t get nasty…. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[@erintannehill]

Oh! And I also use old cut up tshirts as tissues and have my old tissue boxes (because they still work great for that job) BTW can I just say thank you for the tshirts as tissues tip! They are the BEST and softest zero waste alternative I’ve found. I’ll never switch to anything else, regardless of how ugly it is!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

right which is why i said in the beginning this is just ugly based on society standards, i don't think any of this is ugly!

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

i loveeee these!!

[@cilstr]

wait - what ??? why do you want to rip out oxygen providing plants??

[@cilstr]

i understand about the grass.... ( I wouldn't really call grass a plant for plants sake - but I guess it is kinda) . .. what about asking - or just not asking and doing- to plant some plants that don't need much water in place of the dead ones.... eucalypts are fairly water poor... not native tho.. .

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

because they're dead and not native to the desert

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

obviously i would replace with desert plants

[@audreyschmitt200]

Las Vegas HOA sucks! You can't put rocks in your front yard? It would make more sense if you landscaped with native species or at least more desert friendly 🙄 ugh

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

THEY ARE THE WORST!! No!!!! They WILL but they will only let us do it if we hire an outside agency which is priceyyyyyy

[@lizelbernardo4039]

❤❤❤

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

:))

[@thesmallstepper8740]

Please tell me in which category should I put my channel which is on sustainability there is no catogery such as sustainability.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

I'm not sure what you mean

[@thesmallstepper8740]

@@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist when we create a channel we have to put it into a catogery for Example:- Gaming, Non profit and activisum etc... in which category did you put your channel?

[@shaunaburton7136]

Wow! Your hoa is out of touch.

[@TheSimpleEnvironmentalist]

sure is