5 Easy Ways to Switch to a Low Waste Lifestyle

1 ) Say No to Bags

Instead of always taking a paper or plastic bag from the grocery store, bring your own tote and produce bags. If you live in a city with no car, you can get ones that stuff really nicely into a ball that you can throw into your purse. If you have a car and you forget to bring your bags, have the grocer put your products back into the cart and put them directly into your car! With COVID this year, many places aren’t allowing you to bring personal grocery bags. You can still request to have them placed back in the cart and bag them outside!

If you’re like me, you have way too many tote bags that companies have given for free. But if you really don’t have any… here are a few:

2 ) BYOC (Bring Your Own Cup)

I know COVID has made it more difficult for us to bring our own reusable cups to coffee shops and restaurants - and many places don’t allow them. But this scare tactic was really brought on by the plastic industry. You can read more about it on the Green Peace website here. Our use of plastic has increased 250-300% since COVID started! It’s time to do something about it or else we’re really going to destroy our world. Instead of buying bottles of water while you’re out, bring your own bottle. If you go to a coffee shop, encourage them to do contactless pours. Stojo is starting a campaign to bring back reusables with coffee shops (I hope to share more info on that soon!) Here are few bottles and tumblers that I like:

3 ) Ditch those Cotton Pads

Some of us can use up to 7-10 cotton pads a night just removing makeup, applying toner, taking off nail polish and the list goes on. Ditch those one time use cotton pads and switch to these awesome reusables that you can simply throw into the laundry! This has seriously changed my life. Here are some I recommend:

4 ) Swap out your paper towels with tea towels or rags

I know a lot of us out of convenience, like to use a lot of paper towel. When there’s a spill, when you need to wipe your mouth, when there’s bit of dirt - it’s just easier. Try using tea towels or rags instead! I always have one at the kitchen area designated only for wiping the kitchen and dining table. Then I have one specifically for the bathroom, and one for cleaning the bedroom. Trust me, you’ll feel much better after you switch to towels! You won’t be worried about Costco running out again! Only if you need to buy, here are some ideas:

5 ) Bring your own Utensils

These days, everyone is ordering take out and restaurants automatically give you way too many forks, napkins, and soy sauce packets. Though ordering take out is not ideal since most food are packaged in styrofoam or plastic boxes, but during this pandemic, I feel like it’s almost important to support our local restaurants. And to do a small part, tell the restaurant in the instructions not to include utensils. If you need napkins and sauces, ask for the actual amount that you will use. If you don’t have utensils to repurpose and must purchase, here are some ideas:

Life Priority List

Make a list of what’s important in your life. Mine would probably contain family, boyfriend, friends, travel, career, sleep, health and food. Now separately, draw a circle and start pie charting these priorities. How big would your career slice be? How big would your family slice be? How about your boyfriend or girlfriend? How about your friends, the environment, money, sports or fashion?

Prioritizing your life is a super difficult task. When you look at your typical 24 hours a day, how much of your top priorities are in it?

These past 3 weeks, I was given the opportunity to go on a business trip back home to Hong Kong. I was so fortunate to be able to spend my weekends with my parents, my sisters and their families. This trip was quite meaningful to me, as I got to spend more time chatting with them about life, interests, passions and priorities. I usually go back for Christmas every year, but it’s so hectic we don’t actually get much quality time. I’ve always had family as a huge slice of pie in my chart, but it’s easy to de-prioritize when you live far away and go on about your robotic day of wake up, go to work, eat your meals, go to sleep. As you get older, you realize that these priorities are what makes you happy. Not to say that we should be upset by our daily routines, but to use this pie chart and reflect on our lives. Each day goes by so quickly and its a matter of time when your priorities change again.

There are different seasons throughout our lives, and our priorities change with them. When you’re younger, you may be more career driven, and when you have kids, they may take up 90% of your life. We can’t do everything all at once, and you can’t always reach your goals overnight. If we look at life in pie charts and change our goals throughout the seasons, we can make it more meaningful and fulfilling to the priorities that you want to give your time to. We all want a balanced lifestyle and we can try a little harder in giving time to what matters to us the most.