How to generate less waste

Brut America

How can we generate less waste?   Here is episode 4 of our series of stories on eco-citizen initiatives with French author Julien Vidal.

Transcript

00:00Every year, a Frenchman produces 350 kilos of waste, and today we're going to see how to fight this huge waste.

00:18Since the best waste is the one we don't produce, I suggest you go to the opposite of overpacking and the omnipresence of plastic.

00:24I'm taking you shopping in a junkyard.

00:30Hello!

00:32We're in a junkyard. We start with fruits and vegetables, like in a classic market.

00:39Kiwis from Drôme.

00:41In a junkyard, what's more classic is the dry groceries.

00:46We have rice, cereals, pasta, muesli.

00:49What we imagine less is that in a junkyard, we also find cosmetics and even liquid products, like balsamic vinegar.

00:58Hi Xavier!

00:59Hi Julien!

01:00Hi Iris!

01:01Hi!

01:02Thank you for welcoming me to your grocery store, the Kilogramme grocery store.

01:04It's junk food, and you do it in the 19th arrondissement.

01:06Exactly!

01:07The idea was to offer a store that only offers products that are good for the planet and good for health.

01:13The packaging as such can contaminate the product, and the packaging produces a waste.

01:17So we came to the conclusion that we do all this, and we do it without packaging.

01:21What about food waste?

01:22Junk food allows you to buy at the right weight.

01:25Exactly.

01:26There's also the fact that you don't have to buy a package of 1kg or 500g,

01:30if you live alone, if your consumption is low.

01:33What do we recommend to someone who has never bought in a junkyard?

01:36Let's say we have a shopping bag.

01:38We put 2-3 bags for everything that's going to be liquid anyway,

01:41and the rest we fill with very light fabric bags,

01:44and in fact it allows you to do your shopping more or less normally,

01:47instead of having a packaging.

01:49That's it, that's our packaging.

01:51For me, it's really by going shopping in places like this

01:54that we then regain the taste of a whole more virtuous consumption for the planet,

01:59but also for ourselves.

02:07And a little tip on zero waste every time you go out,

02:09to avoid contributing to the 5 billion plastic cups thrown every year

02:12and the 25 million plastic bottles thrown every day,

02:16I always have with me my reusable cup and my can.

02:20Reducing the number of waste that we let go into our homes,

02:23this is what is possible thanks to junk shopping,

02:25and there is a complementary way to tackle this problem,

02:27it is to revalue.

02:28Giving a second life to these waste thanks to recycling that everyone knows,

02:33and there is another excellent way to reduce by a third the size of your trash,

02:37it is by composting organic waste.

02:40Peeling fruits and vegetables, tea bags, egg shells,

02:43all these organic waste, I take them once a week

02:45and I take them to the shared composter in my neighborhood.

02:49And here we are at the neighborhood compost, which is managed by Verger Urbain.

03:00Every week, I put my organic waste there,

03:03which will slowly degrade to become fertilizer,

03:06and this fertilizer will then be reused to grow new vegetables.

03:11The natural cycle is thus looped.

03:15We have seen how to reduce and how to revalue,

03:18and now we are going to meet Green Bird Paris,

03:21who will show us how to clean.

03:28Hello Yashiko.

03:30Hello.

03:31How are you?

03:32Yes, I'm fine.

03:33I came to help you clean.

03:36The little bag and the pliers.

03:38Let's go.

03:39Let's go.

03:40A mego like this can pollute up to 500 liters of water.

03:46Yashiko, Green Bird, has it been around for a long time?

03:48Yes, in Paris, the association has existed since 2007,

03:52but initially it was created in Japan, in Tokyo.

03:56And every month, you meet to clean different parts of Paris?

04:00Yes, that's right, every month, once a month,

04:02we get together to do a small cleaning operation

04:06for an hour.

04:08I have just started, but I see mainly pliers,

04:10megos, a lot of megos, right?

04:12Yes, every time we find a lot of megos on the sidewalks,

04:16but we also find, for example, cans, bottles.

04:21It's not just to clean the city,

04:23there is the city hall for that,

04:25but our goal is above all to raise awareness

04:28among Parisians, people on the cleanliness of the city,

04:32so that they are more aware

04:34of not throwing waste everywhere in the streets.

04:37What I like about Green Bird is that it's typically the kind of thing

04:40where you say to yourself, well, it only takes an hour a month,

04:43it's not much, we don't replace the work of a town hall,

04:45that's for sure, and at the same time,

04:47we do something together, we are useful,

04:49and that, typically, everyone can do it.

04:54In the end, nature, it does not produce waste,

04:57and when we see how we have filled our trash cans,

05:00I tell myself that we might do better to be inspired by it.

05:02Changing your world is changing the world,

05:04and participating in the construction of a better world,

05:06it starts with me.

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