Minimalism and/or zero waste life
Hi there. It seems that minimalist and zero waste movements have picked up some steam recently in many first world countries as a reaction to the consumerist, greed-based lifestyles promoted and upon realisation of our impact on the world. As an aspiring zero waste minimalist and general conversationalist, I am interested in your opinions, so I'll bombard you with some questions.
Do any of you lead a minimalist or zero waste life, or are you aspiring to or making the transition right now?
What is your opinion of the movements?
Are you opposed to the lifestyles?
Why are you/do you want to be minimalist or create zero waste?
What is minimalism to you?
Are you a minimalist in some or all parts of your life?
What challenges did you run into when making the changes, and how did you overcome them?
Is there anything you recommend to those who are still just aspiring?
Does minimalism imply frugality?
Do you have anything else to add?
I've been something of a minimalist for a long time, partly in reaction to hoarder parents, and partly through having to move about once a year for a number of years. The unfortunate exception was books, and I've digitized most of the collection at this point.
There's minimalism as trend - everything white and superficially uncluttered, "joy"-inspiring, etc. I don't think this is durable or sustainable.
Then there's conscientious minimalism - the evaluation of every act of consumption and disposal through the lenses of sustainability, fairness, utility, and so on. While there are social consequences and the risk of self-righteousness, this is more likely to result in effective and lasting change.
Not as a matter of principle, no. I object to trendy productized minimalism, especially of the "this $300 handcrafted can opener made from recycled bicycles with sustainably-harvested poison-ivy wood handles is the only one you'll ever need" variety. I've also seen some people acting out destructively through excessive adherence and the expectation that their version is obvious so everyone else should follow suit.
I question the idea that people should cultivate "joy" through ownership. There's art that inspires me, clothes that make me feel pretty and so on, but these are transient sensations and subject to accommodation - we get bored with the stuff we have.
I had some hopes that the "sharing society" would materialize in a way that would allow everyone access to the things they need or even desire, for long enough to gain the utility, and pass them on to someone else.
As above - too much stuff is distracting, claustrophobic, and its care and maintenance takes time and effort I'd rather use for creating instead of collecting.
From an environmental and justice perspective, the material and energy inputs that support my consumption aren't fully recoverable, even with the best recycling technology available.
Considering the Earth as a closed, spaceship-like system that has to sustain all future generations, I'm making an ethical choice to immiserate someone if I over-consume now.
I try to pay conscious attention to what I'm consuming and discarding, as much as possible. When I'm traveling, I don't always have the option of avoiding packaging, there's a huge CO2 emission, etc. I also try to be forgiving of myself and others for what's beyond individual control on a daily basis.
Donating and disposing things. It was a real struggle with emotional attachments ("this was the shirt I wore on my first date with X!") and fears ("what if I need that?").
For the emotional attachments, I'd take a photo of the thing, changing it to an image that could still maintain the connection without keeping the clutter.
For the "what if I need that?" anxiety, it's important to have the connections with people that let you borrow and lend easily. In some circumstances where you might actually need something you don't have, it's better to conserve ready cash to have options available - rent, buy, etc.
Look around you, look at what you spend both for money and time, and start thinking about how you'd like to live. Start thinking about people who have fewer options. Then decide what small things you could do differently. Big changes always start with small ones.
Not necessarily. As @koan indicated, it's worth conscious effort and expenditure to choose things that are durable and best-fitted for the purposes they're designed for. For me, that might mean owning two tools that each do a job well (say, a wok and an omelette pan), rather than a single all-in-one (for this example, a saute' pan) that's less effective, more breakable, or time/energy-wasting.
All of this is work in progress. I still have things I don't use (a jewelry-making business worth of tools and equipment that I haven't had time for in a few years). Convincing my partner that we could get to a one-car household (at best, a no-car household), in a smaller house.
For people with kids and other extreme life demands, my only advice is to do something, but don't try to make your life about how little you can possibly use. I can see minimalism becoming a lifestyle disorder, in the same way that anorexia is an eating disorder.
100% agree. The monotony is only cool for so long before it becomes tiring and bland.
For me, this applies to anything. It's always sad when a good movement becomes a marketing scheme. That still won't stop me from practicing my own kind of minimalism. :-)
I still struggle with this, and I'm sure many other do, too. It was interesting because I never considered myself a very emotional person, but once I went through some boxes and stacks of things, boy was I wrong lol. I tried the picture thing after hearing about it somewhere else, but it didn't really work for me. Do you have any other tips for reducing these irrational thoughts?
Thanks for the response! There's honestly a lot of valuable things in here to remember and apply to my life.
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These things don't necessarily add joy for me. Art can help me control my mood, but clothes are a big one I recently discovered. I bought a lot of simple, practical, functional things to wear year round and am still working on that. I found out that how I dress was a huge limiting factor in my personal confidence. Maybe I've just set that up as a placebo to justify buying clothes (which I almost never do, along with spending extra money), but wearing my clothes gives me a new confidence in myself and my voice that I didn't realise my old clothes were taking away. I guess I'm just trying to say there are some things to get from purchases other than artificial joy, which I don't think you were denying in the first place.
It helps to let go of the idea that your pain on separating from emotionally-laden possessions is intrinsically irrational. You don't need that level of meta-struggle draining your energy.
That being said, in a way, our stuff is an externalized memory palace. We conserve and structure our life of feelings around the visual, tactile, and other sensory cues we get from the things we own.
There's a sense of control and safety that comes from familiar belongings. There are any number of heart-rending refugee stories where people are separated from everything, but their lives are anchored by the single memorial object they managed to carry away - a doll, a photo, a piece of jewelry.
So your thoughts and feelings about what you possess, and the pain of parting with these objects, aren't necessarily irrational. The most crucial criterion is how many anchors you need to carry with you, and whether they're so numerous that they keep you from progressing with your life.
Hi. This is a nice and relatable topic!
I have a mildly minimalist life but it's not zero waste (still not much waste).
Like every movement, they can come to extremes. But when not, they are good for environment and possibly human well being, depending on character.
Zero waste taken to extremes can feel tacky, and personally I don't desire to put thought in small things like having stereotypical mason jars for everything or carrying a set of multi use bags to stores all the time. But mild zero waste and especially mild minimalism aka simplicity with elements of frugality feel very welcome.
Household minimalism allows to do chores quickly, have a lot of free space, be less inclined to greed, and worry much less about possessions. It's related to the sense of freedom. And lifestyle simplicity is rather a consequence of personality, not a hard choice.
It is simplicity and lack of unneeded things at home, in lifestyle, and (less defined) in art.
Primarily in lifestyle. Then in household, minimalism here is simplicity with elements of mild frugality and jerry-rigging something broken, but not the cliche Scandinavian white furniture.
The only permanent challenge is often having more free time than "maximalist" friends, so amount of time spent together is usually limited to their opportunities.
Probably to avoid competition for whiteness of furniture and lack of it altogether. This of course applies to other possessions and lifestyle choices.
Another piece of advice is to organize and maintain backups of data and material things you might need (put them into closet away from the view), the lack of them is just a risk, not minimalism.
It doesn't, but it totally can come in this flavor if you are saving. Minimalism can be cheap, moderate or expensive.
For now I'd again recommend not ignoring some backup things like spare lightbulbs, food stock with good shelf life, first aid medicine, or tent you use once a year. Just keep them out of view and inspect / rotate sometime, and your life may become even more simple and worry free.
I personally like simpler design with some accents on my furniture, which happens to match with how I dress. I despise mason jars and pretty much any objects meant to be bought in bulk to create this mass uniformity environment. I do like my paper bags, though. :P
I just think it's important, in essentially everything, to not just do what everyone else is doing in an attempt to fit some cookie cutter mold. You almost always end up repressing some part of yourself which isn't worth it in exchange for a picture-book empty Scandinavian space.
Honestly, this was nothing like the response I was expecting; I didn't even think of this being the main problem. Do you think that getting rid of all the stuff really creates that much more time? This seems like a great selling point, at least for me.
Thanks for the response! I have never heard anyone I listen to mention essential backup items- I just kinda forgot that was a necessity.
Belongings usually require not much time for maintenance indeed, but I was mostly implying the lifestyle part of minimalism. It's probably more important for me. Modern lifestyles often glorify the state of being constantly busy, having a lot of exhausting activities, and that (controversially) can be minimized.
Why do you have a problem with this? In Australia single use bags have been banned from supermarkets and everyone just brings their own multi use bags. Its likely to happen in other countries as well. So easy to do and saves a lot of waste.
The term zero waste kind of bothers me because it's essentially impossible to strictly achieve. And the 'movement' is even more annoying because it's another fad lifestyle in a cycle that seems to be trending upward. When I see someone with a mason jar saying it's all of their trash for the past 5 years, I'm not impressed; I just think they're either crazy or a liar.
Like every other new age guru, there is always a kernel of truth in the center of their crazy schemes. And to be fair, Zero Waste is a much better approach to life and is much less crazy than most of the lifestyle fads that have come around. Minimizing environmental impact is a very admirable goal - one that gets my endorsement with no reservation. I just get irritated whenever I see 'lifestyle gurus' taking things to extremes.
I feel that Minimalism is a much better and healthier movement to follow. It's not as extreme as Zero Waste, that's for sure. I actually love the idea since it seems to focus on quality of life more than environmentalism. Simplifying your life to focus on things that bring you happiness is a good way to live. The more I grow older the more that I start to feel that all my stuff is pulling me back. I even wonder if all my attachment to stuff is what's keeping me from looking into moving into an area where I could make more money.
Yeah, I'm not sure that I believe those people with their tiny trash jars really only produce that much waste, but it's still inspiring to see. They usually offer many reasonable, applicable strategies to reduce and eliminate waste; it doesn't even matter if they're exaggerating how little trash they produce because I can still apply some of what they say to my own life. It's definitely important to think realistically and not go crazy trying to condense years of waste into a jar.
Sure, zero waste is a little extreme/difficult to fully achieve, but it's not glorifying something that in itself is actually harmful. When I think zero waste, I just want to reduce my output where feasible- from one trash bag weekly to one trash bag every one month+, biking or walking instead of driving when I can, more reusing and recycling, refusing plastic packaging or bags where possible, maybe try composting- because absolutely zero waste is essentially impossible.
Minimalism used to seem more about quality of life than zero waste until I started to consciously note how much waste I create and learn about its environmental impact. The 'out of sight, out of mind' thing really applies because minimalism means getting rid of clutter you see every day, but zero waste is eliminating earth clutter that you would never see again after trash day.
The minimalist trend, in the sense used in this thread, seems to emerge from a situation of excess and consumerism, in which individuals have the liberty to craft their own lifestyle. It is different from Buddhism or Stoicism because it doesn't necessarily include a cosmology or a larger view of life. It's the basic notion that "having less stuff is good". But this statement is not valid everywhere. If you live in a Somalian slum, more stuff is a great idea. You gotta have at least some possessions in order to choose the ones you keep.
That said, someone told me years ago that Buddhist monks had the yearly custom of asking, about each of their objects: "have I used this in the past year?". If the answer was no, they got rid of it. I don't know if the story was true but it seemed like a good idea to me, so I've been doing it ever since.
I've been trying to lessen my environmental impact, but like all things that are admirable, they're hard to do and lead a regular western life at the same time.
I'm mostly making a conscious effort to buy less, especially things that are or come in plastic, and minimize the things we have a little. To make an eco-friendly decision when one is possible and reasonable (like, no packaged veggies, meat wrapped in paper, bamboo toothbrush and safety razor, shampoo bars and buy things in bulk when possible) and try to spend more of my dollars on companies that have a morality that I agree with instead of just whatever is cheapest. Also to eliminate disposable items as much as I can.
A few small things could make a difference if everyone did them. My whole bathroom routine is almost plastic and waste free at this point, and I am good about carrying around reusable bags, my own cutlery, straw and to-go mug.
I still need to make progress with our food (we order in too much which creates a disgusting amount of trash) and the way I dress (I like cheap and I like trendy, so I need to adjust my thinking so that I can buy a few pieces that actually last in quality and timeless style.) and I generally need to make some strides with minimalism. However, I also think that it's important to allow yourself to grow slowly into the person you want to be, and not to punish yourself for not being able to devote your whole life to a movement. If you run a successful zero-waste blog that pays your bills, it's a lot easier for you to sacrifice your time to pursue a perfect zero waste lifestyle. I have other stuff going on, and sometimes I have to just let myself order dinner in, and be content with the tiny victory of requesting no plastic cutlery.
I spent two weeks in Bali last month, and while flying there was bad for my carbon footprint, I didn't use a single plastic bottle, even though you can't safely drink the tap water there. :)
I tried the mega overhaul a few times, and small steps are definitely the way to go. I now have a little bit of momentum that allows me to tackle some harder steps on my path to semi-waste-less minimalism. Just keep doing what you can where you can because some is always better than none! (:
I've never sought out zero waste or minimalism ideas, most things I've come across from overhearing/watching what my wife has on YouTube.
I'd be keen to become closer to zero waste. I don't think it is feasible to be absolutely zero waste.
I don't think minimalism and wrong waste should be conflated together. I think many minimalists might continue to use disposable/wasteful products to achieve their perception of minimalism (my house is clean and empty...but my trash bin is full).
I quite like the Sparks Joy idea. And I think the first way to attempt to achieve both is just to not buy stuff on impulse.
Impulse buys are a tough one with all the advertising and promotions everywhere. Some good advice I heard was to save the item you like and come back in a month to reevaluate and see if you still need it or if there was a significant need for it during that month. If so, then go ahead and buy it. Otherwise, move on.
Wow! I don't think I could ever get down that much and be content. It looks like you compromised by having your one bag's worth of essentials and then more valuable things that satisfy you, but are replaceable- except maybe your partner and cats. :-) This seems like a good happy medium.
To an extent, I agree. I find it hard to work and concentrate at my desk with all this nonsense hanging around me.
As a fellow privacy freak, you need to have that written or stored somewhere for loved ones to access in the event you suddenly die. Your life can't be accounted for in a few hours if others had no access to your accounts.
At least one hobby is very important for everyone to divert attention and keep sanity. Vinyl surely seems more ethical than some other hobbies. Unrelated: what kind of music are you into- genres, artists, etc.?
I've never heard of any of these artists, which is great because now I have this week's new music to listen to. Thanks for all the recommendations!
I had previously subscribed to a minimalism subreddit but apparently they only posted pictures of rooms of people who were so rich they could afford to have a room and do almost nothing with it, so I unsubbed.
More recently, my office shares an office space with at least twenty other startups. One company does catering daily and have a ton of waste. I compete with the custodial staff to intercept anything good before it goes to the trash. I normally avoid buying meat because it's expensive, but because of this system I haven't once ever ben out buying groceries and needed to even consider buying meat.
I'm far from zero waste at this point but its something I am slowly moving to as well as vegetarianism. I always bring my own bags and I have switched from driving to cycling. I plan to be totally car free within a year. Unfortunately I currently have a lot of waste from packaging. Food packaging, shampoo, and other products all create loads of waste regularly that I don't know what to do with. I have been washing and saving glass jam jars but I don't need this many jars. What do I do with these? They really should be reused because they are in perfect condition but it seems the only option is to put it in the recycling bin and smash it up to melt it back in to the same jar which just makes no sense. It seems the only way to live waste free is to make everything yourself and maybe it might be worth making more things myself but that seems unsustainable in the long term.