This video is sponsored by Bunz. Over the last 90 days I haven't thrown out or
recycled a single thing. Instead I've held on to it and I've kept it in this
room to show you. This is all of the plastic, glass, metal, and paper recycling
that I've made in January. And this... and this is all the trash that will get sent
to landfill. If I look excited right now there's a reason. This single bin is all
of the recycling that I made in February, and this... this is all of the garbage. Now
the reason for this difference, and the reason that I'm so excited about what is
literally trash, is that at the start of the year I started on a mission to go
zero waste. To reduce the amount of trash and recycling that I was making to zero -
or at least as close as possible. I honestly thought it would take me most
of the year to get as far as I did in the very first month and that gave me a
lot of hope. That is what is exciting to me. And this is how much further I got in
the next month. So in just three months I reduced all of my recycling from 4.1
kilograms down to just 0.7 kilograms. That's an 81% reduction. And if
you're wondering why I'm excited about that,
that's because recycling isn't really as good as people think it is.
In the best case scenario it still uses a lot of energy and resources, and in the
worst case scenario, and often, it just ends up as waste. I made a video
about plastic pollution that kind of talked about that if you want to check
that out. I also reduced my trash from 1.6 kilograms in January all the way
down to 0.076 kilograms in March. That's a 95% reduction and I'm honestly
extremely surprised by that. I thought it would take a lot longer to make that
amount of a reduction. Now the last 5% - that's gonna
be really hard because that's things like receipts and the stickers on fruits
things that are kind of hard to find a way around. Now the exciting thing to me
in going zero waste is that the first 95% of the process has been the
easiest part, and that's something that literally everyone can do. Here's how
I did it the very first thing I did was to stop
buying anything unless I absolutely needed it. And it turns out that there's
not a lot of things that I actually need. I was buying a lot of stuff, especially
online, and most of it I didn't even end up using and all of it came in a lot of
packaging. Whenever there's something that I actually do need the very first
place I turn to is Bunz. They're the sponsor of this video and they're an
online community where you can go and trade things that you are no longer
using and in return you can get things that you do need. They've got a really
good app that makes finding things near you really easy and all the trades that
I've made so far have been a breeze and Bunz is growing really rapidly but it is
still pretty new so if you look at Bunz in your area and you don't find a lot of
things you could be the first you can be the ambassador, and you can post some
things that you are looking to get rid of, and see what happens. It's an
excellent way to save money while helping out the planet by reducing the
amount of waste that you generate. You can check out Bunz through the link
in the video description and using that link will let them know that I sent you
and I would really appreciate that so please check it out!
Secondly, I've reduced the amount of packaged food that I've been buying. It
means I buy almost all my food in bulk, and I buy fresh produce. By bringing my
own bags and jars I am reducing my waste a lot. And by buying in bulk I'm saving
money. And a thing that I didn't think about going into this is that the food
I'm eating now is way more healthy, and that's surprising but a huge benefit to
me. Thirdly, whenever I leave the house I have to be prepared so I'm bringing this
container pretty much everywhere I go. It has
a napkin and a water bottle and some chopsticks a straw and a spork and the
container itself can act as a takeout container if I need it. Now it took me a
little bit of time to get in the habit of doing this but it really hasn't been
that big of a deal. Lastly, and this should be a last resort,
I spent some time figuring out what I could recycle in the city. It turns
out that if I'm willing to bike a little bit I can even recycle things like soft
plastics, so this has been a hugely helpful step in my journey towards zero
waste. To prevent my apartment from stinking horribly I haven't been
collecting things that you can compost, and thankfully Vancouver has a compost
program. Whenever my waste reduction mission comes up with my friends
the first thing they always say is: "wow that must be so hard" and it's just not. I
did not think that I would be able to reduce my waste by 95 percent in 90
days but I did, and it was actually pretty easy.
So please figure out how to reduce your waste even just a little bit will make a
big difference if I can do this, you can do this. Let's do this together.
Thanks for watching. I set up my plant watering machine so that when it hit a
hundred thousand subscribers a bunch of lights would start flashing and music
would play. It's 4:50 in the morning, and it just woke me up because we hit a
hundred thousand subscribers which is great
not the greatest timing but that's really great I'm pumped.
Somehow I started the year with 5,000 subscribers and now in March we're at a
hundred thousand. I just want to say thanks to everyone that made this
possible, thanks to all my patrons, thanks to every single subscriber that has been
keeping these plants alive and nearly drowning them.