Bea Johnson
On Saturday evening, my colleague Jenelle and I went to the Zero Waste Living presentation presented by Bea Johnson. Bea is a best selling author, mother of two boys, world renowned speaker and a producer of virtually no waste since 2008. To begin the event we were informed by the event organizer that 61 Olympic sized swimming pools worth of waste are sent to the landfill and that the landfill in Victoria will be full in 32 years if we continue with our current level of waste production. It was this shocking information that Bea took to the stage to address how we could alter this rate of waste production.
Her presentation touched on her method of achieving a zero waste life style based on the 5Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rot (and only in that order). First, we must refuse what we do not need and say no to ongoing consumption. By stopping the flow of goods into our home we are drastically reducing the amount of things that will one day need to be disposed of. Additionally, by saying no to products we are decreasing the demand for goods and ultimately the demand put on our planet to provide. The Second R is reduce. This means that once we have refused to purchase the things we do not need, we can reduce what we do. Of course this does not mean that we should be eating less than what we need or forgoing personal hygiene, but it does ask us to look at how the items we need are produced and packaged. Next, we must reuse and swap out disposable items for those that can be reused. Recycle is the fourth R and while this is something that many of us do, Bea encourages us to go further by finding programs such as Nike "reuse a shoe program" which makes old runners into basketball court surface. For students, she also encourages buying cardboard binders instead of the plastic ones most people use. Finally is rot. Rot of course refers to composting and is the last step before the landfill.
Connection to BC Teacher Competencies
By engaging in this presentation I believe that I was working on the teacher competency, "Educators are role models who act ethically and honestly". Teachers are huge role models for their students and it is important that we model good behavior that will help our society and our planet. Modeling good behavior goes beyond just acting appropriately in and out of the classroom; it is about modeling appropriate and ethical behavior more widely.
"A life of Being Instead of Having"
Ted Talk with Bea Johnson
"Living with Less=Living More"
There were a lot of interesting take aways from her presentation but one of the one's that stuck with me was that Bea's family had an overall savings of 40% after they switched to a zero waste lifestyle. Even though they were shopping at health food stores and spending quite a lot on groceries, by refusing what they did not need, their bills were significantly less. This stuck with me because I always assume that I cannot afford to shop at these stores. While this might in fact be true on my student budget (I really do not spend much money on shopping or other activities), I think that shopping at organic, bulk stores may be very feasible in the future. The other main thing that I took away was her quote that "buying is voting" whenever you buy a product, you are asking for more products like it to be produced and sold. If we are buying a lot of food with packaging on it, then we are asking for more packaged food.
I think that a presentation like this or a lesson/unit on zero waste living would be amazing to bring in to the social studies classroom. Students are key pathways to spreading information and by teaching students about zero waste and encouraging it in their home, they are likely to discuss it with friends or their family. Additionally, in highschool it is crucial to teach students habits that are sustainable as they will likely be living on their own in the following years and zero waste habits are important to bring into their future homes. One project which I had to do in a geography class was called the "eco-action" project and for this project each group of students was encouraged to adopt an environmentally friendly habit over the semester. I chose to try and eliminate plastic bags and plastic packaging for this approximately 3 month period. While it was really tough to completely eliminate plastic, my consumption certainly decreased and a plastic free mentality has stuck with me to this day when I go shopping. I think this would be an awesome project for students to do at any age and the words of Bea and her success has inspired me to continue on my journey towards a waste free life.