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Wasteland Rebel

Going #ZeroWaste

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How to Make Zero Waste Coconut Milk and Coconut Butter

How to reduce your paper waste and to get rid of that paper clutter

A typical day in the life of a vegan zero waste family

Zero Waste Bulk Stores around the World #1: Unverpackt Kiel in Kiel, Germany

12 Practical Green New Year’s Resolutions #GoGreenOrGoHome

Most Recent Posts

How to Make Zero Waste Coconut Milk and Coconut Butter

FAQ: How to Wash your Hair with Rye Flour? #NoPoo

How to Unclog your Drain the Natural Way Without Harsh Chemicals

How to Wash your Hair without Shampoo: An Overview of Different No-Poo Methods

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Our tash of one entire year! #TrashTalk

#SimpleSwap, Housekeeping

Zero Waste, non-toxic all-purpose cleaner #SimpleSwap

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Article, Food, Kitchen, Magazine, Reader's Letter

Reader’s Letter: How to freeze food without freezer bags?

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#SimpleSwap, Bathroom, Health & Personal Hygiene

Why you shouldn’t use Q-tips to clean your ear

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Events

Save the Date: Zero Waste Workshop in Vancouver!

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  • //Werbung unbezahlt | unpaid ad (labeled in accordance to a recent German verdict) #ZeroWaste (bulk) shops are stores specialized on the things you need for a zero waste/ minimal waste lifestyle. Most of them are extremely passionate about zero waste, so they work hard to reduce the upstream waste as well 😍. So far, zero waste shops are still rare, but they are popping up worldwide!! • Europe is going strong in this department 💚, especially France and Germany, but other European countries as well. In the past four years, around 100 (!) ZW bulk stores have opened for business in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland alone! I know France doesn’t only have many ZW bulk shops, but is also very advanced when it comes to environmental policies, e.g. banning BPA in food packaging! Many organic stores there have set up bulk sections encouraging customers to bring their own containers too! • As far as I know a handful of new zero waste shops also opened up in Canada recently as well, and I am pretty sure Canada now has more ZW shops than the US even! • Because zero waste is not exactly the industry standard, these amazing stores have all found their own very creative solutions when it comes to suppliers, usually trying to source as locally as possible! • @thesoapdispensary in Vancouver, BC is one of the pioneers actually! Linh opened the store 2011 before she had even heard of the term “zero waste”! To her, it was all about providing access to bulk for environmental reasons. She started with non-food items, because bulk sections are pretty common in grocery and health food stores in Canada. But what was difficult to get were plastic-free household supplies! Last year the Soap Dispensary expanded and finally carries food items, including rare things like locally handmade pierogis, kimchi, frozen fruit! • A big shoutout to Linh! We miss the always inspirational conversations! You are doing so much for the zero waste movement 💚💚💚
  • Remember to take it easy and be kind to yourself 😊! Personally, I feel the name “zero” waste makes it seem like you are supposed to have no trash at all. But that’s just impossible in the economical infrastructure in place at the moment! • We don’t have a real circular economy in place yet, even though many amazing people are working on it. So we are bound to make trash, both upstream and in our own homes. The trash jar is living proof of that 😉. It may be little in some cases, but it is most definitely not zero! • If I were to choose a name, I’d go with “minimal waste” or even “minimal footprint”. Because to me, zero waste, minimalism, veganism and all of these things are part of something bigger. Part of my desire to live as little as possible at the expense of others, be it humans, other animals, or the environment. • I’d also choose the name “minimal” footprint/waste, because “minimal” is relative and not absolute, like “zero”. We all have different needs, access to a different infrastructure, different social situations we have to navigate. • When we started out, the next bulk store was a 7 hour train ride away 🚄! After a while we got access to bulk – only 2 hours away using public transportation🚶‍♀️🚃🚌 (we don’t have a car)! Now we live in a city with FOUR zero waste bulk stores, and a FIFTH one coming soon! Like… MIND! BLOWN!! 🤯 • Besides, when we first started out we had NO CLUE how to DIY our own products or how to prepare food from scratch 😆(buying in bulk = unprocessed food)! So what was “minimal” for us in the beginning was very different from what it is today. I am also very lucky to have a partner in crime! Hanno and I were in it together from the very beginning. • So don’t be too harsh with yourself. It’s so not about perfectionism, but about making better choices as often as you can. And sometimes you’ll have a bad day, but that’s okay. Sometimes you’ll rock it like no one’s watching LOL! • EDIT: I really like the idea behind the term “low impact”, but maybe I’m weird? I feel calling what the wonderful low impact advocates do 😍 “low” impact doesn’t give enough credit to their amazing work! 🙈 BC they do have an impact—an extremely POSITIVE one 💚
  • //Werbung (unbezahlt) I have started brewing my own kombucha again, yum 😋✨! Kombucha is fermented probiotic tea. It’s supposed to be very healthy (as fermented food usually is), if consumed in moderation (like pretty much everything). • Sugar is needed for brewing kombucha, because it’s what the bacteria cultures feed on. But there will be sugar left, so we treat it as a sugary drink and don’t drink it like water. • I will write a blog tutorial on kombucha in time. 💚 I have just started and need to get my fermentation groove back first LOL! I’m already buying and drying locally-grown chili peppers 🌶 for making kimchi too by the way 😆 (Recipe on my blog) • So yeah, I needed flip top bottles for bottling the kombucha (it’s how you make it fizzy). We went to our local #zerowaste bulk store @tanteolgakoeln, because we knew they carry #plasticfree flip top bottles! The lid is ceramics and not plastic like it usually is (nowadays). • While we were at it, we stocked up on a few things too. • I was in a rush when taking this photo, so I didn’t even notice how the sugar jar and olive oil bottle were trying to sneak out of the picture LOL 😂. Little rebels huh 😈
  • “Food waste is the world’s dumbest problem” — I don’t know who said it, but damn right it is!! Did you know one-third of all the food that is produced globally is wasted 😱 (↗️ Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN)! • And according to the Washington Post, the average American throws out more food than plastic, paper, metal, or glass 💔. The US per capita food waste has increased by ~50% since 1974! (Last Week Tonight) • In the UK, people end up tossing 20-30% of what they buy (CBC). In Germany, every person throws out 82 kg (–181 lbs) of food per year, two thirds of which was still perfectly fine! (ARD) • I could go on and on, quoting one shocking statistic after another. But I think we all get the point 😉. • Instead, I teamed up with @karmabitezyvr to make a video to show how you can reduce your food waste the fun and thrifty way! By getting the most bang for your buck! (I like to say I'm “frugal", but sometimes I’m just spot-on cheap LOL 🤪) • Have fun watching 📺😉! Hope you like the recipe! Link to full video in bio (sorry, didn’t realize there was a 60 second limit for videos on IG). • And remember: #LoveFoodHateWaste 🥗🍏🍐🍊🍒🍑🍆🍅 • // By “teaming up” I mean @karmabitezyvr and I planned and shot the video together. It’s not a paid sponsorship or anything. Just two people venturing into making videos to fight food waste LOL
  • Styling your hair #ZeroWaste 💁‍♀️💁‍♂️can be very simple, as 📷 @littlebitdaily shows so beautifully in this photo 😍. • We pretty much do the same: We comb and brush our hair with a wooden comb and a wooden vegan brush. Our brush uses agave fiber for bristles, but it doesn’t work well for my extremely thick hair. I’d probably go for a wooden pin brush like @littlebitdaily did if we didn’t have the agave fiber brush already. • I quit shampoo 3.5 yrs ago using rye flour (👉link to rye flour blog posts in profile), and I went water-only (👉check out @paris_to_go’s blog for in-depth info on her blog! 😍) 2 months ago. I feel ever since I went water-only my hair is less fizzy and falls a lot more nicely, and so I unintentionally quit using hair spray 😆! • Having Asian hair, nothing any local store carried ever managed to tame my hair (don’t get me started on finding a hair stylist as an Asian person in Europe, ugh 😅). Until I discovered this easy peasy 2 ingredient hair spray 😎! (👇see @littlebitdaily’s original caption below) It’s what punks in the 80ies used to style their mohawks as I was told 👩‍🎤! So HELL YEAH LOL! (👉link to my hair spray youtube video in profile). The good news is you can adjust how strong it is to fit your hair! • 💚REPOST @littlebitdaily 💚 ✨Let's make hairspray 💁🏻 This recipe is from my fav 💚 @_wastelandrebel_ • Ingredients: 100 ml filtered water, boiled and slightly cooled down
 1-2 tablespoons white sugar (must be white! Also the more sugar, the stronger the hold) 
2-3 drops of essential oil of your choice (optional) Mister spray bottle Dissolve sugar in water and essential oils. Keep refrigerated as it doesn't contain any preservatives.
  • You might or might not have noticed, but we usually don’t buy beverages! At home, we stick to tap water 💦, sometimes infused with foraged mint 🌿 or fruit 🍎, and tea 🍵. • We forage sage and peppermint at an undisclosed location in the city 😇. We also use up tea from people that have more tea at home than what they can finish. We buy green, black, or mate tea from time to time. But like always, we try to make what’s more sustainable (locally-sourced herbal tea) our staple and the other option a treat. • Oh, and I just started brewing kombucha again last week, so we’ll be able to add kombucha to the list soon, whoop whoop 😋! I'll write a blog article after I’ve gotten back into my brewing groove. • We do drink coffee ☕️ or beer 🍺, but usually only outside to reduce our consumption. We don’t like wine or sugary drinks, so we don’t have to worry about that. We make a smoothie 🍏🍇🍑 from time to time instead of having juice. Or we simply eat the whole fruit. This way we benefit from all the nutrients the fruit has to offer. • When we have guests over we prepare iced tea, kombucha, homemade lemonade, a shake or a smoothie if we have the time. We also just got into lupine coffee recently! Lupine is a legume that grows in Germany. It is high in proteine and hence used in some vegan processed food products. As a coffee, it’s caffeine-free and tastes like a nutty, less bitter version of coffee. So now we offer coffee to our guests, too! • We usually only buy beer to bring to parties or when having friends over in the evening. In this case because we had @bevegt over and thought we’d get them drunk before their half-marathon 😝. JK, 6 out of the 8 bottles of beer were non-alcoholic 😇😉 • In Canada we went to a brewery with our growlers. In Germany, we buy preferably organic and/or local beer in returnable glass bottles, if possible with a flip top lid. We pay a small deposit per bottle (7-25¢) and get the money back when we return the bottle. The glass bottles are then cleaned and refilled. It’s a system that has been in place for decades in all of Germany. It’s not flawless and more and more beverages come in single-use bottles, but we do appreciate the option.

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