• 3 days ago
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.