In 2018, Tanja Florenthal, Dean of César Ritz Colleges Switzerland, and her family of four undertook the feat of reducing their waste. They succeeded in only using three or four garbage bags throughout the whole year! Here is a flashback to her experience which proved to be rewarding, fun, and surprisingly easy!

So it turns out the average Swiss person creates over 700 kilos of waste per year – which is more than most people around the world! We know that waste has a negative impact on the environment, but did you know it’s also very expensive?

While it might be hard to believe, we have saved about 20% of our budget by working towards a zero waste lifestyle. This is because we avoid grocery stores, avoid shopping malls altogether and instead buy local. This practice reduced our consumption which in turn reduced our cost. We still spend our money, but instead we buy experiences and not material.

“The first step we took was to question every piece of trash we created and how we could avoid it.”

Plastic from salad wrapping? Instead buy the salad directly from the farmer. Plastic bottle from shampoo? Use a solid shampoo bar.

Here are a few easy first steps to help you already reduce your trash without much energy.

Feel like taking it further? Once you have adopted an eye for avoiding excessive plastic, you can:

Final Tip: You can even make your own dishwasher tablets and cleaning products.


Return To:  E-newsletter Jul 2021