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Meet Lauren Singer – zero waste girl

How much rubbish do you throw away each day? Lauren Singer studied environmental science and decided to change her lifestyle to try and produce less waste. She's now known as 'zero waste girl'!

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then watch the video and do the exercise. Remember you can read the transcript at any time. 

Preparation

Transcript

Presenter: The average American produces 4.3lbs (four point three pounds) of trash a day. That’s almost sixteen hundred pounds a year but if we took some simple steps we could go off the trash grid and minimise thousands of pounds of waste into just a single jar!

Going off Grid

Lauren Singer: So, this is my trash jar.

Presenter: Two years of trash in this tiny little jar.

Lauren: Yep!

Presenter: That’s crazy. I mean I probably produce twenty times this much in a day.

Lauren: Yep. This is everything basically that I couldn’t compost or couldn’t recycle or couldn’t figure out what to do with.

Presenter: Where did you get this idea to become zero waste?

Lauren: Erm, it kind of all started when I was a senior and in NYU and I was starting environmental studies. And one day after class I went home to make dinner and I opened my fridge and I saw that everything in there was packaged in plastic and I felt such a hypocrite. We’re supposed to be saving the planet and here you are making all of this trash. I feel like it’s really important to live your values and my values are having a really low environmental impact. I have to live like I want that. And so that’s why I’ve decided to change my lifestyle.

Presenter: What was the easiest part about reducing your waste?

Lauren: I think it was just like seeing that I didn’t have to do that much to produce very little waste and by composting and buying in bulk I essentially eliminated eighty per cent of my waste. Buying package-free means needing to have containers to buy things that you can’t hold with your hands. For instance I buy bulk olive oil, I bring a mason jar to fill it up. I’ll pick up some beer from a local shop that sells it in growlers that are actually reusable so that’s like a totally waste-free way to drink.

Presenter: I imagine you get asked a lot of questions about ‘how do you do this?’ I’m curious about a few things …

Lauren: OK.

Presenter: I’m going to throw out a few things too.

Lauren: Sure!

Presenter: Plastic toothbrushes?

Lauren: I use a compostable bamboo toothbrush.

Presenter: Sponges?

Lauren: I use a compostable dish brush.

Presenter: Paper towels?

Lauren: Cotton napkins.

Presenter: Plastic cookware?

Lauren: Wooden or stainless steel utensils.

Presenter: Cotton balls?

Lauren: Reusable cotton rounds.

Presenter: Drier sheets?

Lauren: Drier balls that I make myself.

Presenter: What about shampoo?

Lauren: Bulk castrol soap.

Presenter: Make-up?

Lauren: Organic vegan make-up in recyclable packaging.

Presenter: Feminine products?

Lauren: Menstrual cup.

Presenter: Gift wrap?

Lauren: Why?

Presenter: OK, so you are going to teach me how to make toothpaste.

Lauren: Yes!

Presenter: What do I do?

Lauren: So we are going to mix two tablespoons of organic coconut oil and then a tablespoon of baking soda and then about twenty drops of the organic peppermint oil.

Presenter: So this is how you make your toothpaste?

Lauren: Ah hem!

Presenter: Let me see your teeth! They look very nice!

Lauren: Eh yeah!

Presenter: What does your dentist think about this?

Lauren: They haven’t gotten mad at me yet so ...!

Presenter: Ha ha!

Lauren: So, I’ll just take this spoon and scoop it onto my toothbrush.

Presenter: Hee hee. It’s not bad, actually it’s kinda salty!

Lauren: Yeah! That’s the baking soda.

Presenter: Yeah, my teeth really do feel cleaner … so …

Lauren: Yeah …

Presenter: … thank you. So do you have any garbage cans in your home here?

Lauren: No, I don’t have any garbage cans in my home.

Presenter: Because you don’t have any garbage?

Lauren: Exactly!

Presenter: It really does compel me to want to try to reduce my waste so what tips would you give me or somebody else that wants to do that as well?

Lauren: Yeah, I would suggest, you know, look in your garbage can and see what your garbage is and until you do that you don’t really know what you’re reducing, right? Step 2. Using a reusable bag instead of plastic or paper bag. Just like, easy one-time changes and then the last one would be to actually make your products yourself. So learn how to make toothpaste, learn how to make deodorant. It’s a really fun thing to do.

Presenter: What is your ultimate goal?

Lauren: Before I lived my lifestyle I wonder why is there all this trash, and why is that OK and we have to find the solutions before it gets out of control. I’ve never told anyone, 'Oh you should live this lifestyle' or 'You have to live this way'. Erm, I kind of live my lifestyle and put it out there and see what happens.

© Stories

Worksheets and downloads

Meet Lauren Singer: zero waste girl - exercises284.52 KB
Meet Lauren Singer: zero waste girl - answers167.89 KB
Discussion

Do you think about how much waste you and your family create? What do you think about Lauren's lifestyle? 

Language level
C1 Advanced
Topics
environment
blogging
lifestyles
creativity
Average: 4 (10 votes)
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Comments

Profile picture for user FlowerQueen

Submitted by FlowerQueen on Sun, 12/18/2022 - 21:13

Hi!
I often don't think about how much creating trash. Because I don't cook by myself, I just help my mum sometimes, so I don't see if the things are packed in plastic or not.
I think, Lauren's Lifestyle is just amazing. When I saw the video I started to think about like: What about the tootbrush? Do you just throw it on the compost? And can't you use plastic things longer than wooden things?
Flowerqueen~♡

Submitted by Eng_learner on Sat, 08/29/2020 - 06:43

Do you think about how much waste you and your family create? What do you think about Lauren's lifestyle? I'm shoked how little waste Lauren creates. It's really amazing. I suppose if everyone did so, our planet would be much more cleaner. I don't want to say that it's impossible, but it's actually hard to reach. I and my family produce a lot of waste. Honestly, I'm trying to reduce using of plastic and useless staff but I'm so far from what Lauren does. She is a great example of conscious behavior toward the planet.

Submitted by 12345678English on Wed, 08/26/2020 - 01:13

I actually think in my family’s amount of waste, but with all the worries and things our days have, I spend just a few minutes considering it. To be honest, most of the time, the thoughts do not go beyond and do not become actions. I think that Lauren’s lifestyle is really helpful for the environment, but I could never do it. I consider that it is exceedingly difficult to obtain it and demands a lot of time. I mean, it is great if you have the time and patience to create your products, drive hours to that little organic, plastic-free store at the city’s other side, yet very few people have them. I consider it super important to take care of Earth, but I prefer to help in reducing the amount of water I use, walking instead of using a car, etc.

Submitted by englishstudent2109 on Tue, 08/25/2020 - 17:56

I don`t pay much attention to the quantity of trash my family and I could produce in a day and that concerned me. Most the time we try to avoid plastic bags or not use plastic cutlery when we go out to eat but in the market, there are plenty of products with plastic and even though we try to put them in plastic bottles for donating to a foundation that recycles them, many things could be recycled but it changes into the garbage so we miss the opportunity to help the planet. I think Lauren´s lifestyle is an example for the people who think it couldn't be possible to live without plastic. Although, it has a big problem in terms of the economy because currently, organic products are expensive than products from the supermarket so not all the people could afford the cost that implies buying these products or the materials to make their own.
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