One of the major challenges we face in our world today is sustainability. The current ways in which we live have a detrimental impact on future generations and it’s time to step up and face this issue head-on.

But what does sustainable living even mean?

To get some ideas and insights on the matter, I interviewed two expat families who are putting in the hard yards and leading the way.

The Yang Family

We spoke to 16-year Beijing veteran Hortense Yang, a French mom of two little girls named Amandine and Maxine, and her Beijinger husband Shaopeng. She also works in sustainability for an environmental NGO, and walks the talk wherever she can.

What does a sustainable family look like to you?
A family that produces zero waste and is well aware and following through on segregating, composting, and using resources such as water, electricity, paper, plastic, and gas carefully.

Ideally, I’d love our family to be living in the countryside on land that we ourselves cultivate to bring us food, so we know exactly what we eat and where it comes from. That way we can be more connected to our food, the waste we generate, and our environmental impact.

How do you communicate with your family about living more sustainably?
My husband and I are both aligned with the kind of eco-conscious family we want to create. We are fortunate in Beijing to have some great resources to help like the Zero Waste Family WeChat Group and The Bulk House.

As for our kids, they learn when you lead by example and it’s amazing when they come up with sustainable ideas on their own. My older daughter Amandine, for example, came to me one day saying that she wasn’t very happy to use paper towels in her school. She thought it was wasteful and would prefer to use a cloth towel. That was so amazing for me to listen to. It reassured me that she got it!

What would you say is a good starting point for families on their paths towards becoming more sustainable?
– Start with what’s easiest for you to do then build momentum and keep going.
– Refuse things you don’t need – whether it is plastic bags, straws, or paper cups.
– Reduce water, electricity, buying online, food deliveries and takeaways, and online deliveries.

Take it one step at a time and before you know it, you’re on to way towards becoming a sustainable family.

When did your family’s journey towards sustainability begin? What do you currently do?
My journey with sustainability started about ten years ago when I was working on a ‘green’ project for an organization that encourages young people to lead and influence by doing various kinds of social impact projects. While working there I stumbled upon a brochure written by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that had extensive information about how our environment was suffering. That was an “aha” moment for me, and I knew then that I had to join the green movement and get serious about sustainability. I found a job in an environmental NGO and never looked back.

When I got pregnant with my first child, we became even more conscious about maintaining a sustainable lifestyle at home. We started to carefully monitor the air we were breathing, the food we were eating, and how we could manage all our waste in an attempt to be as “zero waste” as possible.

As we laid some basic structures for our first child, it became easier to follow through when our second came along. Now, our habits are quite ingrained in the way we live.

Here are some of the things we do and use around the home:
– Beeswax food wraps instead of cling wrap for storing food
– Reusable food pouches for the kids
– Reusable nappies and menstrual cup
– Natural products like soap nuts for laundry
– Homemade cleaning products made with orange peels, vinegar, bicarbonate, and water
– Bamboo toothbrushes and toothpaste powder to minimize plastic waste
– Soap and shampoo bars instead of liquid gels

For our kids’ birthday parties, we request our friends to gift secondhand toys, or even get their kids to make a drawing or a present from materials at home

We use small basins around the bathroom to save water, and use them for flushing the toilet wherever possible

We reuse containers and jars in many different ways, like drinking glasses, storing toiletries, etc.

I love to use cloth wraps as gift paper, and collect discarded pieces of fabric in many shapes and sizes for this purpose.

Conclusion

Here’s something we can learn from them:

1. They faced the sustainability challenge head-on and continue to do so slowly and persistently. They speak up and talk about it with others, lead by example, and find creative ways of doing things differently.

2. They find ways to embrace the resources that are available to them for leading a sustainable lifestyle.

3. They give us a sense of reassurance that no matter where you are in the sustainable living spectrum, you can start small, learn along the way, and see how far it takes you.

When all is said and done, the biggest lesson of all was that sustainable living becomes incredibly real and hard to ignore when our own little ones come into the picture. What will the consequences of our actions be for their future on our planet?

This article first appeared in the beijingkids March 2019 Sustainability issue.
Photo: Courtesy of the Yang family

Reduce, reuse, recycle. We’ve been chanting these three words for so many decades that the well-meaning slogan is long overdue for an overhaul. That’s because, as it turns out, such a huge part of our effort to recycle ends up in the garbage dump – and that’s true whether we’re talking about Beijing or Boston.

For years our chucking of all that paper, plastic, and metal into the same bin – and a systemic failure by companies to sort and separate it at the source – has bred contamination among recyclable items, and ultimately rendered so much of that material to landfills. Yet perhaps the most bruising moment for recycling came abruptly last year. On the first day of 2018, China banned a practice it had been carrying out for decades: importing most of the world’s waste. Britain alone was shipping enough overseas every year to fill 10,000 swimming pools, and that’s just a fraction of what China was accepting. Today, Britain joins so many other countries now scrambling to find somewhere else to send the waste they’re incapable of managing themselves.

Indeed, China’s policy reversal has served as a wake-up call globally, though it has also indirectly reignited a long-dormant conversation around sustainability. Sustainability is a clunky word that’s easy to trip over when said aloud, and nowhere near as slogan-ready as are the Three R’s. But understanding sustainability begins with reevaluating what we think we know about waste, and reassessing how we should manage every item we use before throwing it out. Broadly, sustainability means consuming less energy and using fewer things in order to achieve and maintain a certain level of environmental harmony. More to the point, and perhaps most urgently: sustainability means reducing waste by not creating it in the first place.

There’s new hope to match the scale of such ambition, and examples could be found this school year in Beijing. Student-led groups from at least two international schools are working to scale small ideas and projects into worthwhile, tangible causes with the larger community in mind. So how do a handful of students even begin to steer classroom conversation toward real-world action and engagement, and ensure that they’re pursuing an impact that lives on well beyond graduation?

“Developing sustainability into our teaching curriculum is the aim,” says Lucy Thompson, the deputy head of science at the British School of Beijing, Shunyi (BSB Shunyi) and a co-leader of its student Eco-Committee, which meets weekly after school. “It’s more than just a club or an extracurricular activity; it’s integrating it into everything you do as a school.”

BSB Shunyi students building a greenhouse with recycled materials

At BSB Shunyi, that goal began with conducting what the primary and secondary school students refer to as an eco-review. Think of it as a report card, but with the students grading their school on the tracking and handling of waste. In a sense, this undertaking involved boots-on-the-ground reporting: Students spent time calculating the amount of energy the school’s computers typically consume in a day, and even hand-counted the number of paper and plastic plates students toss into the trash at lunchtime.

“We used a big bag to collect paper from all the classrooms,” remembers Year 3 student Christopher Kicker. “The amount of paper that we use in the world is astonishing,” adds Mika Brodel, who assisted with BSB Shunyi’s eco-review. “We use way too much paper in a day. I now reuse a piece of paper until it actually has no space left. Like plastic, it goes into the ocean and disintegrates and becomes even more dangerous.”

As the students found out, it wasn’t enough to simply talk about the crisis confronting our oceans, which are invaded by 8 million tonnes of plastic each year. So, to illustrate their findings, the Eco-Committee dived right in, so to speak. They filled a swimming pool with plastic waste.

“We thought we definitely had to give it a try,” says primary school teacher Anna Warman, who adds that the experiment demonstrated how sea life is dying fast – and how it often passes on all that ingested plastic directly to our dinner plates.

Nearby, at the International School of Beijing (ISB), 20 high schoolers worked through a waste audit of their own. Known as Net Impact ISB, the club investigates how to recycle sustainably and improve campus energy efficiency. Among their questions: how do we encourage the community to separate correctly when they recycle? More importantly, how do we make sure those items stay separated during the journey to the facility?

ISB students sorting through recyclables

Three students from the group took this project a step further. As they observed more and more waste was being generated by restaurants when ordering food delivery, the group members began to investigate alternatives. They’re now well on their way to partnering with businesses, hoping to encourage the use of environmentally friendly packaging. If you’ve ordered a single sandwich and a coffee for delivery from any Starbucks in Beijing lately, you already know the amount of big waste that small delivery entails: two paper bags with straps, a box, an inner container to hold the coffee, the plastic lid, the cardboard cup sleeve, that unnecessary set of plastic utensils…

Perhaps Net Impact’s most ambitious goal yet, however, is to convert their school’s 52 buses into a fully electric fleet. When three members of the club became aware of another school’s electric-powered buses, they asked, “Why not here at ISB?” After all, bus rides are noisy, they travel long distances, and they pollute. After making a compelling argument, the group was given the green light to get to work on studying the viability of electric vehicle battery technology. Their effort has already translated into success; the students have overseen the conversion of two buses so far, with the goal of going 100 percent electric within a few years.

“We think of the end result rather than the problem itself,” says Matthew Yamatin, a former civil engineer from the US who directs ISB’s new sustainability program. “A school can be a living laboratory. I believe it is super-important for the students to see the impact of what they’re doing; it can become a lifelong passion.”

It already appears to be working. Yamatin, who spent many years advising Fortune 500 companies on corporate sustainability, points to Net Impact’s bus project as just one example of how empowering much younger minds can transform a one-off project into a sustainable impact. One student was so taken with what he learned about electric vehicles that he’s now exploring how more nations can subsidize the technology. “This is now his thing,” Yamatin says. “This could be his career.”

Long before ISB hosted its first sustainability program, the international school had been serving as a model for progressive, eco-friendly projects. The school is known as the site of Beijing’s first air dome, which encloses a playground and uses high-scale filtering to create a safe haven for students and teachers, especially on those high-AQI days. Today, student-led projects at ISB are advancing air dome use by studying whether heating and cooling them is using energy in the most effective way. The latest student undertaking involves the dome’s transition to LED lighting, another bold step toward the elimination of wasted energy for many school years to come.

As part of his role, behind the scenes, Yamatin has helped bring together more than two dozen outside representatives to help advise on and bring to life the big ideas Net Impact students are generating and developing. Among those environmental stakeholders are a Chinese solar panel maker, as well as the US Green Building Council, which works to ensure that buildings are designed and operated in environmentally responsible ways. (It is the parent organization of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the industry standard rating system for green buildings.)

Thus far, other successful team projects at ISB have included studying how best to compost food, organizing a campus-wide campaign known as Bike Week, and hosting competitions to create a recycling logo for new classroom bins designated for paper, plastic, and aluminum.

Another way to look at sustainability is to consider the computer you’re reading this on, or to feel the physical magazine you might be holding. What is the story behind the things we buy, the items we use every day? Where do all the materials, big and small, come from? Who are the people who labored over those materials, and in what sort of working conditions? These questions span the spectrum of sustainability itself: climate change, human rights, and waste. But the answers are not quite as easy or transparent, not even to the best trained civil engineer. That’s why teachers recognize just how critical it is for the youngest minds to step up and bring fresh energy to the direst circumstances facing the planet.

“Things can fizzle and die off if you don’t have people leading,” says Thompson. “And the only way you can get that continuity is to integrate it into the school’s development and vision.”

So, how to prioritize community-level sustainability in the classroom, and translate it into measurable progress? During this very active first school year for studying sustainability, ISB and BSB Shunyi are already well on their way toward applying what they’re learning, by testing their work at school and then promoting those findings to families at home and beyond.

“Most children know the problems that are happening in the world,” says Rosalyn Thomas, who teaches English as an additional language at BSB Shunyi. “But success is getting everyone talking about it, and thinking about their actions.”

This small-scale success is unfolding as China is in the midst of its most significant environmental reforms, marked by the country’s drastic reduction of pollution levels from even one year ago. And the very recent move to ban the importing of most of the world’s recyclables also signaled China’s newfound commitment to the responsible management of waste globally.

Further reform arrived earlier this year when China’s environment ministry announced yet another stride toward that sustainable end: piloting what it calls “waste-free cities” to help reduce the amount of physical things that factories are producing. Remember: we recycle as a means of dealing with the waste we create. Going “zero waste,” as some organizations around the world are aggressively pushing for, would entail reusing items more often than we recycle them, and moving toward eliminating landfills altogether.

“I believe there’s always more than one solution to a problem,” says Year 11 BSB, Shunyi student Harry Szeto, who is studying coding and computer programming. “From what I’ve learned, I now can think outside of the problem. It’s about raising awareness, but it’s also about changing habits, and being more responsible to the community around you.”

His fellow student Saraine Chan agrees: “I think just influencing the people around me is the change I can make.”

This article first appeared in the beijingkids March 2019 Sustainability issue.
Photos: Courtesy of BSB, Shunyi and ISB

One of the major challenges we face in our world today is sustainability. The current ways in which we live have a detrimental impact on future generations and it’s time to step up and face this issue head-on.

But what does sustainable living even mean?

Although there may be different interpretations of these words, it essentially means living in a way that meets our basic needs for food, water, shelter, and resources without compromising or harming the environment or people around us.

Living in Beijing poses its own challenges for living sustainably. One of the biggest ones is the convenience and ease of having everything delivered to your doorstep, which makes things a little harder from a sustainability point of view. So how do we get around these issues and find a way to reduce our impact on the environment?

To get some ideas and insights on the matter, I interviewed two expat families who are putting in the hard yards and leading the way.

The Nicolier Family

Singaporean mom Junice recently moved to Beijing in November 2018 with her Swiss husband Vincent and two little boys, Kai En and Li En. Junice has worked as a sustainability consultant for around a decade and likes to maintain at home some basic principles she has learned through her work.

When did your family’s journey towards sustainability begin?
Sustainability has been at the top of our minds now for many years as I work in the field, but after having children it became even more important for my husband and me to impart our kids with values that were reflective of living sustainably.

We are all so aware of what’s going on in the world through the media, what we hear and see around us, it’s hard to ignore the facts. Our kids are privy to this information on a much greater scale than we used to be, and it’s important for them to understand what’s going on and how we can make a more positive impact.

Over the past five years, as our little family has grown, we’ve built a bit of momentum in our sustainability endeavor by following some basic principles such as these:
– Reduce our consumption. Every time we need to buy something, we ask ourselves “do I really need this?”  We also minimize food takeaways by cooking at home as much as possible.
– Refuse. Don’t accept plastic containers wherever possible. Take our own bags and containers when shopping. 
– Reuse. Find ways to re-purpose items instead of throwing them out. Get creative! We use our son’s drawings on paper as gift wrapping. It’s both personal for the gift recipient and a way to cut down on buying useless wrapping paper.

If we’re all able to manage the waste within our households better and more effectively, that’s a great step ahead for sustainability from the inside out.

What does a sustainable family look like to you?
To me, a family that is aware and in control of what they consume and how they manage their waste within their household and community is a sustainable family. Another big part of sustainability I’d like to talk about “Social Impact”. By this I mean, how do we care for and treat the people that serve us? For example, many of us have helpers like ayis and drivers, we’ve got kuaidi workers bringing us goods, taxi drivers, all those people that make our lives easier. How do we enable them to have better and sustainable livelihoods too?

We can start by paying them fairly, treating them with kindness and respect and appreciating them daily for all they do for us.

What daily challenges do you face? How do you try to overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges is not following the path of least resistance and succumbing to buying and throwing when you get caught up in everyday tasks, so setting some ground rules and structures in place really help. Apart from controlling our purchases, we track our expenses to see how much goes towards “stuff” that could be avoided. Saving money can be a great incentive towards a minimal lifestyle.

How do you communicate with your family about this?
As the primary caregiver in the family, I have a lot of influence over how we manage our lifestyle. For example, with my kids, I explain to them that before we get something new, we must give something away. They get to choose what to let go of, and this becomes a habit.

My husband has always been very conscious about living minimally and managing our waste, and it helps to have conversations regularly about better ways to do this as a family.

I try to get the family to keep one another accountable and get everyone involved one way or another. We even make a game out of it. For example, if I ask my son to do a daily count of how much waste we get rid of in the bin, with the goal being keeping the quantity low, he keeps everyone in check in regards to what really needs to go in the bin and what can be recycled or reused.

What would you say is a good starting point for families on their paths towards becoming more sustainable?
– Start Small- Start with cooking more, reducing and reusing plastics at home, and refusing to buy the things you don’t need.
– Get your family on board- Your kids will genuinely want to help and keep you in check if you explain to them what you are trying to do.
– Do your best wherever you can- With consistency you will build momentum and you will take the next step automatically when it’s time.
– Don’t get caught up in trends-  It’s good to use them as a starting point to change a habit, but focus more on the big picture of maintaining that habit rather than doing it for the sake of hype.
– Be mindful of what you buy from where.

Conclusion

Here’s something we can learn from them:

1. They faced the sustainability challenge head-on and continue to do so slowly and persistently. They speak up and talk about it with others, lead by example, and find creative ways of doing things differently.

2. They find ways to embrace the resources that are available to them for leading a sustainable lifestyle.

3. They give us a sense of reassurance that no matter where you are in the sustainable living spectrum, you can start small, learn along the way, and see how far it takes you.

When all is said and done, the biggest lesson of all was that sustainable living becomes incredibly real and hard to ignore when our own little ones come into the picture. What will the consequences of our actions be for their future on our planet?

This article first appeared in the beijingkids March 2019 Sustainability issue.
Photo: Courtesy of the Nicolier family

“Sustainable” is a buzz word at the moment, along with “green”, “eco-conscious” and “environmentally friendly” – and although these terms have been around for decades, sustainability until recently has been the domain of environmentalists and so-called “tree-huggers”. Now that the reality of climate change is here and the environmental and ecological damage is so evident, this movement has now reached the mainstream.

Governments and corporations are throwing the terms around in their vision statements, and there is a huge emerging market for products that carry the “green” label from the consumer market who are awakening to the impact that humans are having on our planet. But at the moment, living sustainably takes a lot of dedication and effort, and when it’s you versus the other 7 billion people on this planet, our individual action seems pointless. Yet, the sustainable movement is growing, and the individual action of many is making a difference as more and more people choose to make small changes to their habits.

Sustainability is a complex term, but refers to the models that are necessary for the survival of humanity and planet Earth. There are three pillars of sustainability – social (healthy communities), economic (vitality and growth), and environmental. While all of these are interdependent, many say that environmental sustainability is the crucial foundational aspect which we need to focus on immediately, as the future of our existence depends on it. It is no secret that economic growth has come at the cost of environmental degradation, which is why the prevention of pollution and protecting the remaining environments have so much attention right now.

Environmental sustainability looks at the way we use our resources to make sure we don’t run out, and that we don’t pollute the natural environment more than its ability to compensate for or replace the changes we’ve made to it. Environmental sustainability is putting systems and policies in place that create a cycle of resource use and pollution that can be continued indefinitely with no damage to the environment.

Areas of Environmental Sustainability

Water
Water is life, and climate change, growing populations, economic growth, and associated use and pollution is putting more pressure on water resources. The world’s largest water tables are being overpumped and many large rivers are drying up. In Beijing alone, the demand for water resulting in excessive overpumping of ground water is causing Beijing to literally sink up to 100mm a year, which experts say a severe hazard for the population and infrastructure.

Soil and Groundwater Pollution
The impact of the manufacturing products and food that we use is felt heavily on the environment, when the toxic byproducts are disposed of. Soil and groundwater pollution render land toxic and unusable causing dire health consequences for communities, and plant and animal extinction.

Air Pollution and Climate Change
Air pollution caused by manufacturing, burning fossil fuels, and chemicals is a contributing factor towards global warming, heating up our Earth’s temperature at such a rate that we are heading towards a crisis which has knock-on effects for humanity – severe heatwaves, drought, animal and plant extinction, poor agricultural yield, water shortages, more flooding, stronger storms, rising sea levels, and the associated health impacts.

Waste Management
Humans produce a lot of waste which leads to pollution. This area of sustainability looks at how we can minimize the waste we produce (consume less and choose products that don’t create waste), and how we can deal with the remaining waste in such a way that we minimize the impact on the environment. This is where the philosophy of Zero Waste comes from – it is the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused, and nothing is sent to landfill or incinerator.

Energy and Resources
Electricity, heat and fuel are essential for economic growth, efficient food production, and a higher standard of living. However, currently, the most common energy resources we use are non-renewable natural resources because they are cheap and reliable. Unfortunately, as they are non-renewable and also have a high carbon footprint, we need to move towards a more sustainable model, such as energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy production.

While all of these areas of environmental sustainability will be largely driven by government and corporate responsibility and regulations, we can never underestimate the power of individual action – since it is the manufacturing of “things” for all of us which is causing the exploitation of natural resources and the associated pollution and damage. While the problems may seem huge, we can all make a difference through reducing our own energy and resource consumption, making alternative choices and simple switches in our daily lives, and buying fewer things.

This article first appeared in the beijingkids March 2019 Sustainability issue.
Photo: Alena Koval via Pexels
Infographics: Michelle Zhang

Stacy Andell and Kade Mascarella came to Beijing 11 years ago to work as teachers at international schools. She’s now the Principal of Ganeinu International School, and he’s a kindergarten teacher at Beijing International Bilingual Academy (BIBA). Both their children were born here. Peregrine is 8 and Taliesin 6, and they attend the Lycee Francaise Internationale du Pekin (LFIP).

At what age did you start talking to your child about environmental issues? What sort of conversations did you have?
Both of our children were born in Beijing, and the air pollution here makes the environment one of the first concerns. We’ve been discussing why we do things to protect the environment from a young age. Last year we went to an Earth Day event together. We learned that manufacturing one new t-shirt requires the same amount of water as growing nine kilograms of apples. I find myself repeating that every time we look at clothes. We don’t buy many clothes, and when we do, we go to Roundabout to buy things secondhand.

Does your child’s class at school discuss environmental issues? What form do those discussions take?
A couple of years ago, my daughters’ school planted a garden. When they did, they added compost bins. We don’t do the full composting at home. We just gather our scraps and put them in the school compost bins.

When and how did you become aware of the importance of waste reduction?
I think a big part of modern child-rearing is based around conspicuous consumption. Everything is convenience packaged, with layers and layers of waste. It just piles up.

What steps do you take at home to reduce, reuse, and recycle? How do you involve your child?
I think our most consistent steps are to reduce and reuse. We just don’t buy a lot of things. When we need something specific, the first thing we do is look around what we have for a solution. We generally figure things out together, and our kids are pretty good about coming up with solutions that work. We don’t shop recreationally, so our kids are not in the habit of buying things. When we go grocery shopping we examine all the packaging closely to decide what has less waste. A few months ago, a friend told us about a local market where we could buy peanut butter in a jar that we could bring back and refill. I think it’s really important for kids to see you making these kinds of decisions and seeing how others in the community have the same priorities. It goes the same for recycling. In my neighborhood, whenever I take something out to put in the recycling bin, I will inevitably see one of my neighbors taking it away to add to their own recycling piles. Sometimes when we take things down, we just hand things to them directly. My kids and I always laugh about how our neighbors are such amazing recyclers, much better than us! I really like that. As an expat family, it can be difficult to feel like you are part of the community. For me, protecting the environment is about building community, and I am always looking at ways to show my kids that they are connected to everything and everyone around them and that we have so much to learn from the experience of others.

What activities have you and your child taken part in to reduce waste in your community?
We have attended some events about the environment. There are also a lot of non-environmentally specific activities too. Last week we went to an event at BIBA. It was all-you-can-eat ice cream, but you had to bring your own bowl and spoon. It wasn’t promoted as pro-environment. Things like that help to normalize waste reduction in our everyday lives.

What more could we all do as a society to reduce waste?
I think the most important step is to not buy. We are bombarded every day with messages to buy, buy, buy. Even on the zero waste groups, the majority of messages are about what to buy and where to buy it. I think we have gotten too used to seeing ourselves as consumers rather than experiencers. We need to change our mindset.

What message would you like the Chinese government to hear about waste reduction?
I don’t think it’s my place to send a message to the Chinese government. They should listen to the messages of Chinese people, many of whom express all the same concerns. My messages would be better directed at my own home country’s government, which has a pretty abysmal record of its own.

Xu Shanshan is married to Russian Dmitri Sokolov. Both work in education, Xu in early childhood education and Sokolov as a primary school teacher. They have two daughters, Ella (5) and Sophia (3), and describe themselves as “a family full of positive energy and efforts.”

At what age did you start talking to your child about environmental issues? What sort of conversations did you have?
Last summer, I took my older daughter Ella to a lecture given by the Antarctic expedition team for the first time. Ella was sad to see the icebergs melt and the penguins’ living environment changed. Now, since the children are very small, we don’t talk about negative environmental issues very much. In daily life, we remind children to cherish the environment, cherish flowers and plants, and we try to guide them based on what they can understand.

Does your child’s class at school discuss environmental issues? What form do those discussions take?
Our family’s daycare will talk to kids about recycling and teach them to sort things by different materials. For example, the cookie box is made of plastic and the box is made of metal. Then she asks the children what else they can do with the item once it’s been used. Kids will come up with ideas — plastic handles that can be used as rulers, cookie boxes that can be used as flower pots.

When and how did you become aware of the importance of waste reduction?
This awareness has been around for a long time, especially when it comes to takeout food and unpacking. A bag of food becomes a bag of garbage after dinner. The polyfoam used when delivering fragile items means looking at a big box of garbage which makes us feel guilty. From the moment of packing, such a huge amount of garbage has been generated. And these are just for a meal, a package for our very little family. Convenience solves many families’ urgent problems, but comes at the cost of non-biodegradable white pollution.

What steps do you take at home to reduce, reuse, and recycle? How do you involve your child?
We try to cook for ourselves. When running out of daily necessities, we try to buy supplementary packs instead of a new one. When we buy vegetables, we try not to use plastic bags. If one bag is enough, the children will try to put everything together and then share the load.

What activities have you and your child taken part in to reduce waste in your community?
I initiated the Joy International Children’s Market, which was designed to “reduce waste” and advocate the reuse of children’s unused items. For example, from the birth of a baby, people begin to use a variety of supplies, such as toys, books, a small rocking chair, a bed bell, baby’s down jacket, and so on, which the child does not use for very long before it is not needed anymore. But the items are still very new, and can be re-used. Dozens of families met to set up stalls for items that could still be used. Since everyone’s prices were very low, they can clear the cupboards in their utility room, reduce the cost of childcare, and make the best use of the goods by finding a new owner. It extends the life of the item itself and reduces waste. Over the past three years, nearly 7,000 families have responded by participating in the Joy International Children’s Fair. In addition to giving children a chance to form an understanding of economic concepts, what’s more important is that only 10% of the unused items in nearly 7,000 households have been turned into garbage in three years. Other toys and books are still in circulation, which greatly reduces the waste of toys, books and other items.

What more could we all do as a society to reduce waste?
I think, less takeout! Those beautiful packaging boxes turn into gorgeous garbage after just one use. Very wasteful!

What message would you like the Chinese government to hear about waste reduction?
Here are my suggestions:
1. Gradually improve the garbage disposal capacity and garbage classification, as well as the recycling and reuse processes. It is hoped that every garbage station will have the ability to classify garbage.
2. Repair and broaden the sewers, and popularize household kitchen waste grinding equipment.
3. Part of unwanted empty space should be opened to be a sharing platform for public unused items. Promote the reuse of large and low-value items such as furniture and electrical appliances.

This article first appeared in the beijingkids March 2019 Sustainability issue.
Photos: Courtesy of Stacy Andell and Xu Shanshan

With Spring Festival finally over, a deluge of delayed deliveries finally showed up on my doorstep. it was great fun opening them all, especially as some had been ordered so long ago I no longer remembered what I was getting. My excitement prompted my wife to observe that she finally understood Taobao addiction: it’s like Christmas every time a parcel arrives.

However my excitement was tempered by an uncomfortable awareness of how much packaging I was throwing away. I have recently been writing and editing articles for our forthcoming March issue, with the theme of sustainable living, and I have been amazed and ashamed by the extraordinary ways in which many in Beijing’s international community are changing their lifestyles to minimize waste. When I’d opened everything, I stacked up my purchases, then alongside and dwarfing them, the mountain of packaging they came in:

A glance at the picture will show that most of the goodies are edible, imported items which can’t be obtained at the local supermarket. However this picture has tempered my enthusiasm for Taobao, and caused me to think again before I click “加入购物车.”

It’s also induced in me a slight sense of despair. I try to reduce the waste I generate, begging baristas not to put my coffee in a plastic bag with a plastic stirrer and a little plastic container of milk which I’m not going to use. But often they do it anyway, doggedly ignoring my protestations. And I don’t even know how to ask our local pizza parlor to stop putting a pair of plastic gloves in with our delivery every single week.

Of course I know what the real answer is. But I think I’m too weak and selfish to give up coffee on the go and pizza to the door, and proper British tea from Taobao. Why can’t my host country adapt its entire culture to allow me my self-indulgent Western lifestyle without guilt?

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Sustainable in the City: Can You Actually Maintain a Zero Waste Lifestyle in Beijing?

It is, of course, deeply unfair to expect China to change its ways, when Europe and America have enjoyed decades of throwaway lifestyles, and it’s our mess which is choking the world. Unfortunately, though this doesn’t stop the world from choking. Like many other families, we watched in horror the sequences in Blue Planet 2 showing marine animals feeding their young plastic and pollutants, and vowed to start making some changes.

China’s leadership is beginning to get to grips with the problem, having recently stopped taking in shipments of unrecyclable waste from abroad, forcing the US to start to face its own garbage problem. And small steps can make a big difference. Shops (and shoppers) in the UK long resisted a mandatory charge for plastic grocery bags, but when it was finally introduced no one stopped shopping, and bag usage fell by 85 percent.

I know I too can’t outsource my rubbish responsibilities to China, and will need to start making changes myself. But some public awareness would help, if only to prevent the baffled stares when I refuse a plastic straw. It’s not impossible: in the Philippines and Cambodia recently we were delighted to be given bamboo straws with our drinks, and both are less developed countries than China. Perhaps CCTV could screen Blue Planet 2…

Photos: Design for Health via Flickr, Andrew Killeen