Kommentare
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Yesss I'm soooo glad that more people are talking about zero waste!! 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱💙💙💙
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So inspiring!! Amazing work, Sam and Lydia!
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This is a great idea, but I think that a more practicable and urgent solution would be to encourage a zero-plastic-trash lifestyle. It would be easier for people to implement. And paper waste biodegrades, while glass is inert. It's far more necessary to reduce the plastic use, owing to the presence of the continent-sized plastic garbage patches in the oceans. Most people could move from plastic to paper bags and still be making an enormous difference, or from plastic squeeze tubes to glass jars. Even if the glass or paper or metal is not recycled, it is nowhere near as problematic to the health of earth. Plastics have phthalates, BPA, or other plasticizers that are harmful to living beings. There are thousands of chemicals that can leach out of plastics into food- either our food, or those of animals. And animals are killed eating the plastic that makes it into the environment. I fail to see the relative problem with biodegradable pizza boxes (unless they are coated in plastic) as compared to a plastic bag that will persist for millions of years and get eaten by sea turtles, dolphins, albatrosses, and other animals. Yes we should target zero trash, but most people are not going to do that. However, we could feasibly get people to exchange plastic packaging for paper, glass, and metal in many cases if we focus on getting the consumers to demand it, and/or if we make the manufacturers responsible for the health and environmental consequences of their packaging. When I was a very young child, most things were still packaged in glass, paper, and metal. Even Dannon yogurt (I'm vegan now) back then was packaged in paper cups that were lined with wax. I remember they introduced plastic cups when I was around 6 years old. We could easily go back to the way things used to be.
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Nice job!! Impressive.
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pragmatism + activism is where it's at if we want a movement. great job, mr. mcmullen
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its a shame only 163 views. kinda saddens me
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How can someone get in touch with this project? I am very interested.
Thank you!
The world is a pretty big place, and it can be hard for individuals to have a big impact, especially when it comes to maintaining the environment. Does one person going “zero-waste” for a year even make a difference? Environmental activist Sam McMullen investigates the power of community in preserving our environment. Sam McMullen is a junior at the University of Michigan, pursuing degrees in biochemistry and philosophy. As a passionate environmentalist, Sam has been living a zero-waste lifestyle for the past seven months in an attempt to not produce any waste at all for a year. His experiences as a student at UM combined with his environmentally positive lifestyle give Sam a unique perspective on an individual's ability to influence perceptions about waste and environmentalism. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx