There's nothing in there!

Hello.

I just landed in Sacramento and I'm here to visit a zero-waste family, which I've been following on Instagram for about a year.

And I'm really excited to meet them, 'cause I want to see how a family lives zero waste.

- Hi. - Hi.

This is how much trash that our family made in six months.

We're a family of four and we try to live as low waste and plant-based as possible.

Our family is able to create less waste because we shop at the farmer's market, we shop at our bulk store, and we eat plant-based.

This is not all of our trash, this is just the trash that we've kept that is gonna go to the landfill.

We also recycle and compost.

This is our compost, it's our weekly pickup.

This is our paper recycling.

This is usually full of my stuff, of aluminum.

They fed me an amazing lunch and then we headed to the co-op to do some shopping.

Look at this, this is beautiful.

I cannot believe this bulk section.

- Isn't it great? - It's amazing.

Yeah, we're really lucky.

Yes, exactly.

That way you only have to pay for what's inside, not the weight of the jar.

I'm gonna get some of this extra virgin olive oil and I can just fill it up out of here with no plastic.

They have the mason jars that are already tared here so you can just purchase one if you forget your own, it has the tare weight on it.

You're such a good helper.

I got to get my bulk on while I'm here.

The Co-Op has brought on bulk tofu which is amazing because it's local and organic and there's no plastic packaging.

What did your kitchen use to look like before you went zero-waste?

It was stuffed to the brim with plastic, like it was really hard to see in the fridge even, because we would just, would go to Costco or to Trader Joe's and stuff and just get foods that were wrapped in plastic because I mean that's just how things come, unfortunately.

Here's my pantry.

In here I've got all my spices.

So I store most of our stuff in mason jars just because it's so convenient.

I honestly cannot believe your pantry, I'm so jealous.

It's like, beautiful.

Look at it, it's amazing.

It's really nice to be able to see everything in there.

I came to a plant-based diet after I was looking for a way to heal my body holistically from rheumatoid arthritis.

And, after I started eating that way I started to feel really good and so I got my family to eat that way too.

And it felt amazing and it also ties in a lot with zero-waste and sustainability.

We got into zero-waste by me coming across Bea Johnson in an article, and I was really inspired by the way that she was able to live and create less waste.

And so we went really in at first of trying to get everything zero-waste and it just didn't work that way for us.

And so we scaled back and just did more manageable steps one at a time.

And built our habits that way.

Eating zero-waste and plant-based for the family has been very beneficial.

We're finding ourselves getting sick less often.

We're eating as a family as a whole: all pitching in, cooking together, going to farmer's market.

The kids are growing it, they're seeing it from seed to plate.

I think that overall we have ended up saving money as far as not any of our food going to waste.

We use all the food that we buy.

And as far as not getting any disposable products, it's a lot less expensive that way because all our stuff is being reused.

The other kids are surprised at my lunches because I don't think they have ever, really seen something like that.

So it's a new thing for them.

I'm gonna shuck some corn with the kids!

Do you guys like helping to cook?

Yeah I like helping to cook because I want to learn to be a cook too.

We're having a delicious dinner, thank you so much!

Thank you for coming.

We got toothpaste, homemade toothpaste.

I make our own toothpaste with baking soda and coconut oil and peppermint essential oil.

Oh!

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