A life without plastic, wouldn’t it be fantastic?!

Interview with Charlotte Schueler of @PlastikfreiLeben, who lives a zero waste life in Munich. She shares her experiences to her 40 thousand followers on social media.

“My mother opened a plastic-free shop a while back, and the products around her home gradually started to reduce. I didn’t understand it at first, but then I started noticing the problem of the plastic waste and its impacts on nature when I saw more and more photos of deceased birds with plastic in their stomachs. I began looking for alternatives about 5 years ago and discovered really cool products. I still couldn’t find plastic-free alternatives for everything online so I started sharing my own experiences on Instagram and wrote a blog in 2015, mainly to raise awareness on the issue of plastic pollution and to improve people’s health.

When planning to start living without plastic, you should constantly ask yourself why, to inform yourself properly and start slowly. If you feel forced into it, you’ll find it difficult to stick to it. I started by always carrying a water bottle with me, in which I even poured coffee to avoid to-go cups. I also think it is fairly easy to avoid plastic in our bathrooms, for example with toothbrushes and toothpaste. Of course, it is time consuming to learn what alternatives can be used. But after a while it becomes easier, as you know exactly where to buy your products.

I think anyone can afford it. You have some larger initial investments, such as in a lunch box made of stainless steel, but it will last you a lifetime, and save money in the long-run. When I started to live without plastic I was doing an apprenticeship and was generally short of money, but it is possible to buy plastic-free on a tight budget. Either way a plastic-free life leads to more conscious decisions, because we buy less, since we realise that we don’t actually need much.”

 

Photo credit: Plastikfrei Leben

 

Disclaimer: we fully support pushing for zerowaste lifestyles, particularly in communities like Munich and Germany which have the infrastructure to allow for it. But we also believe that zerowaste is best coupled with awareness raising to break the gender roles regarding house chores (the “unpaid care work“), to ensure that this does not further the unjust burden of women in heterosexual couples.