My work – Minimum Waste

Not only that I live the #minimumwaste lifestyle, but I am now in charge of a place called Minimum Waste. What does it mean? Actually, what is Minimum Waste?!

To me, Minimum Waste is a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to do something good for the environment – simply because if we damage our planet, we’ll have nowhere to live. That’s pretty clear, right? So I started with myself (and I believe we all should), focusing on the waste and trying to reduce it to the minimum. I am not militant, that’s why I prefer to say minimum instead of zero. But I can’t change the world by myself, so that’s why I want to show people how to minimise waste and live more sustainably. You can do this two ways – (one) teach people why waste is a problem and what can be done about it through interesting talks, presentations and workshops. (Two) offer them products that allow them to minimise waste in the everyday life.

…and that is exactly what Minimum Waste is about. It’s not just a shop with sustainable products, but a learning centre, too. Vice versa, it’s not an education centre, where you only learn the theory, but thanks to the shop it allows you to turn the theory into practice right away.
In other words, we teach you about sustainable living and give you the tools to change your habits.

In the shop, we sell reusable alternatives of the single—use (plastic) products that we use everyday. Water bottles, coffee cups, lunch boxes, storage cans, shopping bags, napkins… .

Apart from that, we like nice, waste-related stories, and so we bring you products such as cups made from coffee grounds, door stoppers from discarded flip flops or clutches from pineapple leaves.

And of course, we have some packaging-free cosmetics, too.

I’ve chosen the products myself very carefully. I wanted to make sure that they are eco-friendly in all aspects – material, production and the eventual disposal. Because a product that claims to be eco-friendly but can’t be recycled afterwards is not and eco-friendly product to me. Lastly, I wanted the products to be eye-catching and pretty, of course.
Nevertheless, as I believe that just buying a couple of products isn’t enough, there’s the education part. We throw events for the public every month. The events are generally focused on sustainable consumption and waste prevention. We organize presentations, panel discussions, workshops, movie screenings, talks etc. The topics vary from everyday waste minimisation, sustainable fashion and sustainable design to sustainable agriculture and food waste.

I believe that this combination is quite unique and it adds value to the shop. It also adds a lot of inner joy to me, making me more than just a regular store manager.