North Bay Woman

NORTH BAY WOMAN 43 our food inventory," Johnson says. "We do not waste any food at our house. "Zero waste becomes a lifestyle when you let it simplify, rather than complicate, your life," she continues. The family discovered that as they practiced zero waste, they were saving up to 40 percent of the money they used to spend on things, random stuff, standard American heavily packaged products. Impulse buys. "We were able to use the money we saved to afford to do things that we wouldn't have thought possible before," Johnson says. "We've gone ice climbing, snorkeling with humpback whales, the kids have now traveled in more than 20 countries. As we went deeper into zero waste, we discovered that we were having a life based on experience instead of things; a life based on being rather than having. For us, that's what makes life richer." Johnson's dedicated journey to zero waste began in 2006, the year she and her husband and children decided to give up a huge house in Pleasant Hill, with many rooms and a garage packed with things, to fi nd a home in Mill Valley. "I wanted a life that would allow us to walk to Mill Valley downtown and easily get to San Francisco," Johnson says. "We knew we were going to possibly fi nd a house half the size for the same money, if we were lucky." Along the way, the family lived in an apartment as they searched for the right property. They looked at 250 homes before they found the one they could afford. As Johnson explains it, "We put everything in storage. That year, living in an apartment, with less, was an epiphany. We found that when we lived with less, we had more time to do things more important to us. After we bought the house in Mill Valley in 2008, we got everything out of storage. We found that 80 percent of the stuff in there, we hadn't missed for a year. We let go of it. We questioned everything we had. It was voluntary simplicity that we fi rst adopted." They canceled all types of mail, including catalogs. They no longer accepted any plastic bags into the home. They began watching their energy and water consumption. Then Johnson turned her attention to the family's trash. "Ten years ago, the term zero waste was used to describe waste management practices on a city level, and on the manufacturing level," she says. "When I saw that term, the light bulb went on. Is your goal not zero waste but what exactly is your goal in waste reduction? Medium? Almost zero? If you have zero in Bea Johnson speaks about her nearly waste-free lifestyle before 1,700 people in Mauritius, off the southeast coast of Africa (above) and to a women's group in Prague. Bottom: The Johnson family's annual waste that cannot be reused or recycled fi ts in a pint jar. – Top to bottom: photos courtesy of MCB, Mikola Bruncova and Zero Waste Home

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