Stephanie Marie Seferian's Blog, page 36
April 30, 2021
Swedish Dishcloths: Your Go-To Zero Waste Swap
The kitchen creates an awful lot of waste, and this is especially true when it comes to single-use items like paper towels.
North America has a bad paper towel habit: it’s estimated that loggers cut down 51,000 trees every day to feed consumer demand.
But Cleaner Cloths is introducing Americans to what Europeans have known for decades: Swedish dishcloths are the incredibly versatile, eco-friendly alternative to paper towe...
April 27, 2021
Pop Culture and the Environmental Movement Today
In recent years, pop culture has raised important questions about the environmental movement today, and people are listening. Because while it can be easy to dissociate from media coverage surrounding global warming, climate change, and environmental racism, it’s much harder to do so when pop culture pushes the narrative.
The relationship between popular culture and popular opinion is circular, and so a great way to jumpstart conversations with ...
April 22, 2021
Minimalist Beauty For The Conscious Consumer
Toner, exfoliant, emulsion, eye cream, and that’s all before breakfast: The average woman uses 12 beauty products each and every day. But are these products actually necessary? What are the benefits to a minimalist beauty routine, and how do you start simplifying your existing one?
On today’s show we are applying the tenets of sustainable minimalism to our skincare routines by minimizing the excess, simplifying the process, and replacing what’s esse...
April 19, 2021
Digital Minimalism in 2021
It isn’t hyperbole: Technology is in many ways taking over our daily lives. Research has found that children spend 1200 hours per year on technological devices. And adults? We waste approximately 6200 hours a year—or up to a staggering equivalent of 44 years of our lives—staring at screens. In this era of technological-everything, is digital minimalism even possible?
On today’s show I speak with Bill Brady, CEO of Troomi. As a father of five, Bill offers up his best...
April 15, 2021
Becoming A Zero Waste Chef
The daily habits zero waste chefs rely on to reduce food and packaging waste can seem daunting to the rest of us, to say the least. But in the era of meal delivery kits and takeout culture, cooking from scratch and ensuring nothing gets wasted may indeed be self-sufficient skills that consumers are in danger of losing.
On today’s episode, Anne-Marie Bonneau, better known as The Zero Waste Chef, and I discuss cooking as a both an art form and a skill our grandparents ...
April 14, 2021
What is Planned Obsolescence? (And How to Repair)
By Cheryl Leutjen
What is planned obsolescence, and what do we do with all the broken things in our lives? These days, items break all the time. The easiest solution for most of us is to trash what’s broken and buy new.
Repairs, when available, often cost more than purchasing a new item. Worse, few of us possess the knowledge to fix the ever more complex gadgets we use every day.
One of the more difficult challenges to sustainable ...
April 9, 2021
Why 1000 Hours Outside?
Most of us understand intuitively that spending time outdoors – 1000 hours outside, in fact! – is important. But what does science say about the role of nature in our lives? How can we make the outdoors a staple of our children’s childhoods without tears?
The 1000 Hours Outside campaign seeks to match nature time with screen time, and that’s because kids spend approximately 1200 hours per year in front of electronic devices. I’ve dedicated my family to the l...
April 6, 2021
Accessible Sustainable Consumption
Sustainable Minimalism (the book!) is available as an e-book, audiobook, and paperback now, and it dives *far deeper* into the topics we discuss on this podcast. Thank you for supporting my work!
Sustainable consumption is confusing. What does it mean to be an intentional eco-consumer, exactly, and how does the identity differ from being a conscious one?
There are problems associated with greenwashing, too. Assuming you want to be more sustainable in your...
March 31, 2021
Is A Minimalist Life Accessible for All?
An intentional life that prioritizes experiences and loved ones over stuff is minimalism in a nutshell. There’s no correct number of items in your closet that lets you into the club. There aren’t any sad, empty rooms or pantries with only dry crackers. A minimalist life —at least in theory —is accessible to all.
Years ago, when I was learning more about minimalism, I felt like I cou...
March 30, 2021
“Good Enough” Environmentally Friendly Parenting
Parents are tired. So tired, in fact, that adopting an environmentally friendly lifestyle may seem impossible.
But the goal is progress—not perfection!—and so this week’s show is dedicated to parents who want to do better but don’t want to completely upend their lives.
Today I am speaking with Stace Dixon and Taylor Shearer of DYPER. Together we outline low-waste parenting strategies that are *good enough* in that they don’t require lots of...
