Taking the leap
Lü was a shopaholic before embarking on her zero-waste life. For example, when taking overseas vacations, she would arrange for purchases to be delivered to her hotel even before she even departed, and would then buy so much while abroad that she would have to pick up an extra suitcase to get it home again.
She underwent a complete turnaround after being introduced to the zero-waste lifestyle. Her change began in late 2016 when she read a friend’s Facebook post about packing a breakfast purchase in a container brought from home. She happened to be eating her own breakfast at the time. Looking up and seeing the single-use utensils covering her own table, Lü was struck by the amount of waste arising from this one meal and couldn’t help wondering where it all went. When she later took part in a beach cleanup on Penghu and saw for herself the massive amount of trash on the shore, she resolved to adopt a zero-waste lifestyle.
At first, she and her husband argued about their transition to this new life. Since her husband was embarrassed about packing purchases into their own containers, she bought everything herself. She also went to the market with her parents, packing up their purchases in containers she brought along. She felt that this was her responsibility: “Since I was the one who wanted to reduce trash, I couldn’t force them to do it for me.”
Hsiao recalls a vendor giving him additional salty deep-fried chicken when he brought his own container, and says such perks made him more willing to embrace the new lifestyle. Lü also switched their cats to a raw-meat diet, which eliminated cat food packaging and improved their cats’ health. She also sought out litter made from wood pellets that disintegrate when wet, and then composted the used litter along with her kitchen waste to return it to the earth.
The Green Foot cat hotel sells all of its products loose or in refillable containers.