Minimalism is an idea that dates back almost 2,500 years. As Socrates once said, “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” In short, less is more. Or as we like to say, “Less stuff, more of what’s meaningful.” Minimalism compliments waste reduction as a style because it is characterized by simplicity and scaling back.
What is a minimalist lifestyle?
According to The Minimalists, “Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom.”
A zero waste leader, Bea Johnson of Zero Waste Home, says “Living with less = living with more. More time for life, picnics, reading, books, etc. A life of being instead of having. Experiences instead of stuff.”
Choices in living a minimalist lifestyle are similar to CVSan’s Path to Zero Waste, and finding what works for you. There is no set way to practice minimalism in your life and everyone chooses what practices work for them.
Minimalism and Zero Waste?
Some folks like Kathryn Kellogg of GoingZeroWaste.com say zero waste and minimalism go hand-in-hand. It’s certainly true that the decluttering portion of minimalism can help you reduce waste. The Zero Waste Collective has five ways that becoming minimalist can help you when going zero waste.
Despite the similarities, there are some contradictions between minimalism and zero waste where minimalists usually just want to get rid of extra stuff and zero wasters want to find a use for it. Author Kyle Chayka wrote a book about what people are getting wrong about minimalism and how it’s become another form of consumerism. To break it down in a shorter format, Thinking Sustainably has put together a nice article on the main differences between zero waste and minimalism.
What happens when you incorporate minimalism into your lifestyle?
Once you decide to adopt minimalism into your life, you do need to take a good luck at all of your things and whether you really need them in your life. According to The Minimalists, “Minimalists search for happiness not through things, but through life itself; thus, it’s up to you to determine what is necessary and what is superfluous in your life. There are many flavors of minimalism: a 20-year-old single guy’s minimalist lifestyle looks different from a 45-year-old mother’s minimalist lifestyle. Even though everyone embraces minimalism differently, each path leads to the same place: a life with more time, more money, and more freedom to live a more meaningful life. Getting started is as simple as asking yourself one question: How might your life be better if you owned fewer material possessions?.”
So, you may have heard the term decluttering before; minimalists take decluttering to another level. Take the work of Marie Kondo, for example. Minimalism can be seen as a stressful way to reduce the number of things you own so take your time to read up on the topic. However, it can be very good for you as not only can decluttering help reduce extra stuff and waste, there are also psychological benefits to it. As this article explains “There’s growing evidence that a cluttered home or workplace is a stressful one. A recent DePaul University study found that physical clutter is linked with procrastination and, in turn, lower life satisfaction. Other research shows that clutter is associated with elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol.”
How can you incorporate minimalism into your life?
If Marie Kondo isn’t for you, don’t worry, there are many ways to incorporate minimalism in your life. According to Bea Johnson of Zero Waste Home one way to start is to “No longer accept the gift of stuff. Accept the gift of experiences and give the gift of experiences too.”
Good Housekeeping put together a nice article on how to start, with advice from minimalist experts. Earth911 has even suggested that there are three tiers of minimalism. If you’re looking for inspiration on going minimalist, check out The Afrominimalist, The Minimalists, or The Zero Waste Home already mentioned. If you’d like to dig in to a good book on the topic, Minimalist.co has a list of 21 and BookAuthority.org has a list of 100.
Local Resources
If you are looking for local options to help bring more minimalism into your life, check out our lists of local businesses for reuse-drop-off reuse-drop-off or reuse sales and services. CVSan also hosts the very popular Recycles Day twice a year where you can drop-off items for reuse and recycling. And ACI provides textile collection at the curb twice a year where things like clothing and linens are collected from next to your recycling and organics carts and sold for reuse or at least recycled if reuse is not an option.
Lastly, if you’d like to reduce your waste in other ways, please check out our Reduce Waste home page and subpages full of ideas and quick tips on many things from food to paper and junk mail to reusables and more.
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