Interview With Zero Waste Family – Sustainable & Zero Waste

I had the opportunity to speak to Fredrika from zero waste family. In the below interview with Zero Waste Family on YouTube, I asked Fredrika a series of questions to learn more about Zero Waste Family who live in San Diego in the USA.

I understand that not everyone will want to watch a YouTube video and as I’m a big fan of the written word myself – I decided to get this interview with Zero Waste Family on my blog as well. Fredrika is so inspiring and it was such a pleasure to be able to ask her some questions and learn more about her wonderful family.

I have a guest post on my blog from another zero waste family, you can view it here.

Interview With Fredrika

When did you start your sustainable journey?

So my sustainable journey began in 2006, it actually started before that as I’ve been an environmental writer for 20 years. In 2006 I became a mom as I gave birth to my daughter who’s now 14 and then it became much more clear to me that this is her future and I need to fight with everything I have to make a better future for her. Also to make sure there is a future for her on this planet.

What if anything, have you been unable to switch to a sustainable version of?

So here in San Diego we cannot live without a car so we have to have a car. In Sweden when we lived there we biked everywhere we walked and we used public transportation but this isn’t an option here. There are cities in the US where you can do that, but here you cannot. We have chosen to have one car instead of two but we haven’t been able to get away from a car. The second thing is that once in a blue moon our kids really want packaged snacks especially because their friends, their peers are doing it. Peer pressure and I don’t like shaming my kids for that. So I tried to come up with a solution and I let them have some packaged snacks, it’s not always but sometimes.

What is your favourite sustainable swap?

My favourite sustainable swap, that’s interesting. Well, there’s so many. Now growing food has been, oh my god, it’s my favourite thing in the world. I grew up growing food my whole life but watching my kids plant and then take care of them and eat it – it’s so cool. I keep saying if you want to explain a miracle to a kid, plant a garden! I would also say not eating meat is obviously one of my favourite ones, I’ve been vegan for 20 years. My kids have been raised vegan and it’s interesting to see the relationship my kids have with animals and the planet. I think they are my two favourite ones but if we go for a simple swap that everyone can do, I would say that using mason jars for everything and baking bread has been my favourite thing too.

Which sustainable swap has made the most difference to your lifestyle?

I would say going down from two cars to one, has made a huge difference. Because we save $8000 a year by just having one car. Also I get more exercise because I bike everywhere. I would say the second thing is to buy things in bulk, because it saves a lot of money, especially spices. If you look at a jar of spices compared to a bulk spice. It’s ridiculous how they mark it up! And bulk shopping because we buy big 25kg because with the pandemic they shut down the bulk shopping, but we figured out we are a family of five we can eat through beans like that. I would say growing our own food, I used to grow only on the patio in Sweden and it makes a difference if you grow your own food. Saves some money and also every time you plant, it eats carbon so you’re actually doing something for the planet. Even if you just grow herbs it makes a huge impact.

What or who inspires you to live sustainably?

Oh my kids! My kids they keep me going. It’s so fun because, they’re the ones to cheer me on. The ones that keep me honest. We have a documentary Zero Time To Waste and the reason we have the documentary is because of my son Noah. Noah is autistic, on the spectrum. He’s high functioning autistic child. Which just means he’s a really cool dude. He’s a problem solver. Autistic children are so beautiful because they see problems in a different way than we do. Noah loves the ocean, he loves sharks and he loves surfing. Perhaps not together! We would go down to the beach whenever there was a storm and two years ago we were down at the beach and we were cleaning up. There was so much plastic, we couldn’t get it all up. As we’re walking back, Noah’s so sad and he grabs my hand and he says Momma do something. I thought he was talking about the plastic but he says “No Momma, do something. You’ve got to tell people” I felt so devastated because I want to give my children everything and I can’t even promise they’re even going to have a planet. Two days later I had this production company contact me and said they want to do a documentary about our life and our families journey. My son was really excited and he said “Mommy, this is how we do it and tell people!” He was only 8 years old.

Have you experienced eco anxiety, if yes what do you do to overcome it?

This is interesting because it’s a common theme. I think a lot of people when they hear any information about climate change, they’d rather stick their heads in the sand because it is so overwhelming. I have had that too. Especially when, not to go too political but when Donald Trump became the President I knew this was going to be bad but as an environmental writer seeing and watching him insult the environment with the Environmental Protection Agency and he put an oil person in charge of the EPA. It was so devastating that I felt like what the heck am I doing, I should just give up! But when it comes down to it, I can’t give up. I have to face my children and say that I have done everything I can. Also it’s important, I feel that kids feel this eco anxiety a lot. Someone suggested it was because my kids, if I stopped scaring them (I don’t!) they feel it, they live in San Diego, they see the fires, they know exactly what’s happening. They see the plastic in the ocean, they are not dumb, they see the whales floating up. But I think that easing their anxiety is me showing that I’m doing something. I think whenever you get that and we all get it! Have your own little pity party, that everything you’re doing isn’t going to make a difference, have that feeling but be kind to yourself. Pull yourself up and start again and celebrate every little change you do. Every little change matters. You do not have to be like my family, nobody can be like my family overnight. Just celebrate and be kind to yourself and say I changed that today, that’s great.

Is there anything you wish you’d known before you started your sustainable journey?

That’s an interesting question. Yeah, I think I wish I’d known the impact chemicals had on my family and the environment. That would have been the first thing I swapped out. I wish I would have known that sooner. I would never have had any chemicals around my family at all. That’s something I feel took me too long to figure that one out. And I wish I’d been seeking out other more eco minded people and created a little community as I was very lonely in the beginning. Today there’s so many people like you and I wish I’d found all of you from the beginning. 💚

Who are your favourite sustainable influencers on YouTube or otherwise?

There’s so many! I appreciate you because you are so not pretentious, you don’t try to be fancy. I love that! You sit there and you talk and you make me listen and because you have a very nice voice and you don’t try to be something you’re not. I like all the food you make as it makes me hungry every time. Gittemary on YouTube, she’s great, funny and so pretty. On Instagram the Fairly Local Vegan, she’s on YouTube as well. The Eco Dude on Instagram, he’s just fantastic and nice in real life. He’s someone to follow, I think he’s going to grow to become huge. When I see all these sustainable influencers and zero wasters, it gives me hope for the planet. This is great, we’re going to change the world!

You’ve got a blog, YouTube channel, you’ve also written a book and you home school. How do you find the time to do it all?

It’s interesting, I don’t have TV, I don’t waste a lot of time watching it. For me, I never had a TV growing up but my husband had one. So he would say not having a TV makes a huge difference, we don’t just sit there and watch reruns. Second of all we both work at home so we can take the chance to do things. We became zero waste in 2015, we save a lot of money each year. That allows us to work part time and also that we can both work from home and that’s how we have time to do it. It’s a family affair, we do gardening together, we bake together, we cook together.

How much money is it you save every year from going zero waste?

Before the pandemic it was $18,000 per year, I think it’s more now with the pandemic because we literally don’t go anywhere. We would go to Sweden which I know is not sustainable, but I’m from Sweden so that is part of my culture, it’s my family there. But because we haven’t got anywhere in the last 1 1/2 years and we’ve stayed local, I think it would be more. than $18,000.

Did veganism come before zero waste or after?

Yes so I became vegan way before my husband, he was a big carnivore when I met him and I was vegan. That was very interesting, but for me I’ve been vegan for a long time because of health. I have an autoimmune disorder, it just helps to be vegan, then as the years progressed, I decided for animals, for the planet and for everything.

Summary

I hope you enjoyed this little interview with Zero Waste Family. Fredrika is so inspiring, I really enjoyed chatting with her about sustainability. It’s really awesome that they grow majority of their own food in their back yard. She really just has such a lovely personality and a great attitude towards life.

You can check out their YouTube channel here, or via the link above.

For more sustainable tips check out sustainable tips that are also frugal and a sustainable laundry routine. I have also interviewed another environmental writer Henri, if you enjoy interviews.

You can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook or my YouTube channel.