How a TED Talk changed my life | Imke Neumann | TEDxLeuphanaUniversityLüneburg

By the year 2050, there is going to be more plastic trash than fish in our oceans. Like most people Imke Neumann just accepted that prediction, until she discovered a TED Talk that inspired her to change for a cleaner future. She describes her personal story of making a big lifestyle change happen.

Imke is a college student at Leuphana University studying business psychology and social media. Since many people approached her for advice on following her lifestyle she has started blogging on zerowasteland.org.

Imke Neumann is a student majoring in business psychology, as she is deeply fascinated in the ways that our minds work and develop. Apart from all the lectures, she has also been active in student groups advocating LGBT-rights or helping refugees attend classes at university. When she is not on campus, Imke likes to play the guitar, write songs, attend rock concerts or watch movies and series. Ever since she spent a year in Finland at the age of 15, she got hooked on learning new languages, exploring different cultures and Finnish chocolate. Her most recent trips have been short backpacking trips using couchsurfing. Her profile on the website says that the most awesome thing about her is living a zero waste lifestyle. Imke's next adventure will be studying for a semester in Shanghai.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

More plastic trash than fish
in our oceans by 2050.

When we first hear such predictions,

our initial reaction
is shock or disbelief.

But then we just accept them
and move on with our lives.

So did I when I first heard it.

I knew that it was my trash
that I was causing

every day, week and year

which is filling up the oceans.

But since billions of other people
are part of the problem too,

I thought my waste
would just be a drop in the ocean.

It's just easier to throw your trash away
and stop thinking about it,

especially when the resulting problems
are not affecting you directly.

Some clever scientist
might come up with a solution anyway.

And until then, the most I could do
was abstaining from plastic bags.

Or so I thought.

Because then something happened

which made me realise

that I don't need to wait
for anyone to solve the problem

that I am creating.

I can, in fact, be part of the solution.

The way I did it
was by reducing my yearly trash

to exactly this amount.

Yes, all my trash of over one year
fits inside this tiny jar of glass,

and if the people in the back
have a hard time seeing it,

that's exactly what I was going for.

How did I manage to make this achievement
of tackling a huge global problem

on a personal scale?

And more importantly,

what has this experience taught me

about achieving my own goals
for my personal life and the world?

While most people have
some problems, projects and plans

they always want to work on
but keep postponing,

most people have something
that takes the top priority on that list:

something so important to yourself

that you're willing
to change your life for it.

And other times you don't need to look for
a cause to change your life at all,

but it finds you.

For me, that turned out to be trash.

Not that it ever played
a huge role in my life,

but I naturally cared
about the environment.

The only thing that kept me
from acting upon it

was me feeling unable to do so.

I knew that like anyone else,

I was causing a lot of trash each year -

about 270 kilograms, as I found out later.

And I just assumed that this is the cost

we need to pay
for living a civilised lifestyle.

Once you take a closer look at a problem
and try to break it down,

you might come up with
a solution so simple

that you wonder why no one
has ever thought of that before.

So, how did I come up with
this ingenious idea

that using less plastic
will lead to less plastic trash?

The truth is that I didn't.

I often stay up really late
just watching random YouTube videos,

including TED Talks,

and then I would hear
all those impressive stories

of scientists, journalists
and entrepreneurs

that would leave me thinking
that I should really go out there

and start changing the world,

turn my life around
and start living a healthy lifestyle.

But the next day, reality would kick in,

and I had no idea where to start
with all those big plans.

When I watched a TED Talk by Lauren Singer
called 'Why I live a zero-waste life',

it all changed.

She talked about how she manages
to fit her trash of three years

inside a tiny jar of glass,

and I was really blown away.

I couldn't believe
this was actually a possibility,

and how come I had never heard
of that before?

While everyone is out there
living their life,

accepting that you need
to pollute the environment

with your food packaging
and empty shampoo bottles,

she made me realise
that there's an alternative.

So, I was realising that sometimes
problems seem so big

that you think their solution
must just be as tricky.

Immediately after having seen the video,

I started thinking
about all the items that I buy

which are packaged in plastic
and other wasteful materials

and how I could possibly replace them.

And while I couldn't think
of zero-waste alternatives

for everything right away,

I knew that I had to try
this lifestyle myself.

How could I possibly keep causing trash

when I knew that every little bit of it
was avoidable according to this TED talk?

So I challenged myself
to produce even less trash

than the girl in the video, Lauren Singer,

and I was going to start with it
right the next day.

So I got myself this jar
and kind of used it as a goal.

I wasn't going to cause more trash
than this jar is able to hold.

This gave me a way to visualise
the progress I'm making

and show me what I'm going for,

where I still have room for improvement,

but also serves as
a great source of inspiration.

Now that I had set myself that goal,

I still had little knowledge
of how to actually achieve it.

But the thing is that I knew
it was possible,

and that's all I needed to know.

People often tell me that it must be
really hard to go zero-waste

and are curious about how
I replace everyday items,

like toothbrushes or dental floss.

The good thing is that I didn't need
to have all the answers

to minor problems right away.

On the first days of my transition,
I mainly needed to focus on buying food.

So, I would go into a store
with my reusable bags

and kind of scan the shelves
for zero-waste items,

and within a few days I had figured out
at which store I can buy which item.

Then, I would run out of shampoo
and had to look for an alternative,

which turned out to be solid shampoo bars.

After a while, I had to replace
my plastic toothbrush,

and the alternative
was one made out of bamboo,

100% biodegradable.

In other cases, I didn't buy
an alternative product at all

but chose to make it myself,

like laundry detergent.

Who knew it would only
consist of three ingredients:

washing soda, water and Castile soap.

It is a very satisfying feeling
to try out different recipes

and see them actually work.

Not only are those products cheaper,

but you can customise them
so they fit your own values and needs.

This is why I don't see
my lifestyle change

as radical as it might sound.

I think it's more like a gradual
transition or a journey,

and on this journey, I learnt
so much more about myself,

my everyday products
and how to make them.

Not only did this journey
lead me to my goal,

but it also opened up
so many new perspectives

that I would've never expected.

But like every journey,
mine also had its ups and downs.

I sometimes experience those downs

in the form of my favourite candy
that I can't buy as often

because it's packaged in so much plastic

or when I see a nice dress at the store
and choose to not buy it.

Instead, I spend my money
on second-hand clothes

that I find while travelling,

and I think they're often
way more interesting

than the local options I have here.

On top of that,

I sometimes have that awkward moment

where I go out with friends for drinks,

and by the end, I wouldn't just leave
my glass standing there,

but I'd take the little
plastic straw with me,

which of course earns me
a lot of awkward looks.

So, I get to explain
that I will put it in my jar later on,

and that opens up
a whole new conversation

about my zero-waste lifestyle.

So there were definitely challenges
I needed to overcome

when deciding to make this change.

The key is that I didn't let those
discourage me from achieving my goal.

I needed to be persistent

in order to, later on, look
at the achievement I was able to make

and the experiences I got to make.

And on top of that,

it's a wonderful feeling to see

how much of an impact
you can have on your own life

if you just put your mind to it.

The best experience, however,

is getting to share your ideas
and knowledge with other people.

I inspired my older sister
to go zero-waste

and other people around me
to embrace a cleaner lifestyle as well.

Now I get to spend more money
on important things,

like travelling and concerts

and not on stuff that will leave
a huge pile of trash

which will be dumped in the ocean.

By now, I don't think
about all the products I can't buy,

but about the hundreds of kilos
of trash that I avoid every year.

While some people might still call
me 'crazy' or 'weird'

for living this lifestyle,

I like being crazy if that means
living according to my own values.

It's time to deal with
those projects, plans and problems

that you always wanted to work on.

Be crazy, and challenge
yourself every day,

so you'll get to experience growth,
and willpower, impact and achievements.

And if you could make the switch

to reusable bags
and bottles in the process,

we will all get one step closer
to a cleaner future

with more fish than trash
in the oceans by 2050.

(Applause)