Weekly diary #42: A zero waste fail at the Liberation festival |

Hi, welcome back into another weekly diary. In these diaries I try to share my transition to a sustainable lifestyle. The past week I had a zero waste fail at the Liberation festival, I tried a new vegan bagel at Bagels & Beans and I refused compostable straws! Want to read along? Here’s weekly diary #42.

Thursday

Today I’m starting a streak of days where I only have to work at my part-time job. Today I worked from noon till 5PM and so I was able to sleep quite long beforehand. At work something strange happened: they asked me to also work in the meat-department of our store every once in a while. I said yes but I don’t really know how to feel about it. I am vegan and so I hate the fact that people eat meat. But at the same time I already work at the same store so I am already contributing to the proces. If someone asks me about the taste of a product I will mention that I don’t consume meat. I don’t know the answer to their question. I am in that same situation all the time in the bakery department where I work now too since a lot of those products aren’t vegan either. We’ll see if I can do it. I can use the extra hours for sure. After work I played a handball match. Good news! We finally won a game again! 21-18! I had a lot of fun (which is most important).

Friday

Another day at work, but today from 10AM till 5PM. At night I did some blogging and watched Grey’s Anatomy. I hadn’t seen the show in a while and so it was good. From now on I only want to watch shows I really want to see, like Grey’s Anatomy. Intentional. I don’t want to come home anymore and watch TLC mindlessly for 5 hours straight. If I one day move out of the house I don’t want to have cable tv. That would mean I could only watch things intentionally via Netflix or so. But I don’t know with who I’ll live at the time and what that person(s) thinks of that. But from people who don’t have a tv I only hear positive stories. More time, sleeping more, different priorities, more rest and the list goes on.

Saturday

The last day in this work-streak. I was excited for today. I worked from 7AM till noon. Then I went to friends, we wanted to go to the Liberation festival at the University in Enschede (The Netherlands was liberated from the Second World War on May 5th). The plan at first was to eat at the festival which was fine with me. There is usually a low waste option available. But eventually the plan changed because most people wanted to order food. Ordering food is a zero waste nightmare. Was I going to opt out and go to the supermarket alone or order with my friends? I did the latter. Sometimes I am selfish but I chose quality time over a zero waste lifestyle. I ordered a vegan sandwich with falafel and some fries. Once at the festival I was prepared well because I had brought my own reusable cup for drinks. But it failed somehow. When I ordered drinks in my own cup last week, the person at the bar put the drinks from the bottle into my cup. But this time the person at the bar grabbed a plastic cup that already had coke in it, put that coke into my cup and then threw the plastic cup away. Well, this was not what I meant. The second time I asked if they could pour it from the bottle but I was ignored. The same thing happened and so my effort was pointless. Since nothing really worked and I got more thirsty because of the coke I also bought a bottle of water. I never do this but the people working at the festival gave me no choice. It was a big zero waste fail. But the party was amazing!

Sunday

Today the weather was going to be even better than yesterday and so my friends and I went to a local lake in Enschede (Het Rutbeek). I like going there since it’s more sustainable than a pool and it’s also a lot of fun. Today I didn’t swim after all because the water was still very cold. I took my own lunch and so the day was zero waste. Once back home dad and I barbecued. Maybe it would be fun to write about good options for a vegan barbecue sometime. Today I had a salad, baguette, vegan burgers and vegan ice-cream, hmmmm! At night I picked up my boyfriend from the train station. I love days like these.

Monday

It’s time again: school. The holidays always go by so fast. However, I am starting school with fresh courage today because I don’t want any resits. Summer holiday starts in 9 weeks I don’t want to spend time studying because I have a resit. The first day of a new period at school is always very overwhelming. I have learned to stay calm and think that everything is going to be fine. For now, I just hope that the courses are going to be fun. I started school at 11:45AM and finished at 14:45PM. Great! My boyfriend and I went to have lunch in Deventer before we went to his home. We went to Bagels and Beans, I love that place! They have a lot of vegan and organic options. Today I tried the Dutch Weed Burger Bagel and I loved it! I can really recommend it. I ordered some plain water on the side and hadn’t really expected a straw. The waitress still came with one and I said I didn’t need it. She mentioned it was biodegradable. I still refused it. Single-use items are useless, biodegradable or not. At night we also went to sit at another terrace where I had some lovely vegan ice-cream.

Tuesday

Today I had to get up at 6:30AM, school started at 9:15AM. I was such a bad mood, horrible. And then it only gets worse because I am mad at myself for being in a bad mood. Do you recognize this cycle? It was very busy and hot in the train. I was standing in the corner and got really dizzy, nauseous, got a headache and sweat a lot all of a sudden. Eventually I tried to sit on the ground because I was scared I would throw up at someone. I felt nauseous the rest of day, it finally went away when I was at my handball match. We lost the game but I did have a lot of fun and that’s most important!

Wednesday

Time for a good day! I felt good and the sun is shining. I had class till 13:15PM and then again at 14:00PM. That always works very demotivating around this time of the year. Only 5 people showed up. Almost a private class! I’m glad I went because I made some good progress on my exam. On the train ride back home I fell asleep and once home I made myself some lunch, vacuum cleaned the house and went to the gym straight away. If I take the time to sit on the couch I don’t want to go anymore. At the gym I did a class of Bootcamp today but it was soooo tough. Jee. I think I’m quite in shape but this was a level higher. Once I got home again I did some work in the garden. I planted my carrot plants outside! I hope it will rain tonight, that will do them good. Tonight my boyfriend is coming over and he asked my to buy something for breakfast. Yoghurt. No, not the vegan one. I eventually went with the organic yoghurt, the best option I could pick I guess. I hope my boyfriend will go vegan one day too. But I bought the jar that didn’t have the lid on it anymore. From experience in working in the supermarket I know that people won’t buy that one. It is weird since the product is the same, but people are picky. I hope I prevented some food waste this way. It 22:00PM now and I did a lot today! Time to relax a little and watch Zembla.