Bea Johnson, photographed at her home in Mill Valley, California, is the author of Zero Waste Home (Picture: Gabriela Hasbun)

What does being green mean to you? Do you pat yourself on the back because you only took one long-haul plane flight this year? Or feel smug because you walked to work a couple of times? Or are you pleased you remembered to sort the plastics from the cardboard when you put the recycling out this week?

When it comes to saving the planet, most of us talk a good game but we rarely walk the walk. For Bea Johnson, a 39-year-old French artist based in California’s Marin County, however, going green isn’t just about a bit of half-hearted recycling: it’s about waste – zero waste, to be precise.



A self-confessed dreamer of the American dream, Johnson moved to the US from France after school, fell in love, got married, headed to the suburbs and set about acquiring all the trappings of that success, from sport utility vehicles to big-screen TVs. ‘I really fell for the idea you should have a bigger car and a bigger house and fill it up with stuff,’ says Johnson. ‘But then we realised living that life didn’t really bring us anything.’

In 2007, Johnson, her husband Scott and their sons, Max and Leo, then five and six, downsized their life, moving to a smaller home where a new realisation occurred. ‘We started to educate ourselves on the environment and that made us feel really bad about the future of our kids,’ she says. ‘So we decided to do something about it.’


Today, the house Johnson and her family live in, in the small city of Mill Valley, is a temple to minimalism. Everything unnecessary has been removed. In the fridge, her food is placed not in plastic but clear jars (she shops with these jars, presenting them at supermarkets and asking for the meat to be placed inside – ‘They usually say “OK”, the trick is not to show doubt’).

Under the sink is a metal box filled with bulk-bought dishwasher tablets. On the counter is a bottle of Marseilles soap, a traditional soap made from vegetable oils, used for everything from dish cleaning to washing both the dog and floors.

The family’s annual waste in a jar (Picture: Bea Johnson)

The family wardrobes have been similarly stripped down: Johnson owns five pairs of shoes (six counting slippers), two dresses and a handful of tops, trousers and skirts. The bathroom has been purged of everything from plasters to perfume and the boys take their lunch to school not in a plastic box but wrapped up in a kitchen towel using a Japanese wrapping technique known as Furoshiki.

Small wonder then that where the rest of us continue to produce unthinkable amounts of waste, Johnson and her family produced one small glass jar’s worth last year. ‘Zero waste really happens outside the home,’ she explains, showing me the jar with its occasional sweet wrapper, bits of electrical wire and the odd paper ticket. ‘You might recycle or even compost but that’s not actually what it’s about – it’s about not buying, period. Once you buy something, you’ll have to find a way of disposing of it when it’s dead.’



Johnson’s mantra is simple: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rot. By following these five Rs, she says, you too can live a streamlined green life. She admits her own conversion wasn’t easy. Scott took some time to be convinced (‘even now I think he misses paper towels’) and there were moments she went too far.

‘I bought kefir grains and started making my own cheese, my own butter, my own soy milk,’ she says. ‘Then I started telling friends they couldn’t bring a bottle of wine when they came to dinner…’ She raises an eyebrow as if to say ‘can you believe I was this horrible to my friends’ before laughing. ‘Obviously we began to realise that couldn’t work, so now we do allow some recycling.’

It helps that Johnson is an incredible advocate for her lifestyle, all long limbs, high cheekbones and elegantly tousled hair. Yet even her style is lived according to her principles: her black eyeliner is home-made kohl; the glossy slick of lip balm is also homemade; her hair is undyed and her chic black dress is actually a skirt worn upside down and knotted at the shoulder as part of her latest challenge to wear one item 30 different ways in the 30 days she’ll be on her European book tour. The overall effect is one of high-end glamour, effortlessly achieved.

‘You don’t have to give up your sense of aesthetics just because you’ve gone green,’ she says. ‘At first I did because I really thought being environmentally friendly meant no make-up or fashion. I even gave up shampoo. Then I realised there are alternatives and you don’t have to let go of your sense of style.’


It’s hard to convey the Gallic insouciance with which Johnson talks about style – I’d struggle to look that impressively put together in an upside-down skirt and homemade make-up (the only product Johnson buys is a UVA-tinted moisturiser for sun protection).

But, thankfully, while she might be evangelical about the zero-waste lifestyle, she is light-hearted about the times she got it wrong, talking about foraging for moss to use as toilet paper and admitting to trying stinging nettles instead of lip plumper. ‘Mother, did that hurt – and then when I looked in the mirror one side was bigger than the other,’ she says.

Johnson is refreshingly honest about her vanity. ‘I did feel like I was letting myself go a bit when I gave up Botox,’ she says. But she dismisses accusations that this sort of lifestyle is easier to live if you are wealthy and middle class. ‘We actually started doing it because we were in a financially difficult period,’ she says. ‘My husband didn’t earn a salary for a year while he was trying to start a company, I was working four part-time jobs and it was the middle of a recession. We were having trouble making ends meet and it was zero waste that got us out of that.’

Minimalism is used to full effect inside the home (Picture: Bea Johnson)

Indeed, if there’s one thing that frustrates her, it’s that ‘people think living this sort of lifestyle is so hard when in reality, its cheaper and leads to an easier existence’. ‘With less stuff, there’s less to clean,’ she says. ‘It now takes me five minutes to clean my house every day. It improves life on so many levels.’


While Johnson is evangelical about her conversion to zero waste, she remains refreshingly pragmatic about the reality of others adopting this lifestyle. ‘It’s about finding a balance,’ she says. ‘I don’t expect everyone to reduce waste as much as we have but if you try, the benefits are incredible. We are much healthier since adopting zero waste. We eat more healthily because our food isn’t next to plastic. We’re outside more. Living with less has given us so much more time.’

Bea Johnson’s book, Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide To Simplifying Your Life (Particular Books), is out now, priced £14.99.

Five Rs for Zero Waste

REFUSE what you do not need

Turn down plastic bags, samples, marketing freebies, party bags and junk mail. They deplete resources and clutter our homes and minds. Simply say no.

REDUCE what you do need

Question the true need and use of your possessions. The less you bring home, the less waste you’ll have to dispose of later.

REUSE by swapping disposables for reusables

For every disposable out there, a reusable alternative exists. Replace plastic bags with totes, cloth bags and jars. Start using handkerchiefs, refillable bottles, cloth napkins and rags.

RECYCLE what you cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse.

Think of recycling as a last resort. Buy primarily in bulk or second hand and if you must buy new or packaged, choose glass, metal or cardboard – and avoid plastic.

ROT (compost) the rest.

Don’t be afraid of composting. Tumble dryer fluff, hair and nails are all compostable. Find a system that works for your home and remember the bigger the compost receptacle, the more likely you’ll be to use it.

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