A few months later, passion led me to applying and getting accepted into a social entrepreneurship program called the DO School. I was accepted as a Sustainable Packaging Challenge Fellow and worked on developing environmentally sustainable solutions with 18 other social entrepreneurs from around the world. Whilst working on the challenge, each fellow was also responsible for incubating their passion project to bring back to their home country for implementation – my problem statement went back to the simple yet shocking statistic that “Americans make up 5% of the world and produce 40% of the world’s waste.” Coupled with my knowledge in plastics, packaging materials and manufacturing, I was determined to figure out a solution to save our nation that was sinking in its own waste.
Idea after idea, iteration after iteration, I slowly stumbled upon the concept of living a zero waste lifestyle. So in the summer of 2015, I decided to try living a zero waste life, and launched my blog – Snapshots of Simplicity. I looked for any speaking opportunity I could get at festivals and schools to share my knowledge about packaging and waste generation in the United States. By 2016, I was regularly documenting my journey and tips of living with minimal waste, connecting with others in the zero waste community throughout the world, and networking my way within my company at the time, Cisco, to work within packaging sustainability.
Two years passed by within the blink of an eye, and my life has completely transformed – not just because of my decision to live a zero waste lifestyle, but because of how a simple passion project such as a lifestyle blog got me up on my feet to do things I never would have imagined. Fueled by a shocking problem statement about trash, I was able to blog about the importance of reducing one’s trash and ways to do so, land a position at Cisco as Sustainable Packaging Manager to reduce waste in a large corporation, co-launch the Cisco Green Team Network employee organisation, and publish my latest book, Sustainable Home – a collection of all my thoughts on how to make your household and lifestyle a little greener for the sake of ourselves and the planet.