Chatelaine_April_May_2019

JINNY YUN was once a self-described shopaholic. “I was the

opposite of green,” she says. She grew up in Seoul, South Korea,

in the Gangnam neighbourhood and would go browsing in its

designer boutiques whenever she could, fi lling her closet with

status items. In 2005, she moved to Vancouver and, a few years

later, married her home-builder husband, Joel. He had grown

up in a hippie haven and tried to convince her to reduce her con-

sumption, but her work as a college recruiter required travel-

ling to Asia two or three times a year, where she resumed her

shopping habits. But in 2016, after the birth of their second

daughter, she started to feel overwhelmed by stories of polluted

oceans and environmental catastrophe and was inspired to

make a real change. Yun had collected reusable shopping bags,

coff ee cups and water bottles for years; now, she was fi nally using

them. She switched from disposable to cloth diapers. “Even with

the extra laundry and water usage, the cloth ones are more sus-

tainable when you factor in manufacturing, shipping and dis-

posal,” she says. Yun dispensed with single-use baby wipes,

using her own eco- and bum-friendly cleaning solutions, and

brewed an ancient apothecary’s worth of natural toiletries:

deodorant (made from shea butter and essential oils), body

scrub (leftover coff ee grinds), conditioner (she uses an apple

cider vinegar rinse) and toothpaste (clay, baking soda and ste-

via). Kitchen towels get upcycled into reusable lunch bags or

donated to a company that uses them to stuff car seats. The

only things she and her husband buy new are socks and under-

wear. The family subscribes to a mostly vegetarian diet, eating

preserves and fresh produce from her in-laws’ garden and grow-

ing their own peas, carrots, lettuce, onions and beets in their

backyard vegetable patch. The rest of their food comes from

places like Nada Grocery, a zero-waste market where custom-

ers fi ll their own containers with bulk items. “We save so much

more money,” Yun says. “But the main thing we spend it on is

food. We try to waste nothing. I want to teach my kids that food

is precious.” Other parents often ask for advice about how to

recycle diffi cult items or throw a less-wasteful birthday party

for their kids. After three years of zero-waste living, Yun and

her family have reached the point where their yearly garbage

fi lls just three one-quart Mason jars —and the bragging rights

are almost as satisfying as the waste reduction.

Wildfi res like the ones

that wiped out Fort

McMurray, Alta., and

parts of Kelowna, B.C.,

in recent years are

becoming increasingly

common due to

warmer temperatures,

drier conditions

and more lightning.

By 2100, the fi re

season is expected

to lengthen by more

than a month along

the West Coast and

B.C.-Alberta border

and in Northern

Quebec. Smoke

from the fi res is also

a concern. During

B.C.’s 2018 wildfi res,

Alberta’s air quality

approached the top of

the health risk scale

over an immense

area spanning from

Calgary to Edmonton.

With longer exposure,

smoke cover can

exacerbate cardiac

and respiratory

problems.

Warmer ocean

temperatures are

threatening the

survival of salmon

and driving them

to migrate further

north. Of 13

declining chinook

salmon populations,

eight of them are

endangered and

four are threatened.

Salmon is not only

a culturally important

food for West Coast

peoples but also food

for marine mammals

like whales, seals

and sea lions.

APRIL/MAY 1019 • CHATELAINE 79

Joel Massey, 38

Jinny Yun, 37

Emily Yun, 5

Alice Massey, 3

The family of four that reduced its annual

waste output to three one-quart jars

PHOTO COURTESY OF JINNY YUN.

B.C. and Alberta

will burn

B.C. salmon

stocks will

dwindle