For the past six years, Yu Yuan has been doing everything she can to live a life that produces no nondegradable waste.
She takes her own coffee mug and chopsticks to cafes and restaurants, she buys secondhand clothes and she never orders food deliveries. During the day, she runs a shop in an old Beijing alley that sells housewares. None are single-use plastic and customers don’t get a bag.
"It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible, because every Chinese person used to have a low-carbon lifestyle when the country was less developed,” said Yu, 30. "I will find ways to make it happen.”