Yum Cha Chats with Blond:ish: How to green your routine (and other sustainable life hacks)

Sunday’s are hard but can be made easier with unexpected delights — so here’s some fluff to get you through it. Inspired by a recent jaunt for dim sum with Miss Yellow in Hong Kong, allow us to deliver a new edition of Yum Cha Chats — which means let’s go eat dim sum and drink tea in Cantonese. The series will dig into the obscure and tasty 'fillings' you never knew about your favourite DJs and have nothing to do with music — every Sunday. Best enjoyed from bed…

Music is the strongest social connecter and through music, Blond:ish is on a mission to rid the music industry of plastic by 2025. Through her platform, her strong social presence and a loud voice, she activates the collective power of the music industry to restore balance to the planet — one plastic-free party at a time. So far, together with her Bye Bye Plastic Foundation, she got 1,500 DJs to adopt her plastic-free rider called the Eco-Rider, but since very little touring is happening this year, we whipped up a list of sustainable life hacks that we can all work on perfecting in the meantime.

"Start at home with how you consume water! Order big plastic-free jugs. Get a reusable water bottle and coffee cup (keep an eye out for places that are still accepting your cups safely still even with COVID), carry a reusable fork and knife with you when you're travelling, and lose the straw or take a metal straw for smoothies/drinks. Also, make sure people know you have these items so they don’t keep buying more for you ha! I like the S'well bottles."

"When I’m back in Barcelona (like I am at the moment), I do all my zero waste shopping at Yes Future Positive Supermarket. The cool thing about them is that they deliver, you can just WhatsApp them! Everything is without chemicals. They even do an almond paste, almond butter, superfoods...everything. When you're doing your food shopping, try to support local fruit and vegetable markets and shops where the food isn't pre-packaged in plastic, get back to old school reusable bags. Go to bulk stores for your dried pasta and rice, and if you have plastic bottles or containers already, make 'em work for their living —take them along there to fill with liquid goods!"

"Buy non-plastic or non-polluting stuff, like unwrapped natural herbal shampoo or soap bars, and muslin reusable cloths for freshness on the road. Buy reef-friendly sunscreen, so you don’t damage the wild ocean creatures with harsh chemicals. When you hit the beach, leave nothing but footprints from dancing in the sand, take nothing but memories, unless you take a bit of litter away with you or any ‘ghost net’ which might entrap a turtle or whale."

"The easiest and most effective sustainability hack of them ALL – speak out to bring change no matter how small it might feel to you at the time, or how big the issue might be! As a DJ, I can do this through the Bye Bye Plastic Foundation (BBP), or interviews, or of course engaging with my whole community on the ABRA Twitch channel, Discord, HUMAN NATURE live streams, Instagram, Tik Tok… you name it. There are so many platforms you can put your message out on. With BBP, we organise beach cleans all over the world too, we’ve got ones coming up in Tulum and LA for World Clean Up Day. It can also be something as simple as getting your local cafe to introduce a reuse cup discount or campaigning for your local bars and restaurants to ditch plastic straws and water bottles that will cause that special RIPPLE EFFECT and can be the start of something super exciting as well as a switch in mindset and thinking."

"Especially when flying, offset your carbon emissions. There are websites where you can ‘buy’ carbon credits to offset the carbon you emit, often through reforestation programmes (the greenest way to do it)! At BBP, we recommend Green Seat or Climate Neutral Group. Also, use public transport if you can or make friends when travelling to share Ubers and taxis if you have to use cars on the road. I use a bicycle, walk and take the train as much as possible."

"Switch to a renewable energy company in your home — this is so easy to do, they handle all the admin for you. So many countries have 100% renewable energy companies as options now. We’ve vetted a few with BBP, like Ecotricity (UK), Engie (FR) and Good Energy (UK) are ones that we trust, or use comparison websites to find the greenest power where you are."

"In these COVID times, get a reusable mask. At BBP, we’ve teamed up with Masks For Music, who are plastic-free and have a super cool system that is not only supporting reusables instead of putting lots of single-use products out but also is designed to generate jobs and put money back into the music industry. You can get one of their masks here, where 50% of the profits go to BBP."

"It’s a simple one, but I’ve seen some of my smoker friends ashing in nature or the street without thinking — please re-think about ashing in the streets or nature...especially throwing your butt on the ground. Please please bring a portable ashtray. You can get good bamboo ones."