'Waste not, want not,' minimalists say

Growing trend

While carefully classifying garbage at home, even sending trash as small as plastic tissue wrappers to a recycling company, Beijing housewife Mai Mai has been turning kitchen waste into compost, which she applies to a vegetable plot on some land she rents.

Overall, the 37-year-old now ensures that roughly 80 percent of the waste generated in her home is recycled.

In addition to encouraging her family to reduce waste, Liu Xiaodan from Tianjin has persuaded the head of the general office at her company not to provide bottled water during meetings.

When she has raised enough money, the 32-year-old plans to open the first zero waste store in Tianjin.

Back in Canada, Su is looking forward to finding a job related to sustainable development in China after she graduates as a computer science major in the summer.

She wants to keep her environmental vlog running to make full use of her spare time.

What drives her to continue the time-consuming activity that provides no financial benefit is the hope of breaking the perceived environmental prejudice against Chinese people.

She wants to make her platform more influential and is looking forward to cooperating with vloggers from overseas in an attempt to address the perceived prejudice by sharing her personal experiences.

As far as she is concerned, personal experience is something that "will definitely resonate with Westerners".