How to Stop Wasting Your Life: Why You Should Rethink Your Waste with Lilyana Yankova
Welcome to Resiliency the Podcast, the place for stories, strategies, and inspiration to help you embrace change, overcome challenges, and redefine resilience in today's ever evolving world. I am Jen Quater, a strategic communications expert and CEO of a company called The Smart Agency. I am joined by my wonderful cohost, the world's first doctor of resiliency, Doctor. Kelly Culver. She is an international business consultant through her company, the Culver Group in Canada, and she is a widely respected expert and researcher on the topic of resilience.
Jenn Quader:Our show brings together a diverse and intelligent group of guests from all over the world who help to inspire and educate and motivate our listeners to find their own inner strength in everything from the minutiae of everyday life to world altering problems. We are honored and excited and really ready to welcome a wonderful guest today. She asks a very important question of our listeners and ourselves. And that question is, what if waste itself is the key to stop wasting our own lives? Our guest today is a higher education professional with extensive experience as an instructor, advisor, and even instructional designer.
Jenn Quader:She is currently enhancing her skills through an advanced masters in sustainable innovation by design and actively participates in the circular economy practices and composting. She is constantly seeking innovative and motivated solutions to the urgent challenges of today and tomorrow, helping to make the entire world more resilient. Please welcome the great, the brilliant, Liliana Yankova.
Liliana Yankova:Hello. Thank you. Thank you, Jen, for having me.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Liliana, we are absolutely delighted that you've decided to join us today. We're really, really grateful. We are a global podcast, so one of the things that we start, doing is asking people where they are. So, you know, Jen's in in, The United States, in LA. I'm in Canada.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I'm in Ontario, Norfolk County, which is also known as Ontario's garden. So if it's grown in Ontario, it's grown right here. Where in the world are you today, Lillianne, and what time is it?
Liliana Yankova:Thank you, Kelly. And hi, everyone. Well, I'm in Paris, France. More specifically, I'm in the Thirteenth Arrondissement Of Paris, which is the best district of Paris. And it's, quarter past ten in the evening.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Thank you for staying up.
Liliana Yankova:Pleasure.
Dr. Kelly Culver:We do like to start with, sort of we throw around a bunch of questions before we we really dive into it. And I know Jen has a couple of questions right ready for you, but maybe I could ask. Maybe I could throw out the ball and say, Liliana, what does resiliency mean for you?
Liliana Yankova:Thank you, Kelly. I kind of expected that question, given the name of this podcast. First of all, I think I prefer the word resilience rather than resiliency because it's shorter and it's kind of bouncier. I'm a non native English speaker, as you can hear, with my accent. And I tend to pay particular attention to words.
Liliana Yankova:And it seems to me that resiliency is an attitude that could be dormant or passive, whereas resilience is an act. It's like a driving force. It sounds more dynamic. It sounds almost alive. So I prefer resilience.
Liliana Yankova:And then when I think about resilience, I think about grit, about perseverance, elasticity. And if you look the word up in a dictionary, you'll see that it refers to the ability of ecosystems, human societies, and individuals to cope with shocks and disturbances. But I think what is really key about this word is that it is not about a temporary condition or act or period of resilience. It's not about resilience in case of or if because our the environment in which we live is already damaged, and it's already ill and deeply disturbed. So that's why I like to think about resilience as a permanent condition.
Liliana Yankova:And so we're talking about resilience forever, and that's kind of scary. And so I'm kind of asking myself when I think about resilience, how can that be? How can we have resilience forever? How can a system, any system, be resilient forever if it's not regenerative? And I think we've reached the point where resilience is impossible without circularity and that we just cannot imagine resilience in a linear or wasteful world.
Jenn Quader:I think that's such an important distinction, Liliana. That distinction that makes the word an active use. And I see where you're taking that within the global sphere, which is to say that it must be active if it's going to regenerate itself. I wanna ask you again before we dive into what our listeners know in this format, which is that we're gonna be sharing your TEDx talk. And you gave this TEDx talk in Paris, at the American University of Paris.
Jenn Quader:And what strikes me as you talk about resilience as a driving force is that you have a driving force inside of you that pushed you to get on that stage to say the things you did. And so I wanna ask a little bit deeper, before we dive into your subject matter, where do you find your own personal resilience? Through your life, what is it that you do that nurtures and keeps that, that inner flame going so that you have that active driving force of resilience in your life?
Liliana Yankova:Excellent question, Jenn. Thank you. I haven't really thought about this. I would say that definitely composting for me is a source of resilience, in the sense that it's something that I look forward to doing, looking after the composting site that we have in our residential area, because it's a way for me to connect with nature, with the environment, with other living species other than myself, a human being, just a human being. And I feel like when I do composting, I'm investing in the future, in the future of my children.
Liliana Yankova:And it's a way for me to not be here and now, but to be somewhere else in the future with them. And that future is possible, and it's inhabitable, and it's, desirable because I'm doing this right now. So I would say this is my source of inspiration and and resilience. And I'm another source will be that people's reactions when I talk about composting. It's, a lot of fun to see the faces of people and, and the way they react to this.
Liliana Yankova:And, I love seeing that. And, I love engaging conversation with people about composting and what it can bring to the world.
Jenn Quader:And what a beautiful energy you bring to it. I think what I what I hear in that is that this work that you're doing brings both connection and legacy. It's a way to form community, it's a way that you give to others and thereby participate in that collective environment, and then also where you're able to build that legacy. And I heard you talk about your family and your children and how that is personal to you. So I I bring that up for our listeners because we are about to dive in and hear a really important talk by Liliana.
Jenn Quader:And we are talking about the concept of waste, the concept of circularity. You're gonna hear more about that from her. But I put this to you as through this resilient lens that says, as you look and listen to this, remember that this is also about connection with others, and this is about leaving a legacy, a world that we can all live in and enjoy. And so with that, I would like to introduce, this talk. I also want to just invite our listeners, as always, to stick with us, listen through the talk, and then just after, we're gonna come back together for a bit of a deep dive to get behind the scenes and and dig a little further into this really inspirational and important message about resilience.
Jenn Quader:So with that, I would love to introduce a beautiful talk by Liliana Yankova entitled, how to stop wasting your life, why you should rethink your waste.
Lilyana Yankova:How many of you had an apple today to keep the doctor away? Alright. If you did, were you able to compost the core? If unsorted, organic waste such as biodegradables, greens, and food leftovers ends up either incinerated, buried, or dumped into a landfill where it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Waters contain up to 90% water, and as we all know, water is kind of hard to burn.
Lilyana Yankova:So why burn up, of course? Over the past two centuries, the rapid evolution of globalized waste management has made us more less resilient and has shaped our consumerist attitude towards our environment. What if changing our ways of seeing, producing, and managing waste could make us more resilient, healthier, and happier? What if the answer to the question how to stop wasting our lives began with reconsidering the very notion of waste? Waste means both garbage and prodigality.
Lilyana Yankova:Something that is carelessly discarded, no longer needed, or considered unworthy. But let's ask ourselves, unworthy according to whom? Waste is a profoundly subjective term, not unlike, say, home. Let's think about the connection between waste and home for a moment. In his book Homo the Treatise, French sociologist, Baptiste Mon Saint Jean, explains how the idea of home was invented thanks to trash.
Lilyana Yankova:At the end of the Palaeolithic era, one of the ways in which we homo sapiens distinguished ourselves from our predecessors was precisely their own attitude towards waste. Our predecessors used to sleep, eat, and socialize in caves. Following a festive dinner of just a mammoth meat and leathery roots, they would fall asleep amid bones and leftovers. It was only when Homo sapiens decided to leave the bones and leftovers outside of the cave that the notion of home was born. Home was a place without trash, clearly distinct from the hostile or dirty outside world.
Lilyana Yankova:Home was somewhere where trash was out of sight. Still, waste is relatively recent concept. Up until the late eighteenth century, there was hardly any such thing as waste. Almost everything was reused, made to last for generations, or left to decay naturally. The industrial revolution changed the nature of our produce, the notion of waste, and our attitude towards it.
Lilyana Yankova:From a valuable resource and a natural part of our cities, waste became a hazard, undesired, and unsightly, and now monstrously long lived too. Where an apple takes two months to decompose, a plastic apple toy takes as long as four hundred and fifty years. This is how with time, waste became so difficult to get rid of that it started accumulating. Relatively quickly, we got from natural sorting and nearly endless local recycling to landfills that spread over thousands of acres, thousands of kilometers away from home. How long do you think these individually wrapped bananas require?
Lilyana Yankova:I thought that nature had come up with a brilliant way of wrapping bananas. Yet here, it looks like we'll be given an extra plastic bag to carry this home. Today, the world produces more than 2,000,000,000 tons of waste every year. That's 800,000 Olympic pools of waste, and only about 13% of this gigantic amount gets recycled. A % recycling is a myth that justifies industries continuing business as usual.
Lilyana Yankova:By focusing on the user's behavior at the end of the chain wait, did I put this in the right trash bin? Rather than on the industry's design choice at the onset of the chain, why does this item come with the package in the first place? We're effectively being forced to compensate for industry's lack of resilience. The more takeaway coffee we buy, the more the economy will grow, we don't. Throwing away our paper cup into the recycling bin is thus the equivalent of good housekeeping for modern day homes sapiens.
Lilyana Yankova:Let's not forget, however, that a disposable cup that we use for less than an hour not only takes up to twenty years to decompose, but is also often coated with plastic, which makes recycling it very difficult, if not impossible. Recycling requires tons of energy, isn't always possible, and is hardly a resilient solution to the world's ever growing pile of trash. But what is resilience, you may ask? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, resilience is the ability to recover quickly, and to return to one's original shape. Not, in other words, to grow 5% per year to ensure profitable return for shareholders, but to maintain one's integrity.
Lilyana Yankova:There is one word that beautifully conveys this phenomenon, and that is circularity. Where recycling gives us a false promise of resilience, Composting offers us the real thing, a way of sustainably transforming waste. Composting comes from the Latin word composites, something put together, and allows waste to remain part of a natural life cycle. Composting refers to the controlled decomposition of plants, eggshells, and biodegradable paper in the presence of oxygen and humidity. It can be done either chemically by bacteria or physically by worms, ants, snails, and other generous creatures.
Lilyana Yankova:In vermicomposting, for instance, you have various pieces of worms that decompose organic matter into nutrient rich fertilizer called vermicast. The beauty of composting is that it's done locally and can occur on different scales. At your home, school, office, in your neighborhood, you can easily install a composting bin under the kitchen sink and then deposit it regularly on a collective composting site, such as one of these beautiful composting facilities. Composting is a wonderful way of restoring dignity to the raw materials of our lives, and a rare opportunity to witness the transformation of waste into an upcycled product. With composting, one literally gets to see cherry tomatoes blossom out of the rubbish.
Lilyana Yankova:This makes composting a powerful pedagogical tool. Composting can produce large volumes of nutrient rich and water retaining soil that can then be used to grow food in urban farms, underground, above ground, and on building rooftops. Composting allows us to reconnect with the soil and the environment in urban settings where the earth may feel out of reach. It can also inspire us to improve our consumer habits by opting for package free products that we know are compostable. Composting can be an energy source, thanks to the bacteria that naturally heat it up to 71 degrees Celsius.
Lilyana Yankova:As early as 1973, bioenergy pioneer Jean Pine imagined a water heating system powered by compost. Human composting then offers us an ultimate way of redefining resilience in waste. It is currently legal in Sweden and seven US states, and lets humans give back to the Earth, literally. The way I like to think about it is this, when I grow up, I want to be a tree. When I die, I want to become forest.
Lilyana Yankova:And then finally, together, composting and anaerobic digestion could significantly reduce food waste, in a world where one third of all food produced is either lost or wasted. But let us come back to our kitchens for a moment. Organic waste accounts for nearly half of household waste today, yet a mere 5.5% of food and green waste is composted. Imagine what it might mean if we could change our relationship to this rich resource. Tomorrow, many of our products could be designed with a return to the Earth mindset.
Lilyana Yankova:Compostable dishes, clothing, shoes, diapers, furniture, face masks, balloons, and chewing gum already exist, but have yet to become mainstream. Composting can not only reduce significantly the volume of our household waste, it also has the potential of shifting other categories of waste. Think about it. Fewer general bin collection rounds would mean fewer open dumps, landfills, and incineration sites. Some of them may even disappear.
Lilyana Yankova:Air and water pollution would decrease, and everyone would be healthier as a result. Why not imagine a future where not only everyone will be composting, but we would also be sorting compostable material to mass produce innovative bioproducts such as lemon peel bioplastics, or mushroom leather, or corn fabric. By reducing and bringing waste back home, by ceasing to push it out of sight, we could be investing our lives in a more sustainable future. As long as the accumulation of waste is an acceptable phenomenon, our lives will likewise be wasteful. Instead of wasting our resources, we could be ensuring their circularity.
Lilyana Yankova:Remember, the notion of waste is subjective and fairly recent. We can undo it and follow to nature's wise understanding of how things should work. There is no such thing as waste in nature. So, if we are to redefine waste and resilience in times of climate change, war, natural and unnatural disasters, let it be this. Living our lives to the fullest, in an environment that feels like home, anywhere in the world, waste free, and investing our lives in planting a forest by returning to the Earth anything we can.
Lilyana Yankova:If we waste nothing at home, we will no longer be able to tolerate wasting human lives in war either. No one and nothing will be disposable anymore. So next time you eat an apple, I hope you choose to put it where it belongs, in the Earth, the only place where a better future can grow. Thank you.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, Liliana, that was just as fabulous, as magnificent as it was the first time Jen and I had the privilege of watching you deliver that in Paris. When I die, I want to become a forest. It's so moving.
Jenn Quader:What a beautiful speech. What a beautiful topic and and idea. And and really, just as I saw it, you know, back in March and again watching it now, there's so much to take from it. There's a lot that you can really learn within this. You know, I'm someone who grew up, of course, learning about sorting that trash into the recycle bin and into the other, but to see it through this global lens that you've placed it, it it's really, really useful, and I think our our listeners can really benefit from having you dive more into that.
Jenn Quader:So one of the lines you said in your talk is and I love it you said, There is no waste in nature. So with that in mind, can you share with our listeners maybe a further explanation of circularity, and and how we as a people can be taking a note from nature on how to be more resilient.
Liliana Yankova:Well, circularity is we can think about it as something that is really opposite to linearity. Right? Instead of having a straight line, we're having circular line. It's as simple as that. So whereas a linear economy, for instance, resides on endless extraction and wastefulness of materials, A circular economy would seek to preserve energy, value, resources, anything, basically, in the world, and to reduce, the impact that it has on the environment and really keep it to a minimum.
Liliana Yankova:So the way I like to think about it is like this. So if linear means take, make, waste, right, these are the three steps in a linear economy, then circular will be really about three things that are totally different. It's about designing out waste and pollution, right, just thinking about it in a completely different way where we're not producing waste or pollution, right, or at least striving not to. Building circularity of materials, so reusing them, seeking to to reincorporate them in our everyday life instead of discarding them, and then regenerating the environment. That means that we need to go beyond restoring or of the environment restoration of the environment or beyond conservation where we actually actively take care of the environment every single day.
Liliana Yankova:So these are really the pillars of, circular economy. There are also three, shifts that happen that are really interesting with circular economy. These are like cultural shifts, that I'm really fond of. One of them is that we shift from a human centered design to an environment centered design. That means that, basically, we're going away from Freud's clear principle and of instant gratification.
Liliana Yankova:Right? It's not about us right now. It's about something else much bigger than us. Then the second shift is from possession to access. So that means, for instance, that I don't need to own a car.
Liliana Yankova:I can rent one when I really, really need it, or I don't need to own a landmower, a long landmower, or neighborhood will be more than enough. Right? We can share resources. We don't have to possess them. Our value as individuals doesn't come from owning stuff.
Liliana Yankova:Right? And then the third shift is from obsolescence, that is a throw throwaway culture, to durability. Now that comes that would mean I shouldn't be owning my washing machine. I should be renting it. Only then the washing machine manufacturer will be motivated to make it as durable as possible because it will be their responsibility to repair it, not mine.
Liliana Yankova:Right? Right now, we are in a system where we buy something and we become, responsible for it. And then when it breaks, well, we throw it away, and it's much cheaper to buy something new. Right? But if the person who I mean, the person.
Liliana Yankova:The entity that put out that object in the world remains responsible for that object until the object's life ends and beyond, then that will be a total game changer. Right? Our way of approaching life, our way of organizing society will be completely different. So that's circular economy.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I'm kinda struck by a couple of things. So when you were describing circular, Liliana, you know, there were two things that I was thinking. Number one, it isn't that long ago. And I I grew up in rural Ontario. It's not that long ago that that we had a circular economy because we had to use what we had.
Dr. Kelly Culver:We had to use all available assets. We didn't have, choice and access to things. So it's it's interesting that we've gotten away from that mindset, because I'll call it a mindset, in a relatively short period of time. But one of the things that I really liked what you said or that struck me was the throwaway culture. And I grew up on a farm, and it it's interesting to me to watch people's shopping behaviors in grocery stores.
Dr. Kelly Culver:People have the sense that good tasting, ripe fruit and vegetables have to look a certain way. They have to be perfect. They can't you know, carrot can't have a thumb. It has to be straight. It has to be perfect.
Dr. Kelly Culver:The apple has to be, you know, five centimeters in diameter. No blemishes. So in accommodating this, in the Western world anyways, many agricultural companies feel they have to manipulate, what they produce in order to make it look acceptable for the buying public. And that also means using chemicals and plastic. What can we do as a society, in your opinion, to make the both business and consumers see that this way of thinking, is hurting us and hurting the plant?
Liliana Yankova:Well, I think as a starter, we can simply accept ugly vegetables and embrace them because they're delicious. I love ugly vegetables. I think they even taste better than pretty ones. So we shouldn't discriminate against them. We should realize that what we see in supermarkets is rare survivors.
Liliana Yankova:Most of the food gets discarded and gets lost on the way to the supermarket. So what we see, the abundance that we see in supermarkets is not at all. It's high high. It's a whole reality behind it, which is very severe and very violent. And the way I like to think about it is I think about food waste and obviously this is a topic that is very closely related to composting and waste management.
Liliana Yankova:Right? And there's some facts that are just so mind blowing that, when you think about them, you can never enter a supermarket the same way again. You can never think about the abundance that you see there there in the same way. And it's just numbers that are combination of one and three, so it's really easy to remember. Okay?
Liliana Yankova:So 1,300,000,000 tons of food are wasted in the world every year. Okay? And one third of all food produced goes to waste. One third. And one third of the world doesn't have adequate access to food.
Liliana Yankova:Now isn't that just obnoxious? How come so many people were starving? Apparently, there are more than 800,000,000 people who are hungry every day. At the same time, we live in such a waste away when we produce so much food, and we discard most of it because it's not beautiful enough. We need to change our way of thinking about this.
Liliana Yankova:We need to change our standards. As I was saying, there's, food that is beautiful and deserves to be eaten because it's nutritious, and that's what matters about food. It's not its looks. It's what contains. And if we focus more on local food, for instance, we'll get attached to food more.
Liliana Yankova:Right? Because, obviously, we wouldn't care as much about food that comes from the other end of the world. Right? But if it's something that is grown on the farm, as you were saying, Katie. Right?
Liliana Yankova:A farm, that is a local farm led by a family that we might even know, then obviously you care about that food. You're not throwing it away. There was a documentary that was released recently in France and, demonstrated how about 57% of all salads that are produced in the country are not eaten. They don't even reach our plates. Okay?
Liliana Yankova:Like, 30% of them, so again, one third, are not even thick from the field. They're left to the k right there on the field because they're not the right size. Right? And the right size might mean too big. Right?
Liliana Yankova:Oh my god. This salad is too generous. It's too beautiful. We can't we can't eat it. Sorry.
Liliana Yankova:Right? So and and that attitude towards food, obviously, we can see how that attitude towards food is only a step away from an attitude towards people as well. Right? Discrimination, categorizing people, looking for a perfect standard. Right?
Liliana Yankova:When you when you ask, IA to produce a picture, an image of an, prehistorical woman like I did for my TED talk to illustrate, to illustrate the beginning of my TED talk when I was talking about how, it was funny to see the results because the prehistoric women that were generated by IA IA were all perfectly hairless, very beautiful. They they almost needed high heels. You know? That's because that's there's bias there. Right?
Liliana Yankova:There's bias. And so we need to get rid of that bias. And, and and and when we go to supermarket or to place ourselves food, we need to think about what we need to eat, right, rather than what it should look like, what we're eating.
Jenn Quader:I want to have our listeners really understand what you're saying, in a deeper way. And something you're talking about here is really so important, and that is that bias against food becomes bias against humans, becomes this inequity. And one of the things I always like to point out, because we talk about such world altering problems here and you're right, as a world, we need to change how we see food. And so some of our listeners might be going, Well, wait, what can I do about this? And, right before we got on and started recording, you were sharing with us a little bit about how you took your own family out to see a composting site.
Jenn Quader:I wonder if you could do that, if you could talk through that a little bit, about how perhaps our listeners could involve their own families in education around this. Would you be willing to share that a little a little bit of that with us?
Liliana Yankova:Yes. Indeed. I'm lucky to live in a residential area inside Paris that has built its own composting facility. So, basically, it's, eight big composting bins about 600 liters each, and a few neighbors neighbors and I volunteer of our time to look after that facility. It takes me less than an hour every week, And, we produce hundreds of kilograms of nutrient rich fertilizer every year that we use around the communal gardens around our place.
Liliana Yankova:And, it's a wonderful way to be in touch with nature, with the environment, with, living creatures other than ourselves, and, to get our hands dirty, you know, in a very positive in a very literal, but very positive way. It's very pleasant. And, the what I like about it is that it's located right behind my daughter's school. So, basically, there is our our residential block, so where we live, and then there is the composting site, and there is the the fence of the school. But the kids in the school don't know about it because it's hidden behind the fence.
Liliana Yankova:Right? And so I offered the school to take my daughter's class, on a guided tour to the composting site. And, we walked around the fence. I mean, there was a whole expedition. And, we reached the place where the composting site is, nearly hidden behind the bushes and, the plants.
Liliana Yankova:And I said, shh. The compost is sleeping. We should be all quiet. Okay? And then we walk towards the compost.
Liliana Yankova:They were really quiet. They didn't know what to expect. And and then I open up the the composting, bins, and, I took a shovel and I showed them the the living matter that is in them. And it was really interesting to observe their reaction because I thought that they would scream and run away and hide somewhere. But instead, they were literally glued to the composting facility, and they they wanted to pick the worms with their little hands.
Liliana Yankova:And they were so fascinated by what they they they were seeing. They said, oh, did you see that worm? Look. There are ants here and snails. And, oh my god.
Liliana Yankova:That's beautiful. And, yeah, they were really, really, happy. And, their teacher was standing, like, on the side at a safe distance. You know, adults, how we are. But the kids, they were, like, happy to be there.
Liliana Yankova:They want to be part of it. They realized the magic behind this living space. It was really about living matter. And, and so that's what I would recommend, I think, that our communities simply make composting part of kindergarten and school. I think there should be composting site in every school yard.
Liliana Yankova:Right? Because it's a wonderful pedagogical opportunity just to see what happens to matter, how it evolves, how it it it transforms itself, and how this is a group effort. Right? It's a whole ecosystem that is inside that that little box. The second thing I think would be to give access to composing facilities.
Liliana Yankova:So inside schools, but also outside the schools. So every neighborhood should have one. And then that would lead to place where we could organize events and get togethers, and we could, meet with neighbors and, have a social life that turns around the life that is generated by the composting site. So I feel like this is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate life. So we should make it visible, attractive, and composting could really become like a a hub in the community.
Liliana Yankova:So, yeah, these will be my recommendations.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I think that's wonderful. You've just really given us a good, well rounded perspective on how communities can, help grow composting efforts. And it's a really interesting phenomenon that's taking off in Europe. I know I spent about eight months in London, England last year, and the composting efforts that they're going to is, you know, it's very interesting. I would like to ask you sort of on a a different take on composting because composting could be recycling.
Dr. Kelly Culver:You talk in your in your TED Talk about the myth of recycling. How is recycling hurting our own resilience?
Liliana Yankova:I think that the problem of recycling is that it's like a fairy tale. So we think that waste disappears, right, and supposedly comes back to us, as a brand new object, product that is very appealing and then it's totally traceless and harmless, right, out of the blue and just appears in the supermarket, as we we said earlier. But the fact is that the the new stuff that we see, that we buy, is far from being traceless or harmless when it's being recycled. Right? Actually, recycling is very costly for the environment and for us, because it requires a very complex infrastructure, tons of emission heavy transportation, and lots of energy in the process and causes pollution, of course.
Liliana Yankova:There is also a lot of waste in recycling. Right? People don't realize that, but, when you try to recycle something, you can't recycle all of it. Right? You take just part of it.
Liliana Yankova:And so it's not a virtuous thing. It's more more like a vicious cycle. The most important thing about recycling in relationship to resiliency, so the potential to be resilient, right, is that it's a dangerous distraction. Right? We're focusing on the wrong thing.
Liliana Yankova:I think Western societies urgently need to start consuming less, right, drastically less and not recycle more. Instead, authorities are pushing us to recycle more. For instance, in France, it's a well known fact that there are a few recycling facilities here and there, right, spread all over the country. But when you throw something away in a given town or city, it often travels for hundreds of kilometers until it reaches that recycling facility. Right?
Liliana Yankova:So what is the carbon footprint of that bottle that you threw away and you thought that, oh, it will come back. Right? It's not recycled locally. And so, that's why I think of it as a distraction and that we need to remember that throwing something away is not an innocent act. It's not an act of good housekeeping.
Liliana Yankova:We should not be focusing on individuals' responsibility to store trash. Right? It's not our responsibility as individuals, but rather it's a more systemic question. Right? And we should think about ways in which we can help people not to produce trash in the first place.
Liliana Yankova:Right? So then we'll be focusing on the problem at the right place, not at the end, but at the very beginning before trash is even produced.
Jenn Quader:That environment centric design that you were talking about, it makes so much sense. Liliana, I wanna, I like to be as honest as possible, and I wanna be honest and say that I myself have not been a very good composter, recycler, really any of that. You know, I think I've taken a very, not gonna throw all Americans under the bus. I think there's plenty of Americans who are doing this well, but just me, Jen Quater, it's a place where I could use some growth. And so I wonder if you can tell me, Liliana, how might I start?
Jenn Quader:If I'm in my kitchen, you know, I'm doing my thing, I live in California, so I have that kind of required one bin for trash, one bin for for recycling. What are the simplest things I could do in my house, in in my own home, to begin contributing to circularity?
Liliana Yankova:Well, I feel like you could start by reconsidering home. Right? How you think about home because the two notions are really inseparable for me. In Western culture, we tend to think about home as a sanctuary that needs to be absolutely clean and separate, distinct from the outside world. Right?
Liliana Yankova:That's a very sense of the word garden. Why? The garden is a is a space that is separated by a fence from the outside world. It is it's secure and it's protected. And if we were to rethink home as a place where we can actually build bridges between the inside and the outside world, then it will become easier to imagine composting at home.
Liliana Yankova:But until we do that, a composting bin under your kitchen sink will feel like an invasion, right, of your space. You feel like, oh, this is pollution. Mary Douglas defines pollution as something that is out of place. Right? This is not where it belongs.
Liliana Yankova:For instance, shoes in the right place outside on the road or on the muddy path in front of our home, but they will be out of place. They will be polluting on our beds or in the in the kitchen, for instance. Right? It's the same object. It's just the the the context that is different.
Liliana Yankova:And so we need to rethink home pollution and where things belong and have more dynamic categories for those notions. And then we could imagine inviting a piece of the outside world into our homes and see how it could enrich our environment, our personal protected, safe environment. Right? That makes me think of an old Bulgarian tale that I I grew up with, as a kid. It's about a man who goes to a small town with a whole cart full of plums and tells everyone that he would give them kilo of free plums for every kilo of waste they bring him.
Liliana Yankova:So everyone runs back home and tries to collect as much waste and trash and dirt and dust as possible to get free plums in exchange in a hurry. Okay, kids. I have waste. I have trash. Don't worry.
Liliana Yankova:Do so the man, generally, he gives the plums away. There's almost no plums left in the cart. And then comes a young lady and says kind of ashamed, sorry, sir, but I looked everywhere at home, and I couldn't find any waste. And he jumps with joy and asks her asks her to marry him because he has found the cleanest lady in town. Right?
Liliana Yankova:I'm like, you are the one. Yes. So that's a trick. Right? He he tricked everyone.
Liliana Yankova:And so as a child, I always thought that the moral of the story is that we should keep our homes clean. Right? That we should we produce lots of waste, but simply making sure that that waste leaves our home is no longer visible makes makes it all fine. Now when I think about it in this context, I'm not sure I'm interpreting the story right anymore. I feel like if we transpose this story to our time, to our reality right now, the young lady is probably a frequent user of single use plastics and eats outside every night and relies a lot on recycling.
Liliana Yankova:Right? She makes sure that trash doesn't even enter her home. And she might be even one of those zero waste promoters with a highly competitive carbon footprint who fly around the world to brag about their jar of annual waste. You know? We we see a lot of videos like that on on YouTube.
Liliana Yankova:But if I were the plumb man, I think I would give the plums away to the village or the town or the city with the best and most cherished composting site. You know, I feel like that that will be a true sign of resilience and a resilient attitude towards waste rather than having a sterile home where you can't find a single speck of dust.
Jenn Quader:Beautifully said, Liliana, and and really beautifully explained. And I think, I love that the answer is not just go do something, it's consider how you're thinking about it. Because as I think about you talking about the compost bin outside of your daughter's school and the neighborhood, if I expand my view of community, that's how we can begin, is what I hear from that. So, I love that. So Liliana, one of the things we've been talking about is how we can all gain a different perspective around composting and gain a different relationship to that living matter.
Jenn Quader:I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about how do you do that within your community, perhaps with with your own kids? How do you drive that education further for them?
Liliana Yankova:Recently, I had the opportunity to go to my daughter's kindergarten. She's, she'll be six soon. And, talk about waste management and composting with her and her classmates. And that was a wonderful experience. I really enjoyed it because I decided to experiment and talk about waste, but not explain what composting is.
Liliana Yankova:And then what I did is I asked the kids, well, can you draw me a compost? And they asked, well, what is compost? And I said, well, I'll tell you after you do the drawings. Let's just draw something. Just think about the word.
Liliana Yankova:And what do you imagine when you hear the word compost? Is it a creature? Is it a thing? Is it a monster? Is it a superhero?
Liliana Yankova:What is it? And I left them completely completely free to draw whatever they wanted. And, they produced beautiful drawings. And all of them were very accurate representations of compost. Right?
Liliana Yankova:Because some of them were just scribblings and others were these beautiful creatures. And then still others were, like, these huge massive salads with different elements in them. And they were all very inspiring and they all filled up the space and they showed that energy and that life that is abounding in a in a composting site. And so we talked about the drawings and how accurate they were. I was really impressed with the kids.
Liliana Yankova:And then I took them on a little tour to actually see the composting sites and see what's happening there and and meet the generous composting creatures that live there.
Jenn Quader:I love it. Liliana, what a beautiful way to bring the power of imagination into your resilience practice. You are allowing the kids to imagine what that might be. And then amazing that it turned out like did let me just ask, Did you think it would turn out like that? What were you expecting, or what surprised you out of it?
Liliana Yankova:I did not expect this. I thought that they would, draw something that they had learned at school. For instance, we produce I think they were working on castles recently, so I thought that they would draw a castle because they were learning you know, it's a very French school. Right? So they learn about castles and and cheese and, also in life.
Liliana Yankova:Exactly. So they were learning about yeah. Different parts of a castle, how they're called, and and I thought that they would draw something like that. But instead, they really let their creativity out and, use it to imagine complex systems and represent the life that is in the composting site that is related to compost, the life that adults tend to ignore, right, or rather flee. And for kids, that was the the essential part, and they got it.
Liliana Yankova:They immediately got it. I was so impressed.
Jenn Quader:Just beautiful. Liliana, thank you so much for sharing that story. Just a beautiful, beautiful visuals. And for our listeners, if you are watching on YouTube, you will see some of these pictures going by of some of these amazing imaginative drawings that these kids created. Liliana, what a creative way to bring imagination and resilience to this group of young people.
Jenn Quader:I have one last question for you before we get into our famous rapid fire questions, which will be delivered by the great doctor Kelly Culver. But my last question is, you know, you talk in your TEDx about human composting. And this is something that, for many years, I think my husband fought cancer, and we are he's cancer free. But when you go through those things, you have these conversations, you know, What will happen if? And he always told me, he said, I want to be human composted.
Jenn Quader:He wants to be placed into the ground. So my question to you, Liliana, is, because I'll tell you, when he first told me, I was like, Wait a minute. This is sounding a little weird to me. So what can you tell me that would sell me on that idea? Is it actually better for the environment?
Jenn Quader:Help me understand it.
Liliana Yankova:Yes. I do think it's better for the environment, and it's better for us too. It's better for everyone, really. To begin with, human composting means fewer caskets, less energy, less land. Alright?
Liliana Yankova:And that is important because in The US alone, about 47,000 metric cubes of wood are needed every year to make caskets. That's huge. Right? And then land is huge too because we're talking about long term land use. Right?
Liliana Yankova:And instead of cemeteries, we could have, for instance, forests or permaculture farms or parks or playgrounds. Right? Human composting or green burials also means less concrete for burial boats, fewer headstones, and also fewer chemicals and pollutants because we use a lot of that stuff on their bodies, and that's a source of pollution. Again, in The US alone, 16,000,000 liters of embalming fluids are used every year, and that all of that goes into the environment. So I really don't see what could be attractive about the idea of going on to pollute after your death.
Liliana Yankova:Right? I feel like opting for human combustion means exiting life with grace or rather remaining part of life with grace. Right? It's a it's a cultural shift for sure. It requires a lot of flexibility and, again, a change of mindset, but it could inspire different attitude towards life, towards the environment, and the way we think about ourselves and our place in that environment.
Liliana Yankova:Again, it shouldn't be human centered, enough of human centered, attitude towards the world. We we see where that is taking us. And so if we were more environmental environment centered, then we would ensure that our death doesn't cause any more damage to the environment. Just beautiful. That work?
Jenn Quader:It not only did it work. Yeah. I you not I mean, I'm in. I I really am. And and frankly, I I I and the more I think about it, the more you know, it just brings me back, and, Doctor.
Jenn Quader:Kelly mentioned this earlier, but I'm gonna say it again before we get into rapid fire. It brings me back to what I call, Liliana's t shirt quote.
Liliana Yankova:Mhmm.
Jenn Quader:Because her TEDx talk is so, so good and so, you know, important, And there's one phrase that I just love, and and your answer really made me just feel it and see it. And the way you said it Liliana, would you say it for us? You know what I'm talking about.
Liliana Yankova:Sure. Yes. When I grow up, I want to become a tree. And when I die, I want to become a forest. And if I might add just another metaphysical level to that, right?
Liliana Yankova:We keep talking to our children and to our loved ones about what happens after death. Right? And I think it's quite a shock to realize that death is, you know, interruption in our relationship with our loved ones. And human composting offers us this wonderful exceptional way of thinking, well, there is no interruption because we remain with our loved ones in this poetic way, you know, and, we keep nourishing their lives in a way. And I I think that is really, really beautiful and, very inspiring.
Jenn Quader:Beautiful, wonderful, and made my heart soar because you're right. When we change from that human centered design to environment centered in all things, from the waste and the composting to this human, you know, it does exactly what you said. It allows physically us to stay together. You know, I think there's something really beautiful in that. And really, all the way back to how you spoke about resilience versus resiliency in the beginning, there's something so active in saying, I am taking an active stance to allow this this person to stay with me in the form of a tree that grows into a forest.
Jenn Quader:It's just a it's a beautiful thing, really makes my heart sing.
Liliana Yankova:And, you know, you can think about waste the same way. Right? And this is what I'm fighting for with composting because we keep talking about throwing things away. Right? As if they were inert objects that we no longer need, obviously.
Liliana Yankova:Whereas with composting, you are not dealing with with waste, really, with garbage. You're dealing with living matter. And that's why I think the Japanese have this beautiful word that really describes it way. They say, namagomi, which means living garbage, basically. So even when we throw kitchen scraps and food scraps and all this away, or we put it put it in composting, right?
Liliana Yankova:We don't throw it away. We deposit it or we we we put it in a composting bin, then it stays alive. Right? We recognize it's a living thing. And I feel like there is humility and and respect that comes with that that is really, really important and that makes us better human beings.
Liliana Yankova:Right? If we just recognize the fact that this is living matter. And, that's a wonderful learning opportunity for the young generation to think about waste as a not necessarily as an inert object. Right? And that we should reduce those inert objects as much as possible and that we should find ways always to to insert living garbage into the life cycle.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I think that the words that you have have shared with us today, the sentiments, the thoughts, will help awaken a connection, a stronger connection, for us between us and waste, us and the environment, and, you know, just the whole concept of when I die, I wanna become a forest. It really, really, really resonates with all of us. Now to something a bit lighter, we do have we do end our, Resiliency, the podcast with five rapid questions. So are you ready?
Liliana Yankova:Let's say I am.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Okay. Good. So what's your favorite TV show or movie that makes you feel like or think of resilience?
Liliana Yankova:You know, well, I'm not a TV person. I do know about my my screen policy. No screen. No screens. Exactly.
Lilyana Yankova:Movies.
Liliana Yankova:One of my favorite movies is Cast Away with Tom Hanks, which is obviously inspired by Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe's novel. And, it's a beautiful movie, really inspiring and, really shows that we have it all. We have the ingenuity. We have the the energy to make it, despite all odds. And I feel like that gives us a lot of hope that we can change things.
Liliana Yankova:So I'm I'm not a fan of, apocalyptic narratives about our planet and where we headed. And I would like everyone to feel empowered and that they can really make a change, that they can transform, their ways of life. And Cast Away is a film that, inspires us that way.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And Cast Away also gives us a lesson that each of us needs our own Wilson.
Liliana Yankova:Yes. Indeed.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Now what's your favorite song that makes you think of resilience?
Liliana Yankova:It's funny you you say that because I can't think of a song that makes me feel resilient. Like, I can think of an anti resilience song. Can I say that? Would that work? Okay.
Liliana Yankova:Great. I'm a great fan of Sting and the Police. Okay? I grew up with their music and, was trying to figure out what Sting's accent meant, his way of browsing words, as a as a little girl. And they have a song the police has a song, which is called message in a bottle, which is, about 25 years old already.
Liliana Yankova:And I feel like at first sight, this is a beautiful song about loneliness and and love maybe. Right? It's about this, man who lives on an island and keeps throwing messages in the bottle, hoping someone will rescue him in one day. And then one day he walks out on the shore, which means that he lives in the house on that island, I guess, in order to walk out on the shore. And he finds millions of bottles, hundreds of millions of bottles washed up on the shore.
Liliana Yankova:And the conclusion is, well, it looks like I'm not alone in being being alone. But when you think about it, it's really a song about pollution caused by a high individualistic mindset spread worldwide, you know? So it's it's anti resilient right there. And I feel like if we were to write today's version of this song, like, twenty five years later, it will be something like instead of I'm sending an SOS to the world, it will be I'm submitting a chat GPT prompt, you know, something like that. We we keep sending messages out there thinking that we
Lilyana Yankova:are the only person in the
Liliana Yankova:world who needs that kind of service or that kind of product right now, buying a pair of jeans or t shirt or and in fact, they're billions of us. Right? So there you go. Auntiered jeans. If that's the way.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I love it. And and I was actually gonna make the connection between Message in a Bottle and Cast Away. There are some similarities here in your thinking.
Liliana Yankova:Indeed. Yes. Something with islands. Right? No.
Liliana Yankova:Maybe it's an island. That's John Downey's phrase. Right? I'm on
Dr. Kelly Culver:an island, and
Liliana Yankova:I'm by myself. There's something here.
Dr. Kelly Culver:You should go to Mauritius. Mhmm. Alright. What's the last thing that made you laugh really hard?
Liliana Yankova:Wow. Well, this podcast is amazing. I'm having a great time, so that makes me laugh for sure. Thank you. Yay.
Liliana Yankova:But the last thing that made me laugh let me think about this. I tried to ask my daughters, so who are three and six years old. I tried to ask them what they want to become when they grow up on a regular basis. Why? Because the answers change, and I record the answers.
Liliana Yankova:And, a couple of days ago, I asked them again, and Anil, my my three year old, said very confidently, a crocodile. Right? And this made me laugh because I was deeply touched by her desire to identify with living creatures instead of human professions. Right? And I think we should all aim at becoming crocodiles and giraffes and ants and frogs and whatnot.
Liliana Yankova:Platypus platypi.
Lilyana Yankova:I like that.
Liliana Yankova:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Because if we did, I won't be so much better off. Right?
Liliana Yankova:First of all, we we won't kill them as much. And then and then we'll we'll, again, change our way of thinking about the world. Decentralize from us humans and focus on, other forms of life. So there you go. My daughter wants to become a crocodile, so that made me laugh a lot.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh my gosh. I love that. I love that.
Jenn Quader:And that crocodile rock is going through my head.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I know.
Jenn Quader:Just a little while.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I know. So, Liliana, what is one question you would like to leave us for a future guest?
Liliana Yankova:Well, what do you want to become when you go home? There you go. That's a good question, isn't it? Because great. I feel like that's yeah.
Liliana Yankova:That's a question that we should be asking ourselves our entire lives, right, regarding of our age. Because if we are resilient, then we keep changing. Right? So we shouldn't consider that we become something and then we stop. And then that's it.
Liliana Yankova:Right? So I hope I'll be key I'll be asking my daughters this question again and again. And maybe one day they'll ask me that question. So there you go. That's my question for your next next guest.
Liliana Yankova:I can't wait to hear what they say.
Jenn Quader:I have to comment on that, Liliana. I couldn't love that more as a definition of resilience. Ask yourself what you wanna be when you grow up over and over. It's given me this memory of this one time where I was thinking of changing jobs, and I was really stressed about it. And my sister, I remember I was calling her and talking to her about it, and she said, Jen, you act like this next job is the only job you're ever gonna have in your whole life.
Jenn Quader:Like, calm down a little. So I love that concept of just looking at it through a different lens. I think that's beautiful.
Liliana Yankova:Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's the circle again. You know, Lilianne is all about the circle, and that's the circle.
Jenn Quader:She nails it on circularity. She nails it. Well, speaking of circularity, since you've left a wonderful question for our guests, we are going to ask you a question. And, Liliana, I'm gonna give you a chance to choose your question. So I've got two today, and you tell me which one you wanna answer, and then I'll just re ask it and we'll do it.
Jenn Quader:So two prior guest questions you get to pick. Option one is what I'll explain the question. The question is, what is your technology for life? And what is meant by that is, is there
Liliana Yankova:a
Jenn Quader:technology tool, platform, or or anything that you might use that helps you best connect with yourself? And if so, what is that? Option two, little more fun, is but I'm not pushing, is, if you were a cookie, what kind of cookie would you be and why? And the why is most important.
Liliana Yankova:Oh my god. Okay. Technology of cookie. That's a tough choice. That's a tough cookie.
Liliana Yankova:It's a
Jenn Quader:tough cookie. Agreed. Juggle topper cookie. Answer both if you'd like or neither. Whatever you want, Liliana.
Jenn Quader:We love having you.
Liliana Yankova:Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, when it comes to cookies, I'm very picky in terms of size. Okay? It's not what is in the cookie.
Liliana Yankova:It's a question of whether I can dip it in my tea or not. And if the cookie is oversized and cannot go into the cup and I have to break it in two, which is a waste because then you have cookie crumbs on the table, then it makes me so sad. It's pure cookie tragedy. Okay? So the cookie has to be big enough to go into the cup, but not too big so that you have to break it into two.
Jenn Quader:Beautiful. I I I'm never I I I will never forget the cookie tragedy, and I will be I'll be on the lookout for right sized cookies from here on out. Oh, Liliana, what a gem you are. What a wonderful topic you bring, and what fresh and beautiful insights. We are so grateful to you, for you coming on to Resiliency the podcast, sharing your story, and sharing the beautiful work you do.
Jenn Quader:Thank you for being here.
Liliana Yankova:Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you both, about these important subject.
Jenn Quader:Well, thank you to all of our listeners for joining us. We love having you, and thank you again, Liliana, for such a beautiful, resilient story. You can find us at Resiliency the Podcast anywhere you listen to podcast. That's Apple, Spotify, YouTube, etcetera. You can also find us online at resiliencythepodcast.com.
Jenn Quader:Please like, subscribe, join us. We are constantly talking about stories and strategies and inspiration for how to overcome change, how to embrace it, and how to get through challenges, and how to redefine resilience. I am Jen Quater. You can find me online at jinquater.com or jinquater on all the social medias. My illustrious and wonderful host, doctor Kelly Culver, you can find her at theculvergroup.ca.
Jenn Quader:That is .ca because she is the queen of Canada. And then also at doctor kelly culver on LinkedIn, Instagram, and then drkellyculver.com. Our wonderful guest today, Liliana Yankova, you can find her on LinkedIn to follow her continued studies as she continues to help us find resilience through the world. And again, to all of our listeners, thank you. We thank you for aspiring to be resilient.
Jenn Quader:We thank you for listening to these stories and being with us through this, and we wish you a lot of love, a lot of good energy, and all beautiful things until we see you again. Have a resilient rest of
Lilyana Yankova:your day.
Creators and Guests
