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You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mary L.

Reporter Kavita George has been thinking about trash a lot lately,

why we produce it and how we can make less of it.

She sat down with her mom Ashwethi to talk about their relationship to trash and waste.

I guess trash pickup was not quite a thing when I was growing up so I think we tried to keep our waste minimal.

Ashwethi grew up in the 60s and 70s in India before a single-use

plastic was really a thing. Most of her family's trash was compostable. She

remembers her mother bringing their own containers to the market, which was essentially a bulk good store.

They'd load up their aluminum tins with rice, lentils, and flour, fill up jugs with cooking

oil, and then they'd do it all over again the next next week with nothing to throw away in between.

To this day Ashwethi hates waste.

And growing up, Kavita remembers her going to great lengths to save household items

from the trash can.

Do you think it was more about saving money

than about like being environmentally friendly?

I think it was a bitter both.

...