ex-CEO Moosejaw, Advisor to Early Stage Companies and Investors, Industry Expert & Speaker | Exits to Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods
Over the last two weeks, I had the privilege of spending time in Airbnb's across four European cities with my wife and two adult sons. We had a great time, but time in Europe really brings home how wastefully we live in the US. Many small things bring home the differences (emphasis on small). Let’s start with the fridge. Most were half the size of our fridge at home (that’s typically packed full). How do Europeans survive with smaller fridges? They make smaller, more frequent trips to the grocery store, buying what they need for a few days, not weeks. This results in far less food going bad. Which leads me to the kitchen garbage…most were tiny (see the pic). How do they make it work? Consume less, recycle more, and less food waste. Then there’s the hot water. Many systems were tankless or had tanks 30% the size of a U.S. hot water heater. This means far less energy consumption but requires shorter showers (esp. with four people). Also, all the showers allowed you to control water flow rate as well as temp… further saving water and energy. I could go on-and-on… walkable cities, bike lanes everywhere, smaller cars and engines, more compact houses, no constantly running A/C, etc. So is all of this a huge sacrifice for the European lifestyle? Quite the opposite. Europe is home to some of the world’s happiest countries with the longest life expectancies. Don't even get me started on the wine…
Rafael Ertel
2w
My wife and I raised 5 children. This style of European (who don't have a replacement birthrate) half sized living would not work. Trade offs.
And their train system 🚂 . . . and, of course, the wine 🍷
Laura Nilo
2w
I have had this same a-ha moment through my time spent in EU. It is eye opening. I especially loved the only what you need kitchen. Four table settings only -and the basic utensils always include a zester! A zester is now a part of my essentials.
Can we talk about the lack of ceiling fans?
I have lived in small spaces my entire adult life, almost never more than 400 sq ft. The home I bought three years ago is just over 1,000 sq ft. I live alone, which helps, but this is pretty much the way I live. Small trash can. Full recycling bin. Walkable neighborhood. Furniture is almost all second hand. I make most of my meals and eat at home. I lived in France for a month before the pandemic hit and it shifted my quality of life in a direction I don't want to give up.
In rural life -- there is no "around the corner" or walkable spaces. You can't put up 1/2 a cow or the gift of venison in a tiny fridge. Canning from your garden actually happens here, and gifts from gardens are shared so nothing goes to waste. You should see how much room an empty bag of chicken feed takes up in a trash can - but the eggs are hand carried from the coop. You can't tow a John Deere with a prius - perhaps its not life in the US, it is life in the US cities that needs to be looked at? Because when you are on a well in California, you just think about water automatically and when the power goes out pretty regularly you pay attention to alternative ways to heat and cool - just out of necessity.
Adam Bakiera
2w
Apples and oranges comparison. Cities are built completely different over there. Much easier for walkability. It would take TONS of money to remake American cities to be walkable, especially if you want to expand that out to suburbs. Plus, climate would be a significant obstacle to overcome for millions of people living in the South here. Way too hot to be walking around for half the year, if not more. The lack of A/C and uncomfortable beds aren't a flex either. A/C doesn't have to be running all the time but it's pretty bad when you need it and it's not here. As for recycling...I'm all for it, but there have been several stories lately in the States that basically proved recycling here is a scam. The items end up in the landfill anyway. You're dead on about the food and wine though. Not sure if it's still there, but Poland used to have a law that all but banned genetically modified foods. The quality of the food is noticeably better.
Paul Zamora
2w
Absolutely the lifestyle there. We've been fortunate enough to have spent lots of time in Spain, all over France, (wife is Basque French), Germany, Italy, and Belgium (with many more plans for more). We usually travel to the remote and off the map places where spoken English is rare and the towns and villages are small. Even in those places, where any municipal trash disposal is non-existent, those places always had large shipping containers centrally located like at the small grocery store parking lots. These big bins had individual slots for cardboard, plastics, paper, and both dark and clear glass, metals and aluminum, then a really small one for unrecyclable stuff which was usually never full. The people in those places gladly on the way to the market, as we did, pre sort and toss most of our stuff we used at our ecotourism rooms, which some were modern some were renovated barns which were still awesome! It's a pride and lifestyle thing, no agenda, no PSAs running on the 1 channel, it is just a life style and wonderful.
Ah yes, I always wondered about that single-knob shower system when traveling to the US 🚿 Tricky to get a comfortable temperature without being also being pressure washed 😀 I never thought of the European faucets as a way of saving water - just a more granular control for better comfort. Imagine having to turn your kitchen faucet to full blast just to get hot water 🌊
ex-CEO Moosejaw, Advisor to Early Stage Companies and Investors, Industry Expert & Speaker | Exits to Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods
2wAccording to sources I could find, the average American uses roughly double the energy and water per day versus the average European.