Mrs. Pi is an environmentalist. She stopped using the capsule coffee machine for the sake of the planet, buys laundry soap in bars to avoid wasting water, and tries to get her children to wash their hair with an eco-friendly soap she buys at a bulk store. Her children tell her they shouldn't put that on their heads. She plans strategies. She takes the half-full bottles and hides them. "He won't see the half-full bottle anymore!" she laughs devilishly inside. She doesn't use spray deodorant; she prefers the roll-on one, although she's not sure which leaves a bigger carbon footprint, and that makes her suffer.

On average, a plastic bag is used for only 12 minutes, but it can take more than 300 years to fully decompose. According to the OECD's Global Plastics Outlook, in just two decades, annual plastic waste production worldwide has doubled, from 180 million tonnes to over 350 million. Plastic waste is projected to nearly triple worldwide by 2060: half of all this waste will still be landfilled, and less than a fifth will be recycled.