Sustainability

Yumi is deeply concerned with current environmental matters, and believes that the future of us and of the Earth together only lies when we all participate in sustainable practices, whether large or small. Chinese Medicine sees the law of our health and the law of nature is the same. What happens in nature happens in the body. Thinking about what is happening on the earth and equivalent symptoms in the human body, Yumi strongly believes in the need to act and practice as sustainably as possible. The followings are a few things Yumi does to ensure a sustainable business. 

• Yumi uses needles from a bulk pack. All needles she uses are sterile and one-time use only. Most of acupuncture needles come with a guiding tube and blister plastic package for each needle. Yumi uses bundle type in which 10 new sterile single-use needles are packed together with a single guiding tube. The carbon footprint of plastic is about 6kg CO2 per kg of plastic. That means roughly 5000 needles are equal to 6kg of CO2. That is approximately 330 Acupuncture patients.  By using the bulk package, she can significantly reduce the use of plastic.                                                                
• Yumi dispenses raw herbs for two reasons. One is that the raw form of the herb is the most efficient and can achieve the best result. The other is that processed herbs, such as granules, comes with plastic containers and packages. Also processing the herb itself requires the use of resources.  A typical granule that contains dosage for 3 weeks comes with 75g of plastic bottles and wrapping. Those 13 bottles are equal to 6kg CO2. In a busy clinic, one can easily dispense that many of granule herbs in one day. However, by dispensing the raw herb in a brown paper bag, the size of CO2 footprint is next to nothing. 
• Yumi uses cotton linens and towels, and avoids using polyester and microfiber as they are  derived from petroleum and other synthetic materials. They do not break down and accumulate as landfill garbage for a long time. Also when these fabrics are washed, a micro size small fiber is released to the water, which then gets eaten by fish and causes serious damage to those fish. Using cotton linens is one way to  participate in sustainable practice.