Dear Karen,

Although you do encourage recycling in your book and you do encourage people to think twice before bringing new purchases home, there are also many references to slinging unwanted things in the trash. Broken, worn out items belong in the trash bin, no doubt about it, but I think you might put more emphasis on passing usable items on to others. Otherwise, we add to all the billions of rubbish in landfills, and I have to wonder what that means to our global bagua, our collective chi. Everything is interconnected, is it not?

- K.O., USA

Karen's reply:

I live in Bali where everything is recycled, including things that would be classified in the West as complete trash. Waste food from my kitchen is given to a neighbour's pigs, plastic water bottles are collected by young children and sold back to manufacturers in order to get money for their school tuition fees, torn clothes are salvaged from trash bins, patched together and worn for another 5 years by people who can't afford anything new, and broken or worn-out household items are snapped up in an instant and turned into something useful.

No-one has instituted a recycling system in this country - there is just such a level of poverty that people can't afford to do otherwise. Yes, I know Bali is depicted as being a glamorous tourist destination, but if you visit rural areas you will find some of the most extreme poverty and malnourishment on Earth.

When writing for international audiences (my book is now in 20 languages), there are different cultural perceptions about what is recyclable and what is not. To avoid this problem I explain that I wholeheartedly encourage recycling and then leave the reader to decide which items it is appropriate to recycle in their own country, and which not.