A Slow Change...
For quite some time I have been aware that we need to make some more changes around our rubbish and recycling in our home. I am basically tired of all the rubbish everyday in the kitchen bin and the boxes and plastic packets wrapped around food is astounding. We can't put our soft plastics in the recycling in the area we live in so unfortunately it all has to go in the rubbish. Our recycling is collected fortnightly and the bin is always full. Stuffed full. The kind of full where sometimes my husband has to climb up on to the bin and stand in it to squash it down. That's crazy!
When I grew up in the late 70's/80's, things were naturally more eco friendly and it was just the way that it was. My parents had grown up in a generation that had come out of WW 2 and also the effects of the Depression so they were naturally more inclined towards making do and mending, reusing, growing your own vegetables, etc. It was all normal.
Our milk was delivered in glass bottles to our letterbox every few days. My mum came home from the grocery store with our food in paper bags. We brought our meat from the local butcher and it was wrapped in paper. We had homegrown vegetables, meals cooked from scratch, home baking, my mum sewed some of our clothes. We didn't have a lot of toys but what we had was good quality. We walked to school and my mum walked to the shops. We had one car and one TV.
Slowly over time things changed as supermarkets decided to go from paper bags to plastic and then you start seeing more plastic everywhere. More of everything. It is not the consumers fault when things change on you beyond your control. I do think though that things have gone too far and now we as consumers need to take a stand and vote with our purchases. I know this is not easy and for a lot of people it is not financially something you are in a position to do a lot of. That's ok.
I am not an environmentalist but I do believe we need to look after God's creation and after our health.
I have been reading lately about plastics in our waterways and how they are making their way into fish and other sea creatures and eventually into our food. I recently had a conversation with someone about this and learnt that teeny tiny bits of plastics are being found in food and rice was the topic of this conversation. I thought to myself, how on earth is plastic finding its way into our food? I have discovered by reading a book from the library that microscopic size plastics that are coming out of manmade fabrics that we put into our washing machines, are making their way into the waterways and eventually out to sea. It all floats around out there and ends up where we don't want it to. Interesting.
So all our clothing that is made of polyester, nylons and other materials are a contributing factor as are microfibre cloths. This one really blew me away as these are being sold as eco friendly because of the lifespan they have and the fact that you don't need cleaning products. However, these cloths are all made with manmade plastic fibres and they too go through the cycle of washing machines, waterways and out to sea. So what I learnt is that we are better off having a 100% natural cloth such as cotton or bamboo to do our cleaning with and a natural eco friendly cleaner. The best one you can use is a homemade one of half water, half white vinegar, a few drops of eco friendly dish liquid and a few drops of essential oils. It is what I use and it is a great all round cleaner for anywhere in the house. Although the vinegar is not good if you have a granite or marble counter top.
I do believe in order for things to be doable ( or sustainable if you want to use the latest buzz word ), then a few things go a long way instead of thinking we need to do everything. What do I really mean by this? Well, I have read a couple of articles where enviro people have said that they believe that it is better if everyone was able to do just a couple of things each to make change, it would have a bigger impact on the world than if just a small amount of people were striving to do everything. I couldn't agree more. It is actually quite stressful trying to change out everything if you stop and think about all that would need to change. If you wanted to be extreme and stop buying all packaged foods from the supermarket then you would have a huge job on your hands. You would need to bake all your own bread and other baked goods including crackers and muesli. All the time, everyday and every week. Homemade yogurt, plant based milks, bulk buying of dry goods and this could see you driving your car all over town to buy oats, beans, flour, rice etc from a bulk bin friendly store. But wait, is your car eco friendly driving everywhere?
I have been thinking about the bags our dog food comes in but there is no other way around that so I can't change anything there. I am thinking at some stage of trying to make my own wet food to cut down on the plastic pouches of brought food that our dogs sometimes eat. Plus it will be healthier for our dogs.
Some of our toiletries are eco or natural and come in recyclable containers so that's ok.
You will find you are probably doing more than what you think.
Here is what we do and have been doing for a long time.
: Compost (we can't in the winter as it's too wet and the compost doesn't break down)
: Grow our own vegetables and fruits (in the winter I have an organic vegetable box delivered most weeks)
: Reusable grocery bags
: Reusable produce bags and a couple of bags for the bulk bins for nuts etc
: Homemade cloth wipes
: Recycle
: Homemade oat milk when I can
: Sewing and mending
: We have our own hens
: Homemade natural cleaners
: I buy some ingredients in glass jars instead of plastic
: Natural toiletries (which we do for skin health and allergies)
: We put our grass clippings on the gardens
: Cook from scratch and home baking (lots of packaging with ingredients though)
: I have reusable plate and bowl covers instead of clingfilm and I also use lidded containers
: I save our egg shells to dry out and blend up for grit for the hens. Yes you can do this.
I know there is a lot more we could do but I think this is a pretty good amount and I'm sure there are things I have forgotten to put on the list but I'm feeling hungry and my hands are shaking!
I have decided that I will look to making one or two changes a week for awhile to slowly introduce some new habits. They are nothing huge and they are easy to do that they won't feel stressful that we're adding another burden that we can't maintain.
So what are these changes I have done so far this week?
Two things. I have swapped out our organic milk that comes in plastic bottles to milk in glass bottles. It is whole pasteurised milk straight from a farm that isn't certified organic but they do practise organic and sustainable farming methods. It is a little bit more expensive but we don't use a lot of cows milk anyway so I figured this is an easy swap we can do and I can purchase it at my supermarket.
The other swap was reusable cloth towels instead of paper towels. Again we don't use large amounts of paper towels but I can purchase these at my supermarket so it is an easy swap. Why did I decide to get these? Well as I said at the beginning, I am sick of all the rubbish we put out and I thought if I am going to make a few changes I have to start with something doable that the whole family can get on board with. I was utterly surprised when my husband thought the cloth towels were a good idea. We will of course just keep them for kitchen use so we can use them over and over again and wash them with the tea towels. I will still use the paper ones for any dog messes for hygiene reasons. I could of course eventually find some reusable cloths for dog messes that are different. The paperless towels are made from 100% bamboo and can be washed up to 85 times each. One roll is equivalent to 65 rolls of paper towels. That's a lot.
I hope out of all this you will feel encouraged that you are probably already on board with some good habits and hopefully you may have learnt about some new ones you can try and change to or it may inspire to look at what you could do and what will work for you.
I will try to follow up here in a few weeks with some more tips on what I am doing. I need to be away soon for awhile to visit my parents as my mum is having surgery so if there isn't a blog post for awhile, don't worry, I will be back when I can.
Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have any tips to share on what you do. I believe we can all learn together and encourage one another.
Thank you for visiting here and have a blessed day and weekend.
Blessings, Fiona
"The heavens declare the glory of God: the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19.1
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