MY SECOND YEAR OF LOW IMPACT LIVING | JOURNAL

This is a repost from my other blog. A sliver of history. Take note that statements in this article may no longer reflect my current understandings of the topics discussed.

A lot has changed since I wrote my last years' entry on how I was trying to create a more sustainable lifestyle for myself. I've taken a deep dive into ethical and sustainable fashion, given some thought to the ideal of only using "natural products" in skincare and gotten compost. Some things have come while others have become a little less prominent in my life this last year. 

Changes in my view on low impact skincare

Last year I wrote about trying new products for skin care without knowing much about skincare to begin with. Beauty and fashion have never been a part of my interest. For once, I was using coconut oil as moisturizer something that worked for me for a while but generally had no effect after a while so I quit. Would still suggest it as an eye-makeup remover (or get other oils to use as a makeup remover.) I also tried to make my own body butter with natural ingredients and while it works, it's not really something I would recommend. Most of the products I tried to replicate at home, I'm no longer using or using up with little intention to make again. I was acting on a high and I wanted them to work well and they didn't work for me. Some of what's recommended if you google natural beauty are not clever to put on your face, fx. raw aloe vera and using a sugar scrub on your face. Instead, I've made these alterations:

i. Choosing vegan brands without\less harmful chemicals.

ii. I look out for recyclable, recycled or refill packaging. However, after a dive into why the packaging is what it is and how effective the different types are, I try to pick after what will last me the longest (as I do not consume makeup fast at all. They always 'expire' long before I've emptied them.) and after material and location of the brand.  

iii. I have a minimal skincare routine. My first goal was to clear my acne so I started with the basics and then built a little bit on it month by month to see what works, what I break out on etc. 

iv. Educating myself on which ingredients and which should be good for my skin type has been so important for me in picking the product I want! If you're looking for a resource, I would recommend checking out Kenna on youtube. She's a biochemist and talks about skincare and ingredients from a scientific perspective. 

Changes in my view on sustainable and ethical fashion

This last year I've done several courses on the fashion industry and sustainability. I learned a lot. Most of it can be found as summaries under the "fashion" category on this blog. This is a topic that generally has diverging opinions and is more or less a result of personal values when it comes to certain matters. To address the "low impact" part of it first, I've become quite selective in what I buy, which material and quality. While this is a privilege I'm still finding a middle-road to, I know my values are moving towards investing in fewer, more lasting pieces that fit my body than some that are cheap and lose their shape fast. I want my clothing to last and I'm tired of having clothing I don't like after a year. I don't care much about trends in fashion, but what these courses have given me is more or less the idea that how you look matter and it is a way of expressing yourselves. I've never really known my style. Most of the time I haven't felt like I had a style at all. What I am aiming for this year is to start picking out pieces that are more me and not necessarily only basics because there are ways I want to use my clothing to create an expression of who I am and what's important to me. However, consuming and even finding the type of garments I want sustainable and ethical is a nail in a haystack. What I've come to notice is that most sustainable\ethical companies make basics or clothes in quite a similar style. Most is a style that I don't really enjoy myself. Therefore, I've currently started looking into Vintage items to see if that can be a better route for me when it comes to sustainable fashion. I'm also giving small businesses on Etsy more of a chance. After reading The Ins and Outs of International Shipping by Good On You I've opened up more for shopping ethical\sustainable companies worldwide, but as usual, both toll and shipping are additional costs that truly pull forth the privilege of personal economy and location. 

When it comes to the fashion industry itself, staying away from typical fast fashion companies is something I do and feel bad for if I don't do. There are expectations as I can't afford to buy all my stuff sustainable and ethically produced, but as a result, I prefer to buy less than to consume something fast fashion that I don't gravely need myself, or from brands I don't like.

 

The changes in how I consume books

I am not in the headspace to stop consuming physical copies of books and I doubt I ever will be. Physical copies are the best ways of reading and not something I intend to let go of as an avid reader and bookstagrammer. However, I wanted to do something and getting myself back into the values I had had a year prior about how I preferred to consume books. First and foremost, finish the books I buy. All the books I buy. I always feel a certain dissatisfaction when I know I've spent money on x book(s) and I didn't like it or finish it. As of 2016, I'd read all the books I bought but I wasn't able to keep up my reading speed anymore but I kept on buying the books I wanted to read. While I did bulk buy books a few times a year for environmental reasons, I simply had too many in my bookshelf that I didn't like, didn't finish or didn't vibe with anymore. 

i. My first action was to make a pile of the books I had that I hadn't read and made it a goal to finish them before I bought any new book. Since many of those books weren't on my radar anymore, they blocked my will to read and I ended up consuming a few new series that reignited my will for reading. I'm still working my way through the surplus books but I'm not letting them hold me back from enjoying other stories nor new books again. Books and reading is something that's crucial for my mental health and wellbeing, they just leave me feeling better and while my attempt to make use of all the resources I had did work to a degree, I had to start letting some of the books that I couldn't find it in myself to read go. As a compromise on some of them, I decided to pick them up as audiobooks (Storytel, Adubile) as a last resort and in the hope that I did get to finish the books properly. I do love stories and a half-finished story always leaves me feeling askew. 

ii. Second, I sorted through my old books and sold some of the books I no longer needed or wanted to keep. I intend to donate the ones that don't sell or aren't taken in by someone I know. I don't trash or burn books under any circumstances. I would rather just store them away until an occasion raise. 

iii. Third, I buy fewer books and I use several platforms. Audiobooks, e-books, paperbacks or hardbacks are all different formats giving you the same story. When I buy firsthand books now, I've put much more value in looking into which stories I find interesting than what is popular and trending. I do anticipate a few new books each year but there are less. I probably buy max 10 books a year in physical copies as well as taking advantage of audiobooks and e-books with books I'm less sure about. I also very much enjoy the previews ebooks give you to 'test' if I think I'll like a book or not.

iv. Four, I aim for using the library for any book that isn't a new release and that is available.   

Bokashi

Compost is still a new thing into our household and in the testing stages. I still have to figure out how to do it properly before I can say much about how it works out. The only thing I noticed is that it's incredibly satisfying to be able to know the organic waste I create while making food doesn't need to go into the trash bin but rather into compost and continue to circulate in our environment.

picture: unsplash

My favorite low impact swaps thus far

My favorite swaps are a stainless steel razor, a package-free shampoo bar, and a period cup. These were one of my first swaps and the ones that have stayed with me the longest and in the best fate. They are quite satisfying as they make such a difference to how much waste I create in the bathroom. Stainless steel razor and reusable period tools are also good for your wallet in the long run. I also quite enjoy stainless steel straws (and only stainless steel, bamboo sucks) and use them now and then. While I could have quit straws entirely I have always loved them a little bit more than the rest of my family and find them a rather fun addition to most drinks than if it was without so I wouldn't like to live without it when I strictly don't need to. 

One of my missions this last year has been to try and find a sulfate-free shampoo bar to trade the one from Lush since I learned that sulfate is harmful to aquatic life. I've tried oil bars which did not work at all for my hair. Right now, I'm moving back to Lush since it has a bar I trust and know works for me until I'm able to set off money to try another sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner that ship to my country.

The rest is more or less a question of using up what I already have before finding a reason to buy something new to "swap" it for. 

One important thing about doing any of these swaps is that you should care for the item you buy and treat it with care. It will make the experience so much better. Give it a second thought rather than one too few.

My goals for 2020

i. This year I want to create my own low impact laundry routine to better take care of my clothing. Right now, this includes switching out the washing powder and getting a guppy friend brag (which I've delayed so much it's embarrassing.)

Afterthought

I usually go into ideas that I like incredibly idealistic, meaning most won't live up to my expectations or be as simple as I make it out to be. In another sense, it makes me very open-minded about the somewhat controversial changes and not seeing them as unusual at all after a short time. I often find myself thinking that to remove something small but normal in your life or changing up a small thing is simple and done in a day, but I have to return and address the aspects of mental health and ableism and to write this afterthought as a disclaimer that a 'sustainable lifestyle' never should feel stripping or be unhealthy for you - mentally or physically. Health always comes first. Zero-waste, low impact - whatever you want to call it - are movements in development based on the successes on a few, leading zero waste lives. Most don't acknowledge privilege in the way the guidelines for sustainable living exist, it doesn't include disabilities or much beyond the idea that "this creates the least waste or the least GHG impact." (Depending on where you look, zero waste is primarily a waste movement and doesn't necessarily value all aspects of production and GHG releases equal to not creating waste.) To put it simple, you have to find something that works for you and is healthy for you. It isn't sustainable if it isn't sustainable for your lifestyle. One version of it doesn't fit all. No one is truly zero waste. 

MY FIRST YEAR GOING ZERO WASTE | JOURNAL

This is a repost from my previous blog. A slice of personal history and does not necessarily reflect all my opinions today.

def. Zero Waste is the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of all products, packaging, and materials, without burning them, and without discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.

When people talk about Zero Waste, the all or nothing way of thinking surfaces quickly. People often find the path a failure if you haven't done everything you can as fast as they think you should. For me, that has become an important though when I began my Zero Waste journey in spring last year. I didn't walk it intentionally in the beginning. I mostly looked for research about the environment. Instead, I was offered so much more, and it gave me a new perspective on waste and the way waste ruled my life. That's also why I've chosen to consider myself a part of the Low Impact Movement rather than the industrial term, Zero Waster.

The first month, I watched so many videos on zero-waste living until I felt like I knew it all. I quickly found that living a little bit more sustainable, didn't need to be as hard as I'd imagined it to be. It wasn't giving up on items I enjoyed or never sitting in a car again. I'd looked at it as giving up on luxuries and privileges, not these small swaps that were as easy as choosing natural alternatives above synthetic ones, prioritizing ethics over pleasure or just simply choosing long-lasting and reusable tools. 

My first swap action wasn't actually a swap. It was figuring where I had the largest need to make changes in my lifestyle, where most plastic needed to be switched out for natural and non-plastic alternatives when we ran out. I started with the bathroom because I already had one part done there - a bamboo toothbrush. 

In the videos I'd watched, two things were clear:

a) I shouldn't buy anything new before I'd used up what I already had   &

b) recycling what I already had and treasuring it by reuse or repair was a way to keep it out of the waste stream.

The first line spoke to me the most. It was so easy, yet it felt... unnatural. In my house, we never really needed anything. We had the finances to get what we wanted when we wanted it so we never suffered any need that I knew of. I didn't need to use up my shampoo bottle if it didn't fit my hair or we had bought a new one. We always had bottle after bottle in our cupboard, and I never thought twice about it... until that day I went looking and figured we had the scraps of more than 10 shampoo and conditioner bottles showed into a corner, taking up space, being resources we'd just trash the way we became tired of them toppling over when we tried to find something on the same shelve.

My first action was to sort it all. I took them out and put them in a bowl beside the shower. This way, we'd have to use them up before we bought anyone new. When it came up on our shopping list, I'd keep saying we already have it at home. Now, a year later, some still live in the red bowl while others have passed on. After a while, I decided that the natural aspect of something new was something I wanted to try. Now knowing how many chemicals that went into that plastic bottled product, I wasn't especially enthusiastic to use them. To tell the truth, they made me feel anxious. A product I'd used all my life and never thought twice about made me feel uneasy.

This was why my first swap was picking up a shampoo- and conditioner bar. A two-in-one solution that fit me from the first try. I was satisfied I didn't need to demand more plastic bottles into production for my hair products. That I didn't need the chemicals and still, my hair got just a clean as it used too. And it was this easy! 

When the first was done, I followed with several others. I switched to OrganicCup (most satisfying swap yet tbh),  got stainless-steel shaver, made my first DIY body butter, started using Coconut Oil for make-up remover and reusable towels for it. I got vegan wax paper for the kitchen and stainless steel straws. I thrifted my first items and brought my own cup and straw to my first drink on-the-go! Some of these were more successful than others and I think that's an important part of the process to figure what suits you and what not. To not lock ourselves in the trends that come and go. Despite zero waste often taking you out of the mainstream trends, it also, naturally, comes with its own versions of status inside the community - for example, glass jars.  

Zero Waste is impossible in today's society, and doing it well is often brought on by privileges as accessibility, availability, and economy. I knew I never would do it perfectly, at least not for many years to come, but then and there, I collected my resources and started in the small. In a way, I think that's all you can do. You can choose to start and then do as well as you can with what you have and constantly strive to improve when you have the resources to do so.

A journey of a thousand miles starts beneath one's feet' - Chinese proverb

My first year of "zero waste" didn't go perfectly. To take an example that most people have heard about, I had to switch my bamboo toothbrush for an electrical one. It wasn't doing the job therefore it needed to go. I chose an electrical toothbrush because they're some of the best out there and you just need to recharge them. If you take care of them, they'll last you a long time. 

What one year of zero waste has taught me, or reinstated, is that it isn't impossible to make a change. I have given the stuff I own a new value and me a new perspective on the consumerism I do. I purchase less and I choose natural, reusable, recyclable where I can. I've started to eat more fruits and vegetables and used it as an inspiration to try more new food than to stay in the line I've been taught all my life. Maybe, the most impactful mindset I've acquired is the understanding that what I support with my money matters and that I should remove my wants and look at my actual needs. There's a difference. 

For the year to come, I've put a goal of getting compost in our kitchen, possibly yard. It is something I wanted to do since last autumn but I never got the time (or money) to do so. I try to grow a few vegetables on my own and compost gives you really good soil to do so.

As for the time being, I study organic farming which elevates my interest in it. Together with zero waste, it has given me a broadened picture on how everything circulates in nature and how important it is to not only use our resources with responsibility but to reuse them in a way where resources don't go to waste and that you can benefit from doing so.