Happy Earth Day
I’d like to share five things we are trying to do in order to live more sustainably. I would love to hear little things that you do through your days. We can all stand to adopt more good practices!
1.
We are trying to grow more of our own food. It is not cheaper to grow your own food but it seems a valuable skill and the food definitely tastes better and is more nutrient rich. It also decreases the amount of gas used to get our food to us. While there is a lot of skill and knowledge needed to grow food well, I find I can do quite a bit, even being as uneducated on the topic as myself. And all knowledge has to start somewhere! Each year I try to challenge myself to learn a little more about gardening.
2.
We compost. It may not seem like much but every little bit helps. We use a composting toilet which saves us from flushing just under 12,000 gallons of potable water per year. Moreover, we are able to divert a lot of waste from the landfill. I used to think biodegradable waste could actually help a landfill, but it doesn’t. The goal of a landfill is to create airtight bricks of waste to sit underground. It does not mater if it biodegrades or lives forever, like plastic. The nutrients present in biodegradable waste never has the opportunity to go back into the ground and feed the natural cycle. Composting kitchen scraps and garden waste keeps the waste in the loop in a sustainable way.
3.
Travel less. We do drive low emission, used, vehicles and we keep them a long time so we can use them up. They are maintained well so no new materials need to hit the market on our account. We really don’t drive much though. Even when we went on our year long road trip across the country, we drove less hours per day than we did when each of us worked our office jobs. Everyday commutes add up, if you can minimize your impact on that front you can make a big difference. We work from home, while that is not an option for everyone, using a bike, carpooling or public transportation can add up!
4.
We bring our own Tupperware to dinners out. If we forget we simply don’t bring back our leftovers. We also ask businesses what type of go containers they use and request cardboard/compostable whenever possible. If we go out for coffee we bring our own cup or ask for a non disposable to use. Sometimes the littlest things add up in the biggest ways! I also purchase items at the grocery store based on the sustainability of their packaging.
5.
The obvious one, we live small. Less raw materials go into making our home. It’s enough, without being ‘extra’. Not knowing where our life would take us, small and portable made sense. Now that we know and have a piece of land to steward, it still makes sense for us to live tiny. This house has a lot of life left in it. Almost all of the materials I used to build it are reclaimed form elsewhere. That feat is far easier to do when you are dealing with smaller than normal room sizes.
These tactics don’t always make sense universally but sustainability is something I like to think about through my day. I hope I am not alone in that. I would love to hear the small things you do in your day to show your love for the earth.
We live on a beautiful rock, the more in tune with it I try to be the more miraculous my life seems to become. I adore floating through the seasons and learning to work one-on-one with nature!
[Use it up… Wear it out… Make it do… Or do without]
