5 Sustainability Ideas
By: Jessica Marie When I first began my sustainability journey 5 years ago, I looked to the sustainability influencers on Instagram for ideas on how to start my journey. As I grew more and more interested in the homesteading community, culture, and other methods of living that were in tune with the land I have found a wealth of information. Not just on how to be more self-sufficient, but how to live in closer harmony with mother nature. I don’t want to give you a list of products to buy as that defeats the purpose. It makes it seem like in order to be sustainable you must invest in this non-circular capitalistic system that does damage to the environment. So, here are my current top tips on sustainability. Gardening No, you do not need to make a huge garden that will be your food supply for the entire year. Not only is that difficult and expensive to upstart, it actually takes years to build up to that point. It is also a lot of work to have a large garden. It can be a part-time job to start and maintain a garden. But I do want to encourage you to start small. I started as a plant mom and slowly incorporated herbs and over the course of years my parents and I began to work together to build larger and larger gardens. You don’t have to buy seeds either. Some of my first seeds I collected from bell peppers and squash that I had purchased from the store. I looked up how to harvest and store seeds then I planted them. You can also reuse old plastic containers as plant starters. It can be very low cost to start up a garden if you need it to be. Many gardening supplies are reusable. Once you have them you can use them for many seasons. Most all of our gardening supplies we have been reusing for many seasons now. Compost Composting goes hand in hand with gardening. As you will be collecting food scraps and waste and throwing it away, why not sort some of it out and turn it back into food for yourself? By taking the compost you are naturally enriching the soil, which enriches the plants which you are feeding to yourself. It can also be beneficial to the soil. Make sure not to compost dairy or meat products. While they are technically compostable in time, they smell bad and will generally ruin your compost. Look up backyard composting to get started. Recycle/Upcycle/Thrift I thrift things all the time, from marketplace, from garage and estate sales, from my own house. Beyond buying used clothes, there are tons of things that can be thrifted. I buy picture frames at estate sales almost exclusively; they are far cheaper and it saves them from the landfill. I make lists of things I need or want and then I get to looking. Not from Amazon first, but on Marketplace, thrift shops, and estate sales. The more time you have to find things the more luck you’ll have. I have furnished entire homes for staging using only what I found on Marketplace. Get creative. Is there something that you want that you can make yourself or collaborate together from other things to make what you want? For example, I wanted a sunglasses display rack. I found this really cool picture frame at an estate sale, I tied some twine that had been wrapped on a gift through the frame and now it holds all my sunglasses. Plus, it kind of looks like art. Cost me $2 total. Save the Fat Or the bones, or the veggies. You can pay money for bone broth or bar soap, or you can make it yourself. If you boil chicken, beef, or veggies you can save the water they were boiled in and then you have broth. When a recipe calls for any of those broths you already have it for free. Same with fat, if something you are making cooks off a lot of fat, save it. Pour it through a strainer to get the chunks out, then store it in the freezer. You can use the fat to oil your cast iron pans. Or if you save enough of it, you can use it to make your own soaps. I know this is a very different type of recycling, but it counts. Taking those statements of reduce, reuse, recycle to a whole new level. Start small You have to do sustainability, sustainably. This means that you have to grow at your own pace. Something I see people do that saddens me is comparison. Both inside and outside of sustainability. We see someone who has been on their sustainability journey for years and think ‘I can never be like that’. It is too easy to get overwhelmed and see the expense of changing to different sustainable products or methods. Some of the things on this list are kind of big, multi-step processes and they might seem overwhelming. That’s ok, maybe they are end goals. For example, I’ve been on my sustainability journey for over 5 years now. That means for 5 years I have been learning, growing, and adopting new methods into my life and routines. I did not wake up one day and do everything I do today. It took me 5 years, and a lot of what gets done is a family effort. Do not feel bad for not being able to switch everything right now. Don’t feel bad for only doing one thing. Do that one thing that you feel drawn to until it is easy, and when you want to, when you feel ready, add another. In 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, you will be amazed at how much you have combined into your life. I want to encourage you not to compare where you are to where someone else is. It is good to be inspired, but it is important to give yourself time and grace along the way. Take it slow, take it one step at a time. Pro Tip – Moving: We all know about getting boxes from stores like Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Which are great resources that I stand by. But for packing paper, I have two ideas. One, scuba shops. They get really nice material packaged around their goggles and such that are perfect for moving dishes. Two, local newspapers. If you have a local town paper or university that has a newspaper, call and ask for their old papers. They will gladly pack it in a box and give it to you. You can also check marketplace. I’ve seen people giving away their old moving boxes and materials. This is also an option for you as well. People may not come and get them, but you are at least offering to give these single use packages more than one life or use. Those are my current top 5 sustainability tips. I am sure I will have more in the future. But these are ones that I have been working on/towards recently and I wanted to share them with you. My biggest goal with this list was to help you think outside the box. To think beyond one item, one idea, or one product as a sustainability practice. To realize that maybe something you already do is sustainable, or maybe something you never considered was a sustainability practice. I hope this inspires you. Until next week. Much Love, Jessica Marie
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AuthorJessica Marie Cunningham - Intentional lifestyle blogger, aspiring author, and podcast host. All things Slow Living, Books, Writing, Art, creativity, Christianity, and personal stories. Archives
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