Blog
My Journey with Sustainability Recently
Intro
Hi!
When I first set this website up I thought I would have posted a few ‘blog style’ posts before now- but I’ve been stuck in this catch between wanting to talk about something important to me without sounding bleak. Long story short I’ve been majorly over thinking it and I’m hoping this will break the seal and allow me to be less self critical of ideas.
I’m going to talk about some new sustainable practices/acts I’ve been doing/trying recently (hopefully without coming across as virtue signalling). Environmentalism can feel pointless at times and at others completely overwhelming. I can sometimes swing between questioning: What impact can one person even have? And tormenting myself over every one of my own impacts. Sometimes I have days where every time I look at something all I can see is it’s footprint, even typing this I’m looking down at my chipped red nail polish (which is a single use plastic).
I know I’m not the only one who feels disheartened by the US election results from earlier this week. Social media keeps bombarding me with repost upon repost highlighting this as a loss for women, minorities and the environment. Tackling climate change unarguably requires global acknowledgement, cooperation and legislation, however change usually blossoms from individual movement and can spread out into our communities. Looking in at our own actions can also be the easiest place to start.
I guess the aim of this is to show that there are lots of easy ways to have an impact (or reduce your impact ;) ). This is just a window into what I’ve been doing recently.
Experimenting with Veganism
I’m sure the majority of people reading this already know that I’m very passionate about the environment and I always have been really, I first became vegetarian (actually pescatarian due to my parents worries) when I was 7. I think this largely came from growing up with pet chickens/sheep/ducks and being very aware of where meat came from. I certainly wasn’t considering the carbon and land footprint of my food at this time. I became fully vegetarian at 16 when I went away for school as I then had the freedom to choose what I ate more, although my parents have always been very supportive of me. Anyway, bringing this up to the present day, I’ve been trying to move to a more vegan diet which I’ve found a bit of a daunting challenge, despite having lots of friends around me who are vegan and having been vegetarian for years.
This change for me has been eating vegan at home. For the moment I’m remaining vegetarian at friend’s houses/restaurants and for takeaways. I’m also having a ‘freegan’ approach, allowing myself to have food containing dairy/eggs that is free, which largely comes from a food waste society I’m involved with (more on this later), I see this as not at all supporting the production of these things while also cutting down on food waste. For me this doesn’t extend to meat as I don’t have any desire to eat it and for that reason I can see why others wouldn’t want to adopt freeganism.
So far this has been going well for me, in the last 20 years the number of plant based products available at supermarkets has expended extensively which has definitely aided this transition for me. Some of my favourite vegan products are:
In the Garden
Since July I’ve been renting a flat that has a garden! I’ve been so grateful for this and have been trying to make the most of it. I’ve been growing herbs all Summer (rosemary, thyme, basil, dill, oregano, ginger-mint) and I’ve tried growing a few veggies, which have been assaulted by slugs, cat pee and drought when I’ve been away. A few didn’t make it but today I harvested a celery and 2 teenie weenie beetroots. I’m really proud of them and excited to eat them. Next year I’m hoping to have more success as I’ll be able to start planting earlier on.
After harvesting my veg I got on with planting a selection of spring bulbs that my dad sent me! It’s getting a bit late in the year for it, so take this as your sign to put yours in if you’d like some flowers to look forward to in spring! I planted mixed varieties of daffodils, alliums and tulips. I’ll update with some pictures of them in bloom in a few months time when I’m enjoying them with the pollinators.
I also refilled my bird feeder. I used a mixture of bird food pellets from the store and stale seeds that I got from a zero waste store a couple of years ago that got lost at the back of my cupboard. I hope the birds lime them! There are mixed views on feeding birds as there a worries that it can be harmful to wildlife- I’d advise making sure you’re feeding them safe food, keeping your feeder clean to avoid the spread of disease and making sure to put food out consistently as sudden withdrawal of food can be harmful.
Soft Plastic Recycling
This one is very simple! I’ve been collecting all the soft plastics I would usually put into my general waste bin. They’re all folded/scrunched up into an empty bread bag under my sink! Every time I finish a packet of crisps or a bag of carrots I check the back of the bag to see if it says recycle at the supermarket- if it does it goes in the bread bag. This is an incredibly small change to my daily life, the bag is now almost full so I will soon be taking it on my next trip to the supermarket. This is probably the easiest change I could recommend to anyone who is interested.
Wellbeing
Last year I began volunteering with wellbeing (instagram: @wellbeingcafesheff). They are a student run society that works with local supermarkets to reduce food waste by redistributing food that is no longer sellable. Once a week they produce a buffet style meal and host an activity, with a recommended charity donation of £2. For a while I’ve been volunteering in the kitchen at wellbeing but recently I’ve been helping more with the running of activities. 3 weeks ago we had a bookswap (I swapped books with the lovely my.nutiae [ I’m also currently reading ‘The Three Body Problem’ leant to me by day2day-moral-ambiguities check out my Reading list) and the last 2 weeks we have done group knitting and crotchet.
I thrifted a few pairs of knitting needles for beginners to use and my local wool shop (instagram: @thelostsheepwoolshop) kindly donated all the wool! I’ve felt so touched by the amount of people getting involved and eager to learn and I’ve loved watching my friends take up knitting so passionately. This week I finally finished a scarf I’ve been knitting for my partner! It’s navy blue and the wool is a blend of bamboo and sheep.
Something I’ve learnt how to do this week is use a laser cutter!! My dear friend Alifeee gave me a wonderful lesson at Hackspace. Hackspace is a very cool place, it’s a community workshop which enables access to a lot of cool tools and equipment- check out if there is one near you! I used the laser cutter to make a quick test run keyring and then a suggestion box for wellbeing! Hopefully on Monday it will see it’s first use and get some interesting ideas posted through!
New Clothes
Recently I’ve felt a bit fed up with my wardrobe, I was craving some colours and patterns. I decided to allow myself a couple of thrift trips to pick out some new tops and items I love to add some new life into my outfits. Now thrifting is nothing new but I was pleased to get all new items second hand. I will try and add some photos into this post but I may need some technology help first. I think most importantly everything I got were things I loved, not part of a social media trend which seems to have an ever decreasing lifespan, before it becomes overdone and uncool. This means I will hopefully be able to enjoy them for years to come.
Now as for some of my other clothes, I’ve got some pairs of trousers that no longer fit and a few things that don’t feel like ‘me’ anymore. I’m planning on taking these to a clothes swap at wellbeing (dtbc). With any that don’t get taken I will pass on to my university’s swap shop! Where I can look for something I would like to exchange them for.
Salt and Spices
My partners dad loves an organic bulk buy- he kindly gifted me some of his new salt, herb mix and white pepper corn recently! I took these home and got out those glass jars from my cupboard that secretly breed and multiply when I’m away. I filled them up to give them something to do and used some stickers to label/decorate the jars :)
Outro
That’s all for now, I will hopefully continue to update this as I continue to try new things!
You are important.