, Why do natural products fit so well with a sustainable lifestyle? The short answer is that the more processing and packaging required to make a product ready for use, the less friendly it is to the environment. More processing means more energy use. More packaging means more trash.
How many packaged products do you bring home every day? Every week? How many do you use every day, in your own home and at work, at social events, running errands? I know my answer: a lot. Recycling at home is a great way to reduce bad effects of so much paper and plastic. We all know, however, that recycling is not an option everywhere we go.
The reason most of us use so many products is just that we don’t know how to think any differently. Our culture consumes and disposes at an amazing level, and we have all based our daily habits on the convenience of these products that we use.
Convenience is important. You don’t have to start sewing your own clothes and jarring your own jelly. My mom used to sew my and my sister’s clothes, which was both frugal and weird, even in the 80′s when everything else was weird too. That’s not a tradition I’ll be carrying on for my children. But I will start some new traditions and I hope you will, too.
- I will not buy fifteen different specialty products when one or two will do.
- I will recycle the plastic packages I bring into my home.
- I will buy in bulk what I can afford and store.
- I will not believe everything the marketers tell me.
- I will not believe everything the marketers tell me.
- I will not believe everything the marketers tell me.
- I will look for something I already have to meet a new need before I buy a new product.
- I will challenge myself to live for a time without products I use, just to see how necessary they are.
- I will remind myself that availability does not equal necessity. I don’t have to have it just because it is there.
- I will look for ways to consolidate, declutter, and simplify the routines of my daily life.
Image Credit: debaird
