It’s April and I’m sleeping with my window open. It’s April and its 23 degree weather when I look at my phone. It’s April and I’m sat at my computer in a strap dress looking outside at the beaming sunshine getting excited for festival season…and it’s too soon.
I can’t actually enjoy this weather because although I live for the sun and we don’t get it as often as we’d like in the UK…it’s too soon. I put my plants outside on the first day of sunshine and their leaves are already turning yellow with dehydration. I am a poor plant mother and have unkindly left them out there because it makes me think of those in dryer, harsher conditions. People who can’t pop downstairs for some cold filtered water or have electricity to plug in a fan to avoid sweat.
I had someone stay with me recently who is HELLA vegan. Not in a boring preachy way, just in a – walk the talk kind of way. He walked everywhere, didn’t buy from supermarkets, didn’t wear leather and was just…living in a responsible thoughtful way. It made me realise that I’d fallen into that trap of ‘well I recycle so that’s probably enough’ but I know it’s not. We all know it’s not…it’s convenient. Convenient for us to separate our plastics from glass and put it outside for someone else to take away and find a solution for.
If you are one of the fantastic Extinction Rebellion, I commend and support you wholeheartedly and will be joining when I’m next in London. What you are doing is bold, courageous and inspiring. This peaceful disruption reflects what is needed to tackle climate change perfectly. Reordering our lifestyles, our values, our commitments, our appreciation and understanding of the world and our responsibility to it.
I don’t think it has to be an all or nothing approach. There’s a few small steps I’ve taken to reduce my waste and try to encourage myself to be a bit more thoughtful every day. There’s far more that can do be but here are my top 3 for now:
- 1. Marie Kondo ‘d the shit out of my house. I put off watching this series because I knew as soon as I did I would lose days Tidying Up and SURPRISE that’s exactly what happened. Over the Easter Holiday’s instead of sunning myself in the park I’ve been inside decluttering and I’m so happy I did. I’m 5 bin liners in and it feels great because it’s just loads of…stuff? Clothing especially that I’ve accumulated over the years that I don’t need or wear or need more of. I will be organising a clothes swap in May for them though because bun contributing to yet more landfill.
- 2. Invested in some environmentally friendly, re-usable every days bits. I’m a sucker for late night shopping when I should be sleeping but one of the biggest problems I have with it is the amount of packaging everything comes in. After a midnight shopping spree delivered 4 tiny items in more packaging than could fit in my normal bin I thought no… So I’ve stopped shopping there and have instead turned this habit to eco friendly websites where I picked up the following….
- 3. Buying food from ethical sources. I’m constantly trying to be vegetarian because I hate the effect that mass meat production has on the planet. Not to mention the atrocious conditions most animals are kept in. Unfortunately I get very anaemic very quickly if I cut out meat entirely no matter how many supplements I take (I’ve got Floradix, Vitamin C and Iron tablets and orange juice which I take with the above. If anyone has any other tips, please let me know.) I don’t have a problem with eating meat if you’re prepared to love it, kill it and eat it. If you’re appreciating the animal, where it came from and the life it led before it reached you I find that a very different dynamic to going to the supermarket and buying a pile of cheap, hormone injected meat from a caged animal with no quality of life. Now, I don’t have a farm and I haven’t been butchering but I HAVE been making sure that any meat I buy comes from Field and Flower. A gorgeous door knocker came to my house roughly 4 years ago who I entertained purely because I couldn’t deprive of his dreamy face and yet the more he talked the more I listened. By the end I was signing up to a box and cursing my thirst for being pulled into a meat box subscription service but I’ve honestly never looked back. Real farmers rearing happy, healthy animals – butchering on site and only delivering on certain days to cut down on CO2 emissions and the meat itself is incredibly fairly priced and tastes 1000 times better than anything from a supermarket. They also provide fish, cheese, condiments and have a variety of boxes depending on what’s best for your needs. If you put Ngaio Anyia in at the discount code screen you’ll get 20% off your first order too 😘
I’m always looking for ways to be more sustainable and get some advice on how to be more environmentally conscious so if anyone has tips please let me know. If you’re just starting out on the sustainable journey, let me know if this has been helpful. Change starts with a step 🐾
