We have gone beyond the point of no return in living a more sustainable life. Not there yet by far, just booked a plane ticket to see my bff in Canada coming Feb, but inconsistently living more within our planetary limits. And this is costly, not just in terms of money, but let’s be fair we’re not paying the true price by far yet anyway. But also in time, it simply costs more time to live more sustainable. Let me make a list of some of the things we do that cost us more time:
- We try to do as much as possible by bike or foot, also when it rains, there’s only bad clothing no bad weather.
- We don’t use a dryer, in summer we use the sun and wind and in winter the laundry fills our attic. Upside: we don’t (need to) iron which is also a energy saver again.
- Refillable handsoap, the pump needs cleaning every now and then. The container needs to be refilled with water and 2 tablets.
- We order and pick up produce from local organic farmers, ordering is easy online, but pick up is fixed on a 1 hour time window on Saturdays. We also volunteer 1 hr a month to keep this organization going locally. Upside: 77% of our money goes straight to the organic farmers, 10% goes to the local organizer and there’s a 13% platform fee.
- The produce from the organic farmers needs to be cleaned, there’s actual dirt and the occasional baby slug hiding in our veggies. Upside: we eat more with the seasons and get inspired by whatever is available. Love that.
- Next spring we’ll upgrade our own vegetable garden beyond the tomatoes and zucchinis we had this year and plant a lot more.
- I try to make as many personal care products myself, and keep adding product to this list. I recently stumbled upon this webshop in NL which sells ingredients but also offers great recipes, a community, and for the non-DIYers they sell finished products.
Why have we gone beyond the point of no return in our sustainable life? Because we are aware now, we can’t and don’t want to close our eyes for the suffering that goes behind cheap, plastic, single use products and non-organic produce. And let’s be honest here, the time I used to save by using and buying these products wasn’t spent on doing more sports, meditation, work, or family life. It was spent on Netflix or other screen-time. And all the listed chores above work perfectly well with headphones on and a good podcast or together with kids.