The beginner guide to sustainable living series I

 Transforming to a sustainable lifestyle can be really overwhelming and frustrating for a new starter. This is essentially because our lives are so much filled with things wrapped up in plastic. Also, major set of things that we use are so convenient to use due to its disposable nature, it is really hard to give up on them. But once you are able to switch to eco-friendly alternatives, there would not be any looking back because you feel less burden of the trash that you leave behind and it is the most exhilarating feeling that you can experience as a nature lover.

I would highly recommend to start these practices with your family members, involve young kids in the house also. This ensures that your initiatives take a good shape when this becomes a group activity and you always have another person to check in case you are losing the direction. In contrary, it is possible that you family member might not be very convinced to start these practices or not a be comfortable doing it, in which case, you will need to have patience and keep doing thing that you can without getting into much conflict. Not all people are driven in exact similar way or compelled by the impact on environment, so go easy with your family members and give them their time.

Step one is to observe. It might sound like a silly exercise but it is also a very important one in the start of this journey. You should do this every day for the whole week.

Observe Your Trash

You can take responsibility to hand over trash to your house keeping for a week so you will not forget to do this exercise. Take a good look at your trash bin. Observe what kind of things you are throwing into your trash bin

This is a very essential step because your trash is the reflection of your whole lifestyle and even your health. If 70% or more of your trash comprises of kitchen waste, then it is a good indicator of a healthy lifestyle too. On the other hand, if it is opposite, then you might be too much dependent on ready to eat, packet food and you might seriously need to reconsider some options that will be good for the health of your body as well as planet.

Observe your surrounding

Whenever you step out for walk, shopping or going to your office. Just disconnect from your mobile and bring awareness to your surroundings. Pay attention to the trash that might have thrown around.

Again, this exercise is to remind ourself, what we should and what we shouldn’t throw out. How does it feel to be living in the society, city and office premises which looks filthy due to our irresponsible human behaviour, you may not be directly responsible but it is a realization of what is not acceptable and later start working towards it.

Observe your wardrobe

It is highly likely that you have already done this many times but this time you should observe with a different objective. When observing your wardrobe, observe what kind of things are lying there and how frequently you use them. During covid times it might not exactly makes sense but think about pre-covid time and take a note of clothes and accessories you have regularly used and things that you didn’t used even once in a year.

Generally, it has been observed that pareto principle holds true in this case, meaning you use 20% of the clothes 80% of the time and if that applies to your collection then there is a huge amount of work to be done here.

All these three observations are important before you start your sustainable journey because it creates the roadmap for you. And unless you have awareness and realization that there is a lot of trash in your surrounding not just outside but also inside, you will not be convinced to work towards it. So get started with this exercise and I will bring up next blog, which will define next steps.