Live Green | Declutter | Simplify Life
What do cucumbers have in common with cosmetics, toys, electronics accessories and many online purchases? If you guessed too much packaging, you’re right!
As someone who strives to reduce waste and live a more sustainable life, excessive packaging is a personal pet peeve of mine. We are starting to see some improvement in this area, but change is slow.
This year, instead of giving up the usual things like chocolate or potato chips for Lent, I decided to do something I had been thinking about for a while – a Buy Nothing Challenge. How hard would it be to avoid all non-essential purchases for six weeks?
In today’s post, I’ll recap my experience and share what I learned from the Buy Nothing Challenge.
Lent starts on Wednesday. Every year since I was a child, I’ve heard the question “What are you giving up for Lent?”. This year, instead of giving up the standard temptations like potato chips, candy or alcohol, I’ve decided to do something different. I’m going to try a Buy Nothing Challenge.
In 2020, I set a goal to buy no new clothing for the year. Since then, I’ve been thinking about expanding that to a Buy Nothing Challenge. Lent feels like a good opportunity to give it a try.
In late 2020, we had a run of bad luck at our house. In a three-month period, we replaced our water heater, our stove and our washing machine. That experience made me wonder if anything is built to last in our disposable world.
At this time of year, our thoughts turn to back-to-school shopping. This time of year is big business for retailers. If you search “back-to-school shopping list”, you will find a lot of suggestions. But is everything on that list really necessary? Today, I suggest a dozen items you probably don’t need to buy every year.
January’s waste reduction goal is to eliminate disposable shopping bags. This simple change can reduce a lot of waste. Think about it. If you make two trips to the store each week and use an average of five disposable bags on each visit, that’s over 500 bags a year.
