Living low waste: reality check

If you're looking around on the blogosphere and even more so on social media, living low waste can look like a dream life. Nice beautiful garden, beautiful shelves with streamlined glass jars in which shelf stable, package free bought foods are stored, not to mention the perfect white empty uncluttered kitchens. I can go on but you probably get what image I'm talking about. That might be true for some people, and I'm not saying there's something wrong with very nice looking kitchens and gardens. However, my problem with this image being created is that's not the reality for most environmentally conscious people. Showing these kind of picture perfect lives will trick people into thinking that they're not ready yet to live more green and frugal because they're not yet living in the perfect house or without the perfect monthly salary. I think quite a few of our low waste practices are very un-aesthetic. Reused glass jars (and not all looking the same...), reused tins with some reused "disposable" straws and ice cream stick, reused plastic bread bags to store homemade bread in the freezer, so many repaired objects. And much more. 

My 2nd problem is that people rarely talk about the work that goes into such a lifestyle. This morning I was emptying a 10 KG sack of laundry detergent into smaller containers - one regular container with a lid and the others were cleaned, empty washing up liquid jugs (of 5 litres each, I filled two to the rims and the 3rd for about half). I kind of underestimated how long that took and had to clean up the kitchen afterwards. Yes, of course I used a funnel but still this can get quite messy. We still bother to buy those sacks because the cost per load of laundry is about half the price compared to when we buy smaller bags. I also find it important to use as minimal package materials as possible- there's a difference between 20 smaller bags or one big bag. The bigger bag we can just use as a trash bag, whereas with the smaller bags, I haven't found any other way to reuse. And I was just thinking about how (most) other people go to the store and just buy a bottle of detergent and they're good to go. 

Anyway, this got me thinking about how much physical work goes actually in such a lifestyle. One might think 'well it's just a sack of 10 KG powdered detergent which will probably last a year or so'. Which is true, but then again it's not just this detergent- it's a lot more. Conserving as much water as possible, something we're very big at, already is a chore in and of itself- I usually reuse the rinsing water of our dishes to flush the toilet, and I reuse the water of washing vegetables to water our tree and plants. Doing household chores my way is probably quite different from how a lot of  people do it. I don't necessarily say that others do it wrong, I just like to do these things as energy efficient as possible. For example, we don't have a dryer (absolutely unnecessary in the dry climate that we live in where you can even line dry outside during the winter), so I hang up all our laundry. That includes a lot of reusables for which other people would use disposables. I can honestly admit that I don't like hanging up so many cleaning wipes/unpaper towels. But then again I just can NOT use disposables. So despite the work it still gives me a lot of joy and contentment. Cleaning the floors is also something that most people will take for granted with appliances. I don't vacuum, but not for frugality or environmental reasons. I just can't stand the sound. So our floor gets cleaned the old fashioned way, which is a lot more time consuming. (FYI, we do have a vacuum which my husband uses every so often to clean the sofas and the car - as long as I can't hear it, that is 😆). I must say that with housework being more laborious, the benefit is obviously that you're getting a workout for free. And as silly as it might  seem, your brains get a workout too! There have been various studies about physical labour being good for your brains (don't ask me about the specific details though), so all in all that's a win win situation I'd say!

The most work, however, probably goes into making our food. I don't make ALL of our food, and I honestly think that's rather an unattainable goal in this era. But we try to do our best. I have to make sure we don't run out of homemade bread, buttermilk, peanut butter - some of the staples in our house. And then I cook homemade meals, ferment, make desserts from scratch, store bulk bought and packaging free foods, rotate our stockpile, make condiments, make a year supply of garlic paste, jam etc. So this probably takes up a large amount of my time. Which is ok- this is, and always has been, a conscious decision. But, I think it must be said that this type of lifestyle just can be time consuming, which is something not everyone is anticipating. 

Sometimes people just need to be aware of the real life aspects of certain lifestyles, not just dreaming about picture perfect situations. It's not my intent to complain at all. As long as it's a conscious decision, I think we should accept the nicer and less nice parts of our lives.