Friday 22 April 2022 | Earth Day: minimalism, sustainability and keeping it simple

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I feel like I'm on a journey, sometimes, one of those journeys where you get lost and then pass the same place again and you're not sure whether you recognise it because you were lost there before or because it's the right way to get to where you want to be.

The main thing for me is working towards a simple life. One where most things are sorted so I don't have to think about them any more. At the same time, I like the occasional reset - a new year is an obvious one - to reflect and change things up a little.

Earth Day is one of those helpful reset days for me, a chance to think about how well are my day to day activities aligned with a simple life. This year, I took a look at Take the Jump as my refresh on the journey to a simple life.

The Jump is based on research which shows what people in wealthy countries (like England where I am) need to do within the next ten years to help minimise climate change. It acknowledges that governments and large businesses can have the biggest impact, but individuals need to change, too.

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Clear, Constructive, impactful, doable

The six shifts we need to make are:

  • end clutter - keep products and gadgets for at least seven years.
  • travel fresh - if you can, no personal vehicles.
  • eat green - a plant-based diet, healthy amount, no waste.
  • dress retro - three new items of clothing a year.
  • holiday local - one flight every three years (eight years for long-haul)
  • at least one life shift to change the system.

Each section has a bit about the science, what we need to do and some suggestions for the changes we can make.

End Clutter

This is mainly focused on electronic gadgets like phones, and proposes keeping your phone for a minimum of seven years. I guess it also applies to other electronic equipment like computers and tablets and I would extend it to other household items and equipment. I have two items waiting for repair: a laptop (three years old) and my fridge freezer (six years old).

Travel Fresh

My lovely old car is about 21 years old now and starts first time, every time. I intend to keep it for as long as it continues to work and the garage is able to replace the parts. I could organise my chores better, so that generally I'm only using it once a week and get everything done then.

Eat Green

I do eat mainly a plant-based diet, especially as I am interested in the health science behind it. I have started buying meat from an organic farm and tried the game hamper this year ... I'm not sure that contributed to a simple life as finding recipes and persuading family members to try something new was quite stressful! I grow my own through the summer and the big change I would like to make here over the next two years is growing and preserving more of my own food.

Dress Retro

I wrote in a previous post about using Oxfam online, especially for coats and jackets. My wardrobe is fairly sustainable: I tend to save for things and I buy in the sales (ie when there are limited items which is good for my decision-making; and because these are things that may end in landfill). I'm not sure how limiting new purchases to three a year is going to account for underwear ...

Holiday Local

Well, we've been forced into this a little, haven't we? 😁. I have a sister in Europe who I like to visit regularly, and I'm planning a trip to the Caribbean. Perhaps I could moderate these by making less frequent journeys but staying for longer when I go, and maybe combining the trip with some local travel by boat or train when I am there. Especially now that working remotely is much more accepted.

Change the System

There's a raft of things to do here, many about consumer choice: choosing green energy suppliers, green pension funds etc and about activism. I try to spend my money where it will make a difference: for household shopping, the majority goes to small, local, independent suppliers. I try to include environmental items when I'm invited to respond to customer satisfaction surveys.

Keeping It Simple

I grew up in a different time: all the adults around me had been through the 1939-1945 World War and rationing and had a different mindset about consumption. Nothing, especially not food, was wasted and as much as possible was conserved. For my aunt, living next door, nothing pleased her more than rummaging in one of her cupboards and finding the very thing that you needed.

The downside of that can be hoarding, keeping everything "just in case". I find this a dead weight, having to think about all those things, having them cluttering my space and my mind. I like having enough, and having nice things, but I don't want to be weighed down with caring for and protecting them.

In this world, unlike when I grew up, it is easy to acquire things, even without trying: flyers and catalogues come through the door, festivals and events give you badges and totes and lanyards. If you have any kind of interest, you tend to accumulate associated items or people give them to you.

It is hard to keep it simple and, sometimes, to live a minimalist life.

Thoughts in response to option three in The MINIMALIST ideas post for this week.

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Three things newbies should do in their first week and, for most things, forever afterwards!

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Hello @shanibeer,
I absolutely LOVE your take on this topic. Thanks for bringing the "Take the Jump" mission to the community. Travel Fresh; I could not agree more. I'm surprised by the rate that people change cars here in the UK, and other places in general.
They have some great principles that could lead to positive change for a simple life indeed.

I feel like I'm on a journey, sometimes, one of those journeys where you get lost and then pass the same place again and you're not sure whether you recognise it because you were lost there before or because it's the right way to get to where you want to be.

You have said this so well🙌

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Glad you enjoyed it @millycf1976.
The prompts are a nice way of gathering my thoughts 🙂

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I think so too. They help me to do the same. I ran out of time this week to make a contribution, but I'll submit one for the next set of topics.
They will be presented tomorrow morning. I get the feeling that you will have an interesting input :)

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I hadn't heard of this initiative before so it must be a European thing perhaps? It still reads as a "middle class and up in rich countries" thing to me because a lot of these, poor people can't afford, wealthy surrounding country or no.

end clutter - keep products and gadgets for at least seven years.
...I generally do that but we also have to talk to electronics manufacturers about planned obsolescence because a lot of it is "we've decided not to support that device anymore and you can't upgrade it and it's designed to break" in regards to phones and computers. Like right now, I need to find money to buy a new phone by this summer, not because a single thing is wrong with my current phone, but because it only goes up to 3G and the US has decided to turn off 3G towers this year.

travel fresh - if you can, no personal vehicles.
...never have owned a car in my life, can't afford one. Would like an ebike, would make my life a ton easier.

eat green - a plant-based diet, healthy amount, no waste.
...was veg for over a decade, can't anymore due to allergies, but even then it's mostly dairy products and only a pound or two of meat per month. Meat and dairy is expensive, and artificially so here in the US for the dairy as they actually produce a surplus and the govt buys it to artificially inflate the price. And poor people generally can't afford to waste food. I have had panic attacks if I had to throw something out.

dress retro - three new items of clothing a year.
...I actually hit that mark last year due to poverty. I have bought underwear this year though, and so as your thoughts imagine, I've already crossed the number. But they're organic cotton and fair trade underwear!

holiday local - one flight every three years (eight years for long-haul)
...poor people don't generally get to fly anywhere or take vacations. I've been on a plane 4 times in my life (8 if you count back-and-forth as separate) and it was only because someone else bought me a ticket (visit family x2; family wedding x1; friend wedding x1). So given that I'll be 44 this summer that's "one flight every 11 years" and would be zero if it came out of my own pocket.

at least one life shift to change the system.
...do these fairly frequently, little activist heart that I am.

I mean like, I'm sure this applies to the majority in rich countries, but a lot of the time I read these eco-advice things and I'm like "bold of you to assume I have money for those luxuries." 😂 I just read some article that said I think 1/3 of Americans earn 30k a year or less, which is NOT A LOT TO LIVE ON when about half of that amount is going to be just your rent.

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My take on the initiative was that it is attempting to address specific problems. The website has suggestions about how to do intermediate things, much like we've had no-buy months (rather than years) in Saturday Savers Club. The end clutter is especially around phones and the push to upgrade frequently, even though there is nothing wrong with your current phone. I think we have legislation in this country now about domestic appliances - that manufacturers must provide repairs and are required to re-cycle obsolete items. (Couldn't find the link, sorry).

We've known about private vehicles for years but:

  • people don't want to give up their cars.
  • our public transport sector is a mess and horribly expensive to use.

We do have some good changes here, though: for a long time you have been able to hire bikes in London and some other cities - just pick them up from one stand, do your journey and drop them at another stand. I noticed in Canterbury the other day that you could hire escooters next to the rail station - great idea for a tourist town. And we have zip cars and vans in some places, where you just hire the car from a street location in your neighbourhood by the hour. In Leicester, there is a lot of infrastructure work going on to make it safer and more pleasant and convenient to walk or cycle (or scoot, I guess).

I balked at the clothing ambition - I think the one that you talked about in your end of year clothing audit was much more realistic. I've had a fairly conservative approach to buying clothes and it's still been an average of more than three items a year, although probably not more than twelve on average including underwear. That seems to me more realistic and do-able. Again, I think the initiative is trying to focus on the massive over-consumption of fast fashion and tackling the likes of Boohoo and Shein with their associated labour and human rights issues, as well as environmental ones.

I was thinking that it may be a little like health and safety training - health and safety at work improves immediately after training but then declines over a period of time, so it has to be repeated at intervals (and, I guess, in a new and refreshing way, otherwise it is pointless). Maybe it is the same with evironmental shifts, there is a need for constant refresh, both to remind folks and to bring in new people. Maybe a bit like having Veganuary(?) in January?

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Yeah I agree that the clothes number that was I think a dozen as the average in the 80s is more doable.

I was thinking that it may be a little like health and safety training - health and safety at work improves immediately after training but then declines over a period of time, so it has to be repeated at intervals

You're probably right about that. And if you think about it, real change comes from making habit changes one or a few at a time, not a whole-life overhaul all at once where you feel overwhelmed and like it's too hard and so you can't sustain it. Dieting is that way; people who are like THAT'S IT I'M THROWING OUT ALL THE JUNK FOOD AND BUYING MORE VEGETABLES THAN I CAN CONCEIVABLY EAT ...generally fall off the wagon and feel like it's impossible, but if you make a goal like "I'm going to do Meatless Mondays and limit myself to one soda per day instead of three" or whatever your goal may be, that's easier to maintain and make it a real lifestyle habit. Then once you've made it normal, then maybe you can add in something like, "now I'm going to try cooking a new recipe once a week" or whatever gets you closer to your healthy eating goals.

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