Switching to an eco-friendly lifestyle isn’t the easiest thing done. It takes time to find the products you like, in your budget, that actually work. It feels daunting, images of people posting their pretty zero waste mason jars filled with barely anything as the trash they accumulated the entire year (which, by the way, is total, absolute bullshit). You wonder how you can switch to the bar shampoo, usually sitting at $14, when you can barely afford that cheap $3 shampoo at the grocery store. You have no idea where to start and what to do, what makes the biggest impact and if you’re actually helping the planet.
It’s a lot. But, it really, really doesn’t have to be.
There are so many things that we’ve switched to doing, or not doing, in order to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Some things have been tweaked as they weren’t as sustainable as I thought, being that we couldn’t keep doing it and it didn’t fit well into our lives. While there is so much that we are doing, it still feels like we are not doing enough, which is a cyclical nightmare you can get stuck in unless you’re an asshole who owns 5 yachts and two private planes. Just one yacht is good enough, guys.
Instead of freaking out over whether or not you’re doing everything you can, know that you’re still doing the best that you can. Stop, Breathe. And, try again.
When I was phasing out plastic wrap in our home, I still had a huge box of plastic wrap that I used often. It was that behemoth from Costco and it felt like it would never be finished. I still had a good year or give left on that thing, but I jumped on buying beeswax wraps, thinking that they would be an absolute saviour and get us off of the plastic wrap train. I tried local and not so local and gave them a shot with some foods, saving the plastic wrap for meat and when I was out of beeswax wraps or got too lazy to clean them right away. I felt like such an eco-friendly star and told everyone to give them a try…even though they didn’t always stick well, washing them was a pain, and I couldn’t use them on all foods.
It’s 5 years later and I have zero beeswax wraps in my house. I also have zero plastic wrap. Instead, I have bowl covers and containers, some plastic, some not (because using what you have first is always the best option). I’m glad I bought the beeswax to try them out while I still owned plastic wrap. They didn’t work for us, which meant I would’ve just high-tailed it back to the plastic wrap life and never looked back. Instead, I pivoted and found new ways to store my food and now don’t miss the ‘ease’ of plastic wrap.
When I switched to bamboo toothbrushes, I still had plastic ones sitting in my drawer. Thinking the same as my plastic wrap, I tested out the bamboo seeing if I liked one product over another. Finally, I found what worked for us in regards to price point and feel. It may have felt weird to use a plastic toothbrush after months of brushing with a bamboo one, but it felt good at the same time because I had found something that I liked enough that using anything else was disappointing.
It’s easy to just jump to a store and start grabbing plastic-free products and cleaner beauty items, but not every single product works for every single household. And, heading to a store to buy every single thing eco-friendly really only works if you have lots of money to spend and don’t need to stay on a budget. Like everything you buy for yourself or your home, it’s all trial and error. After a couple of decades of dressing myself and picking out my clothes, I finally know what fits me and that I don’t need to stray from my brands, fabrics, or cuts. I know what coffee I like after trying many, and I know which shampoo bars work better than others and better than the plastic bottles.
Throwing away that less than friendly item may seem like a good idea, but using up what you already have while you find something to replace it is better for the environment, your wallet, and your habits.
Juniper and Daisies 