Generation Why?

There comes a time in everyone's life when they learn the word "Why?" It happened to all of us.  Soon enough this magical word appears in our vocabulary and we decide to use it as much as possible. "Eat up all your vegetables"

"Why?"

"Because it's important to eat them to stay healthy"

"Why?"

"Because they have lots of nutrients in them which are good for us"

"Why?"

Sigh....

As an adult it is a chance to educate any inquisitive youngster on the ways of the world but after about the 4th round you've usually thrown in the towel. It's amazing that at a young age we wanted to question everything. Anything we were told had to have a logical answer. If it didn't we couldn't comprehend why we had to do to it. Makes perfect sense.

Recently I realised that I had stopped using "Why" as much as I used to....Why?

I stopped questioning things as much, I stopped asking why at the things society expected of me. When people responded with "that's what people do" I shrugged and got on with it.  No self respecting five year old would let you get away with that as an answer so why did I, what happened to that curious young child?

Recently however that why has come back with a vengeance.

Since learning about Permaculture my mindset has changed and why is now everywhere I go trying to muscle its way onto the scene. Why do I eat food that is sprayed with chemicals? Why do I spend my money on large, faceless corporations over local, independent organisations? Why do I buy things that are wrapped in plastic?

It's a powerful word. When you start to ask why at every small task you complete, no matter how mundane, you see things in a different light. In fact, why, is responsible for the majority of the world's greatest inventions or breakthroughs. Isaac Newton, asked why does an apple fall from a tree towards the ground? Charles Darwin, asked why do species on one island differ to those on another nearby island?  Why also highlights where society's expectations of you are guiding your decisions rather than things that you really believe in.

Thing about why is it's a sneaky little bastard. It's very easy to ask the question but it can be much harder to answer it truthfully. Excuses can disguise themselves as honesty. "I'm working five days a week because I need the money" or "I buy things in plastic because there's no other option". I've used these many a time. The truth for me was that I actually could survive working 4 days a week and reducing my plastic consumption has been far easier than I thought it would be.

I haven't got it all figured out, I'm at the beginning of this journey not the end. If you never step foot out the door you'll never reach the top of the mountain. You don't need to act on the answers but just simply start asking why a little more often and see where it leads you.

You don't need to wait for an election to vote

Elections. That amazingly democratic time that comes around every four years or so and gives us, the people, a chance to have our voices heard, to show the elite that we are in charge and to bring about the changes we want to see. All great and valid points as to why we should vote, except, four years is a long time to wait to have your voice heard. Why wait when you have the ability to vote with your actions and your money every single day. If you get angry about oil spills, use less fuel.

If you disagree with the amount of plastic polluting the planet, reduce your plastic consumption.

If deforestation makes you sad, be careful where your wood, palm oil, meat or soya are sourced.

If water shortages and droughts keep you up at night, use less water.

If corporate tax dodging seems unfair, give your money to small, independent, local businesses instead.

If you are concerned about the dwindling fish numbers, eat responsibly sourced fish (or none at all).

If the banking industry seems corrupt, where are your savings?

If Genetically Modified foods make you nervous, buy organic.

If the exploitation of miners across the world seems unjust, consider where your electronics and jewellery  come from?

If child labour seems cruel, don't buy cheap clothes.

There are a lot of problems in the world and if we continue to support them with our actions and money they will continue to be problems. Vote everyday and we can start to see real change.

A Month of Sunrises

According to the UN 54% of the world's population live in cities, a figure that is only expected to increase.  Man made dominates in the city, a concrete jungle of traffic, wifi, and pollution in all it's forms are ever present. Nature doesn't get much of a look in except in our small backyards, parks, or tree lined roads. Which means that an increasing number of the world's population are not getting a daily connection to nature. I am one of them. With this realisation I wanted to see if there was a way to connect with nature on a daily basis while remaining very much in the city and in my regular routine. I decided I would watch the sunrise every day for a month. It wouldn't be a big connection, it would undoubtedly be better if I could go off and climb a mountain every day, but it would be a closer connection than if I did nothing which was a step int he right direction. Now I should make one thing clear, I have never been a morning person. I have very strongly been in the 'snooze until it is almost impossible to get where you need to go in time' category. I always wanted to be a morning person, it's just the evening version of myself with all the good intentions to get up early differed from the morning version of myself who had control of the snooze button. The same "morning me" definitely put up a strong case as to why I should stay in bed at 5:20am when the alarm went off on the first day of July. But as I climbed up onto my roof with the all important cup of tea carefully balanced in one hand and sat watching the sun lazily creep up over the horizon,  I wondered why I didn't do this every morning. The city is a very different place at that time of day. A blanket of peacefulness drapes over an otherwise hectic scene. People create a lot of noise when they are awake, it is amazing how many other things you can hear when most of us are asleep, especially the birds. I guess every time I had been up at that time of day I was in a rush to go somewhere, I had never simply sat and observed. But the birds of the city put on an impressive daily performance to a sleeping audience.

As the month went by I started to notice other changes in the environment that I would have otherwise missed. A foggy day had far more consequences on my morning than before as it made for a dull view. For a few days in a row the city even had smoke from a nearby forest fire block the view entirely. I had to, rather happily, adjust my alarm clock each morning to account for the slightly later sunrise and noticed the sun start to edge her way south as the days grew marginally shorter. All of these are things I knew happened but I had never sat to experience the subtle changes myself.

As for all the negatives of getting up early none really manifested. I wasn't constantly exhausted, if anything I felt refreshed. I was able to establish a morning routine with far less distractions and achieve things before my day had usually started. The biggest lesson from all this however was that you don't have to make big changes to change. You don't need to quit your job and live in a cabin in the woods to be connected to nature. The smallest actions can be enough to put you a step closer to where you want to go. If you take lots of small steps soon enough you'll have run a marathon.

Connect and learn about food without growing it yourself

Living in a city isn't ideal for growing your own food. I have been city bound for several years in London and now Vancouver. I have always wanted to grow my own food and become a little more connected to the whole process but time or space has often offered me enough of an excuse to avoid starting. This is the first year I have ever really prioritised learning about food. It's strange, with hindsight, to think it has taken me 32 years to get around to learning about something I am so reliant on and interact with every few hours. I still face the same issue of lack of space but this year I have made more time for learning. That extra time has allowed me to start a Permaculture Design Course and volunteer one day every week on an urban farm. While these experiences have taught me a lot about food they have also made me realise that food production can be very time consuming and some people simply don't and never will have the time. But what I have also discovered is that there is still lots of ways to understand, connect with and learn about food than working on a farm. Here are a list of ways you can learn more about your food without growing it yourself.

Avoid the Supermarket. Supermarkets might give off the impression that they are in it to provide healthy, affordable, nutritious meals for you and your family but lets face it, at the end of day they just want your money. The supermarket experience disconnects you from your food. Too much choice, everything wrapped in packaging so it lasts longer, picked way before it's ripe so it ripens on the way to you, lots of waste and staff who often aren't connected to the food supliers. Buying food in a supermarket is a chore and there is very little opportunity to learn about the food you are buying other than the fact it comes with another one free.

Shop at local stores instead of the supermarket. Buy your food from local grocers, delis and butchers. The experience allows you to connect with the food much more as you can ask the staff questions about the food. You'd be surprised how much information the staff in a smaller grocery store can provide if you simply ask. Most are happy to tell you and can even give you advice on other things you might like to try. There is more of an interaction between staff and the food and therefore there is more interaction between you and the food. It is often locally sourced, less packaging and you can ask them to order things in or offer advice on how it should be cooked.

Farmers Markets allow you to speak directly to the person who most likely nurtured that carrot from seed to food. You can ask whether it is organic or not, where it was grown, how big the farm is, how many staff, do they have chickens? All of these interactions allow you to understand the process behind your food getting to your plate which makes eating it much more enjoyable.

Community Supported Agriculture or CSA for short raises the stakes once again. The concept is that you sign up in advance for a share of food for a whole season. The farmers get busy growing the food and you collect the food each week. A CSA directly connects you to your food. You eat seasonal produce that was harvested the same day, you share the experience with the farmer of abundance and shortages, and you taste what real, fresh, nutritious food is supposed to taste like. You can ask all the questions you want, you will build up a relationship with the farmers and you can more than likely actually help harvest the food if you can spare a little bit of time.

Bake, Ferment, Preserve offer relatively quick and easy ways to start understanding your food a little more than just handing over money in exchange. Bake some bread, ferment some cabbage into Sauerkraut or simply preserve some pickles for winter. I can assure you that baked bread tastes considerably better than any store brought bread (N.B. this may only apply to you the baker).

Sprout some seeds. While technically sprouting seeds is growing something it is so amazingly easy and quick to do that I can't think of a good enough excuse for you not to try this at least once. It will cost you next to nothing as all you need is a window sill, a glass jar, water and some seeds. They may not feed your entire family but they offer that connection to seeing food, that you have looked after, grow. It will take you back to being at kindergarten growing cress and you will be just as excited the first time you see the seeds grow. Sprouted seeds are also incredibly nutritious for you too. Here are some great instructions on how to sprout.

I know for some people the cost of food can be the main priority in all of this. While some delis and butchers can be over priced you don't need to buy all of your food from them just a few pieces once every few weeks and sprouting really will not cost you more than the price of a loaf of bread.

If you have any other suggestions for how people can start to better understand their food please share in the comments below.

How to fit a month of waste into a jar

It's been a month since I attempted to reduce my waste and replace my rubbish bin with a 420ml jar. I wanted to share some of the things I learnt during that time. Before I go on, I realised quite early into this challenge that I needed to have some clauses to make it possible.

Clause 1: I did not initially think through the fact that before I started this challenge I already had lots of food, products, etc in my flat. I soon realised that the pre-jar me hadn't been purchasing these products with the aim of fitting the waste into a jar. After almost failing on day 1 due to pre-jar Josh's sins I allowed a clause in the deal. Anything purchased pre-jar went in a separate bin. Anything purchased post went in the jar.

Clause 2: Prior to what you might think from reading these rants I actually don't live alone. Up until now I had shared my bin like any normal human does with their partner. However while my partner was very supportive and got fully onboard with the challenge this jar was only for waste I created. If we shared something that came in plastic it would be cut in half and split into the bins. I realise this seems a bit weird but it's what happened so...

Apart from that everything else went in the jar. It started as only things that I would normally send to landfill would make it into the jar and recyclable plastic would just go in the recycling. But I found that once I had switched my mind to be anti plastic it was just as easy to avoid both forms altogether. Plus while doing a bit of research on plastics and waste I discovered that plastic degrades each time it is recycled and can often only be recycled once at best. So while we think we are recycling and reducing our waste that is often not the case. This article outlines how many times different materials can be recycled.

With this in mind, I found this challenge a little easier than I imagined it would be. I think we are often guilty of imagining the worst of a situation and allow that perceived hardship to stop us even giving something a go. There was even still a bit of space in the jar at the end of the month.

What went into the jar?

Here is a list of things I was unable to avoid or find alternative packaging for:

• 2 pieces of small plastic that go around the top of jars to make them appear sealed. It was only when I got home I realised the jar had this on. I never noticed how many jars have this.
• 1 energy bar wrapper - I went mountain biking and came close to bonking so had to eat it.
• 2 crisp packet wrappers. Fair enough, I could have easily avoided these but I am a sucker for kettle chips so I make no apologies for eating them.
• 1 hidden water filter wrapper. It came in a cardboard box but inside was a plastic bag. It is frustrating how much hidden plastic packaging there is.
• 1 hidden tea wrapper. More hidden packaging that was inside an innocent looking cardboard tea box.
• 1 plastic tofu wrapper. I couldn't find a way of buying tofu that didn't come in plastic. It is actually much easier to eat meat plastic free that things like tofu, tempeh etc.
• 1 sourdough starter wrapper. This has caused endless joy since I activated the sourdough starter so was well worth the plastic. It has also helped me make lots of treats plastic free.
• 1 plastic wrapper on a torch/flashlight. My camping torch broke and as much as I resisted buying a new one I ended up compromising and found one with minimal packaging.
• 2 milk lids. I switched to glass milk bottles but even they came with plastic lids. I found bottled milk the only thing that avoided glass. All soy, almond, etc milks come in very hard to recycle packaging.

That was all of it. The whole month.

How to reduce your waste?

If you would like to reduce your waste here some rules I followed that made it possible:

1. Never take a plastic bag from a store, ever! Always take a reusable bag of some sort with you where ever you go and if you happen to forget then get creative. Stuff pockets, use armpits, teeth, whatever you have to carry your purchases home. It was your mistake to forget the bag so you have to deal with the consequences not the planet!
2. Never go anywhere without a reusable coffee/tea mug (unless you don't have a  coffee/tea problem like me). It isn't a fair trade in my opinion to have one small drink and leave a plastic lid as memory of that drink for hundreds of years.
3. Try to keep bags you can use for bulk supplies on you whenever you go shopping.  Ideally the non plastic kind such as cotton, hemp, bamboo etc. But if you already have some ziploc style bags they will work too.
4. Find stores nearby that sell in bulk. I have been able to find places nearby that sell everything from nuts, rice, pasta and porridge oats to washing detergent, soap, and even toothpaste. It all comes package free as long as you bring your own bag/container (point 3). If you forget your bags then instead of using the plastic bags provided I would just grab a paper mushroom bag from the grocery area and fill that instead. If you live in Vancouver then I highly recommend adding The Soap Dispensary to your shopping routine.
5. Avoid processed and convenience food. I found, most of the time, if it's processed or convenient it will come in non recyclable packaging.
6. Try not to buy fruit and vegetables that are wrapped in plastic. It is worrying how difficult this can be. A lot of supermarkets have opted with the philosophy that plastic makes it look safe/clean/new. The food came from the dirt so a little more isn't really going to hurt anyone.
7. Generally supermarkets = waste so try to find a smaller independent store or market. Often they will buy their produce locally, from smaller farms who don't have the means or need to wrap everything in plastic. Farmers markets are your friend.
8. Buy less stuff.

I am going to continue this challenge to see how long I can keep it going. Each month I will empty the jar and start again. It's been a great exercise in changing my shopping habits and opening my eyes to just how much plastic is out there. I had never realised just how many things come in some form of non recyclable packaging. Having the waste in a clear jar is also a great reminder that this waste is going to be here for many more years than I will be so it makes it a little harder to turn a blind eye. If fitting your waste into a jar is a bit extreme for you one thing I did before this was to make note of the date each time I had to empty the rubbish bin. I would then challenge myself to extend the number of days before I emptied it again. Just doing this simple exercise helped make me much more aware of how much waste I was creating.

If you have any advice on how you have cut down your waste I'd really appreciate you sharing it below to help both myself and anyone else interested reduce their impact. If you have any questions about specific ways I was able to find package free products then get in touch below too.