Looking at the world around us, you are likely to be shocked by how much waste is created by modern living. Over 185 million pounds of plastic are thrown away by the average American per year. This equates to well over 14 billion pounds during the average American’s life. Clearly, serious problems exist with waste in the United States. However, this is not the extent of our wasteful culture and certainly not the most relevant for the average person.
In our modern world, it can be difficult for people to resist the urge of buying new products. The constant upgrades to technology, and relatively universal nature of large-scale shopping centers and malls encourage people to abandon their possessions at the first sign of a fault and simply buy another.
However, this lifestyle is simply unsustainable. Instead, try to fix things for yourself. Learn to rewire a plug, sew ripped clothes, or even repair furniture and larger objects around the house. These small steps are examples of relatively easy actions to learn, and you can do so and more through reading this guide.
What Is ‘Sustainable Living?’
While the potential complexity term may frighten you, ‘sustainable living’ is a very simple concept. It is simply the idea that people should reduce how much they use in their lives. While usually related to environmentalist issues and reform, particularly surrounding recycling and other efforts, this concept is also commonly applied to a person’s financial issues. Throughout this guide, we will be looking at both.
Why Should You Live ‘Sustainably?’
Sustainable living is vital to your own life and society as a whole. It can be massively beneficial to your finances, as you reduce your cost of living and develop skills with the potential to make you extra money, and certainly has a positive effect on the environment and economy.
More than this, sustainable living is a fun commitment to make. You will enjoy learning new skills and how to apply them to your home, possibly finding a new hobby for you to take up in your spare time. You can also assist family and friends, offering to help them if they are experiencing any troubles that require repairing or become a part of the extremely active DIY repair community.
What Can You Do Yourself?
There is almost no limit to what you can do yourself to make your home more sustainable, no matter what situation you find yourself in. With the prevalence of the internet, and especially video tutorials that explicitly guide you in your repairs, it has never been easier to learn how to repair items around your home. While you should obviously use caution when dealing with potentially dangerous repairs, especially electrical repairs, if you learn proper safety precautions and methods of repair you should be safe.
You can complete many simple repairs of small objects and clothing garments from sewing. This is a skill that takes the time to learn, as well as effort and commitment, even if it is relatively inexpensive. However, it will be handy throughout your life and can be used in lots of different circumstances. You can repair the cloth of chairs and other furniture, restore old toys for yourself or young family members or even stitch bags and repair zippers.
You can complete more complicated tasks, with a proper understanding of the responsibility and dangers associated with it. This includes replacing fuses in a plug, carpentry on wooden furniture, and electrical repairs to devices like refrigerators and your oven.
Learning how to do these things can save you a lot of money, especially on larger devices that would cost a lot to replace, like a stove or a fridge. It will also have a significant environmental effect, preventing the unnecessary production of devices and destruction of potentially fixable devices. Remember not to limit yourself by this list— you can repair almost anything in your home with effort and willpower.
What Can You Do in Your Community?
You can also extend sustainable living to your community, improving the standards of those close to you and creating opportunities to improve the sustainability of your local area. Community events, like local sewing or carpentry societies, can have an important effect on your local area. By teaching others the skills you have learned, you both enable them to change their mentality to one of sustainable living and improve your own skills and attitude toward such practices.
You could also start or support a local repair cafe. The events, typically run by a local business or enthusiastic volunteer, offer free repairs to attendees and are normally staffed by volunteers who support the ethos of sustainable living. These increase awareness of repairing items, rather than simply throwing them away. They also get local people interested in repair and living more sustainable lives.
Modern consumer practices have produced an incredible amount of waste, especially from the neglect of learning repair skills. You can easily benefit from trying to live a sustainable life though, especially financially. You can do this on a personal basis—repairing items around your home—or in your community— organizing events and raising awareness/teaching people about repair. How will you choose to make a sustainable impact through repairing rather than replacing?
This Women of Green guest blog is by Megan Ray Nichols. Megan writes about many environmental topics including, renewable energy, conservation and sustainability. She invites you to join the discussion on her own blog, Schooled By Science.
Women of Green is TURNING UP THE VOLUME of the feminine voice on the planet in order to create the world we know is possible.