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Of the five weeks that I’ve lived in this new apartment, this bit of garbage has been on the lawn for four. I have passed it just about every day as I take the dog out, and every time I look at it, I think, “Someone ought to pick that up.” Or sometimes, “Well, it’s not my trash, so I’m not responsible for it.”
It’s ingrained thinking — that I didn’t make the mess, which means I’m not the one who’s going to pick it up. I’m not sure if this is because of the family I grew up in (five kids, lots of trouble), or if this is a pretty common sentiment, but I feel rotten admitting that I left the bag to die among the leaves. Of course, it didn’t die; it’s a wax-coated paper bag. It’s not going anywhere for a looong time.
Today, I picked it up and put it in the trash (but not without photographing it first). I’m not telling you this so you’ll praise me, but rather to remind you that if we all took responsibility for these types of things, we could have a garbage-free world. Right? Right.
Now all I have to do is pick up the beer can by the side of the road. Where do these things come from?
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I would have picked up the beer can earlier, but I already had this trash and a bag of puppy poop. It was gross.
I wrote a guest post today for Mrs. Green at My Zero Waste, about learning how to love waste-free cooking. Please check it out and let me know what you think!
This is the maple tree outside my bedroom window. It’s the first tree on the block to change its colors, and every day it provides the puppy with a new carpet of delicious red leaves to prance through. I’m starting to learn that having an outdoor space is as important to me as having an indoor space.
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I enjoy crunching on the leaves with my feet while the puppy enjoys crunching with her mouth..
With two friends’ weddings coming up, I thought I’d go dress shopping at Goodwill. Not a bad idea overall, especially if you’re willing to adjust hemlines and play with sleeve lengths.
Reader, I found a dress. It was royal purple with white detailing around the collar, puffy sleeves and shoulder pads. If it had been made of silk, it could have been from the 1940s (which is where the 1980s got those great fashion inspirations). Unfortunately, it was acrylic, and too scratchy to want to wear, let alone remake from 1980s fabulous to 2009-wedding-season appropriate .
Supposedly, acrylic is wonderful: It’s warm like wool (think: polar fleece), but much cheaper, lighter, and easier to care for. It’s versatile — used in clothing, upholstery, sailcloth, outdoor furniture fabric, wigs, etc.
It’s also made from petrochemicals brewed in a test tube, and the resulting chemical, acrylonitrile, is subjected to more chemicals and then spun into a fiber. I could probably overlook this, as long as I didn’t have to buy it myself. But then I came across this one niggling idea, quoted from WiseGeek: “High levels of acrylonitrile exposure might be considered toxic, but the quick break down often keeps acrylic fabric marketed as environmentally friendly.”
Possibly toxic? Quick break down? Environmentally friendly? Those words do not go together. Let’s break it down:
- Acrylic is made from petrochemicals. This means oils. This means that it’s a kind of a plastic. Big surprise.
- Plastic, as we know, degrades into smaller and smaller pieces when exposed to the elements. These pieces release toxic chemicals into the environment as they break down.
Okay, so this answers the first two of my questions. Acrylic manufacturing, due to the very nature of acrylonitrile, is toxic. I’ll take their word for it that it breaks down “quickly” — what does that mean anyway? Three months? Five years instead of ten? At any rate, it breaks down. I’m still missing the “environmentally friendly” part here.
In a way, it’s depressing that we allow the manufacture of products that are harmful to the workers who make them and harmful to the environment. In another way, none of this matters; if you need warm clothing and you can’t afford to pay very much for it, you’re going to end up with some man-made fibers like acrylic. I wouldn’t expect anything otherwise.
If it’s possible to have non-buyer’s remorse, I had it. I had it bad; I regretted not buying that dress, but my work schedule prevented me from heading back up to the store. Oh well — it’s probably better I didn’t go out and buy a plastic dress! Is it too much of a pun to say it doesn’t matter because it all comes out in the wash? Hee!
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where none of my meatworld friends know I spend my days researching the origins of acrylic. Image courtesy of So Vintage Patterns.
Our garbage bags are green — not because they’re growing mold or anything, but because my town requires that we use colored trash bags. They’re expensive, and they carry the town seal. This is to ensure that we recycle as much as possible. In a way, it’s smart. In another way, it’s really annoying. But let’s stick with the smart side of things, shall we?
This is the first week that we haven’t generated a bag of trash. I’m not talking about since we moved here, I mean of all time. We did not put out trash this week — or recycling, come to think of it — partly because the trash bags are twice the size of a normal kitchen garbage bag, but also partly because we’ve been making an effort to find foods that are free from packaging.
The problem is that it costs more to get packaging-free food than it does to buy pre-packaged things. At our supermarket, loose potatoes are $0.99/pound, but a five-pound bag of potatoes is $3.50. It’s the same for carrots, apples, and onions, among other produce. The farmer’s market is even more expensive. And since produce makes up the majority of our food budget, we have to compromise sometimes.
Usually, that’s when packaging ideals get the shaft.
All the same, we’re doing what we can. We’re not at the point of other trash-reducing rock stars, like Mrs. Green from My Zero Waste, Beth from Fake Plastic Fish, and Jen from The Clean Bin Project, who count their waste in ounces and grams instead of number of bags. I doubt we’ll ever make it that far. However, we have started eyeing those supermarket foods with an eye towards less waste.
What I want to know is your household’s strategies for reducing waste. Is that something you’re concerned about? Has packaging not even entered your thoughts? Do share!
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where our old apartment building had no requirements for recycling or garbage, as long as you put your bags in the correct chute. This is a big change for us! Image courtesy of isado.
It’s time to get back on the interview wagon. After a three month hiatus (due in large part to a wedding and a move), I’m proud to present Tammy from the blog Rowdy Kittens. Tammy writes about living small, with the idea that treading lightly on our planet benefits everyone.
As a reminder, I try to feature other eco-friendly and simple-loving bloggers on Simple Savvy every so often. I think we all learn from and build off each other, and this is a great way to start some dialogue. Read on to see what Tammy has to say!
1. What is your definition of simple living?
Without context the definition of simple living sounds like a cliche. Lets start with a story to put our definition into perspective. A few years ago my partner and I felt overwhelmed and depressed by all the stuff in our lives. This seems odd because at a certain level we equate more possessions with more happiness.
But we felt completely out of balance and began simplifying our lives. At this point many of our friends and family would ask me “why are you downsizing and pursuing simple living?” They were concerned by our behavior of donating and selling many of our possessions. Some even thought we were in need of money and offered to help us out. We assured them we were just “decluttering” and trying to simplify by reducing our quantity of stuff. We explained that “it all just felt like too much.” It seemed like every room we had was crowded and distracting us from what we wanted in life. When asked, we could not quite articulate what we wanted specifically and what our end goal would be, we just knew we wanted less.
It wasn’t until last year that we stumbled across Dee Williams’s tiny house, the Small House Movement, and the concept of simple living. After doing a lot of research and making many to-do lists, we decided to move from Davis to mid-town Sacramento. We scaled down even further, to a 400-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment within walking distance to my work. Dee inspired me to go small and start thinking big. Applying “going small and thinking big” required setting specific goals and organizing our decluttering process. We decided living in a tiny house (<200 sq ft) would be our goal and slowly we began focusing on limiting the quantity and maximizing the quality of our belongings to meet our needs.
Ironically, simple living can be a very complex transition. Downsizing can be stressful, but the benefits are tremendous. Moving to a smaller apartment in the city opened up amazing possibilities. Once we sold our one remaining car and TV, life became even better because we paid off our debt, saved money, worked less and began to regain an intentional balance in our lives.
My definition of simple living is the elimination of distractions and unnecessary possessions. I want to prioritize my life energy (time, money and effort) on my health, happiness, and life goals.
2. Your blog slogan is “social change through simple living.” Can you talk a little about the social change you’d like to affect?
I’m glad you asked this question. I’ve been trying to work on my blog message for the last few months and this helped me narrow things down. Your question also prompted me to change my about page too. So thank you! 
The reason behind RowdyKittens: To create social change through simple living. A social movement of people who are living simple, authentic and uncluttered lives. The purpose of RowdyKittens is to help individuals learn to live simpler, happier, calmer lives – kind of like kittens.
Somewhere along the way we start thinking we need more and more stuff to be happy. But is that really true? Do we need a bigger house to be happy, a better car or a larger salary? Imagine what the world would look like if we lived by our values and pursued our dreams rather than more stuff. When is enough really enough?
By living a life without so much stuff, I think people can create an enormous amount of change. Change in their personal lives and in their larger environment. For instance, if you sell your car you will save about $8,000 a year and you can lower your carbon footprint too.
3. What is the most important thing we can do to affect change?
This is such a hard question. But I think everyone can affect change in their daily lives through simple living. For instance, you can stop shopping, watching television or even sell your car. By taking small steps and exiting the consumer lifestyle you can devote more resources to your health, happiness, and life goals.
On a broader scale, I think it’s important to be aware of how your consumption affects the planet and the people on it. All the stuff people purchase usually goes to the landfill, which causes many environmental problems. (Watch The Story of Stuff for a good summary of this problem). Often, individuals become overwhelmed by the broader scale problems and feel they can’t change the world. So they give up.
The philosophers Descartes and Gandhi demonstrate an idea to manage this emotional barrier. They illustrate that you can not change the world, you can only change yourself. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
To manifest this change I believe all of us have a responsibility to advocate for equitable public policy that promotes public safety and education. I know from experience working in the political system that doing things like voting, writing your elected official or other types of advocacy has a huge impact on how public policy is shaped.
4. Tell us about the house that you plan to buy (and how you’re going to fit you, Logan, and your cats!).
I had no idea that the Small House Movement existed, until I stumbled across a video featuring Dee Williams’s tiny house. It was New Year’s Eve of 2008 and hearing Dee’s story inspired us to go small and downscale.
Why so small? Rather than devoting large sums of life energy and money toward a big home, we are going to purchase a tiny house. We don’t want a 30-year mortgage or all the headaches associated with maintaining a large home. By the time most Americans have purchased a $300,000 home, buy new furniture, remodel the home and pay interest on the mortgage, the home ends up costing a consumer 2-3 times the purchase price.
We are going to take a pass on the traditional American dream and create our own. We would rather save for an early retirement, spend time with family/friends, enjoy the outdoors, each other, and our tiny abode. Less is more — frugality is in!
Ohhh and I’m sure the kittens will love the tiny house. We have something called Katwallks that give the cats free range beyond just the flat surfaces. Although, I think we will have to install a cat door so they turn into indoor/outdoor kittens.
5. What challenges have you come up against in your quest to downsize/downscale?
Ohhh so so many!
I think the biggest challenge for us was selling our car. We had to overcome our fear. The “what if fear.” We always thought, ohhh “what if the cats get sick,” “what if we need the car for an emergency,” etc.
When we divorced our car a year and a half ago, I didn’t think biking everywhere and renting cars when we traveled would be so much fun! But we’re having a blast. I’m so thankful that we overcame our fears and took the plunge.
6. What books and/or blogs would you recommend for Simple Savvy readers?
Ohhhh I love to read! Some of my favorite books are located at the RowdyKitten Bookstore [Editor's note: this is an affiliate link].
My top favorites from 2008 are: How to Live Well Without Owning a Car, Little House on a Small Planet, In Defense of Food and of course Your Money or Your Life.
I’m a big fan of blogs and reading a wide variety of articles. I do a Simple Living News Update every Monday on RowdyKittens and that update contains links to some of my best reads of the week. I find a lot of these articles on twitter or via feedly.
You can also check out my blogroll.
Thank you for such insightful answers, Tammy! You can check out more of Tammy’s work at Rowdy Kittens.
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I read and loved How to Live Well Without Owning a Car too!
Mr. Savvy and I stood in slimy basement water this weekend, soaking the hems of our jeans as we cleaned out a family member’s cellar. Many of the memories stored down there had rotted in the water and dust. Our task was to sort through everything and figure out what was salvageable, what was recyclable, and what was trash.
About partway through the sorting, I thought to myself, “What is the point of going through and trying to donate some of this stuff? We should just junk the lot.” Thankfully, I kept that sentiment to myself, and a cooler head prevailed.
Later, I realized that throwing away salvageable belongings when you’re cleaning out a space is like throwing away your possessions when your house is untidy: just because it’s out of place does not make it trash. If that were the case, I’d have to throw away about 85 percent of what we own in any given week! Rather, that if something is out of place and it doesn’t have a permanent location, it should be considered as donatable instead of trash.
This all sounds very abstract, so let me give an example: I never had a place for my yarn. I had a big tupperware full of it, yarns that a friend gave me when she was cleaning out her stash. There must have been twenty-five different skeins of yarn, and in the two years that I had it, I opened that bin twice. The rest of the time, I shuffled the bin from the closet to the corner of the office to another closet. I had no place for it; I was never going to use it often enough to find a place for the yarn. It’s clear to me now that the yarn was simply clutter, but I didn’t recognize it as such until I was moving. Here’s where the shift of thinking comes in: I was so fed up with moving and packing and cleaning that I just wanted it OUT. I didn’t care where it went, as long as it was not in my house any longer.
That’s a dangerous spot to be in, and I’ve been in it before. I don’t know how to change that mindset, but I think looking on my clutter as things that are out of place instead of things that are trash is a start.
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I gave all my spare yarn to the senior center, if you remember! Image courtesy of DoryWithSerifs.
This was my first introduction to Patrick Swayze. Young as I was, I saw Dirty Dancing and told my mom, “He’s like the John Travolta of the 80s!”, gleaned from memorizing the movie Grease. Nevermind that Grease ushered in the 80s. I was 8 and it was a period piece! What do kids know anyway?
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I’m awaiting a copy of Dirty Dancing in the mail via Netflix. Very anxiously.
Right after we moved, I got a request to talk about the process I use to source new supplies. That is, what I do to find local, organic, cheap food, gifts and toiletries in my area. It was an interesting request, and one that I’m happy to oblige. After all, how often does someone get the chance to look into this type of thing? I won’t have an opportunity like this for another few years when we move again.
Luck has a lot to do with it. I’m lucky enough to live in New England — New Hampshire, to be precise — and close enough to a liberal city that finding organic items is not too difficult. And not only are we twenty minutes from a liberal town, we’re another twenty minutes from a liberal college, which means more of an influx of new ideas and consumer demands, which means more organic and fair trade products.
One of the other perks of living in this area of New Hampshire is that there are farms everywhere. I can’t drive ten minutes in any direction without seeing a farm or a farm stand. I’m not telling you this to brag, but rather to explain why in some ways it’s been easy for me to find good, local food.
Finding vegetables has been my top priority, so far. Vegetables are the staple of our diet; we average 3-4 vegetarian dinners a week. I prefer to buy vegetables from local sources and vegetables with minimal packaging. Vegetables that taste good are always nice too. To that end, the way I’ve found our vegetables is by getting to know our area. There’s a farmer’s market once a week in our town, and a larger farmer’s market once a week in the next town over. America’s Oldest Family Farm isn’t far away — their tomatoes taste amazing. I came across these two sources by walking and driving around, doing my errands and paying attention to signs.
When I see something interesting but don’t have time to investigate further, I make a note of it in my pocket notebook. Sometimes it’s information off a sign, sometimes off packaging in traditional grocery stores — because let’s face it: I shop there too. Then I get home, do my internet research and figure out where to go from there. I’ve also used Local Harvest with some success, but that’s a story for another time.
How about you? How did you find your food sources? Any tips you’d like to share?
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I’m out of tomatoes. Can you believe it? Completely out, and missing them. Image courtesy of Jill Clardy.
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books are my comfort books. When I need a respite from paying the bills, staring at unpacked brown boxes, and stretching our meals, I turn to Laura. Maybe it’s because she focuses on food throughout the Little House series, and cooking is what calms me. Consider this, from Farmer Boy:
Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth. He ate mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy. He ate the ham. Hi bit deep into velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp golden crust. He demolished a tall heap of pale mashed turnips, and a hill of stewed yellow pumpkin. The he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist. And he ate plum preserves, and strawberry jam, and grape jelly, and spiced watermelon-rind pickles. He felt very comfortable inside. Slowly he ate a large piece of pumpkin pie.
All that food. Laura knows how to describe it, and goes through great pains to make family meals sound good. Even when the food is fried cornmeal patties and coarse bread, the family is happy for what they have.
The family’s one valuable is a china shepherdess, and for entertainment, Pa plays the fiddle. They live in small houses, move often, and grow their own food. Sometimes, it’s nice to have a reminder of the simple things.
That’s why, starting this Saturday, I will be starting a new feature on Simple Savvy where I post something small that makes me happy. Some days, it will be a poem or a picture. Other times it’ll be an excerpt from a book or movie. I hope these little things will make you happy too!
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©2009 at Simple Savvy, the simple living blog where I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books about twice a year.
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