Happy Earth day yesterday! I mean, we think it should be earth day every day and also, we have no clue what day it is anymore so today, we celebrate!
This extra time I’ve had at home has allowed me to reexamine a lot of my life. I’ve noticed a few things that I really want to make a conscious effort to adjust, and a lot of them revolve around the imprint I’m making on our planet. So, in honor of earth day, I thought I’d share a few of my personal goals with you, as well as some info about how we, as a company, are working towards suitability and doing our part to protect Mother Earth.
Personal Goals:
-Further eliminate single use plastics. This is one I have done an OK job at. Reusable shopping and produce bags, travel mug for coffee, ya know, kind of the normal things, but it’s time to ramp it up. This means if I don’t have my travel mug, I don’t get a coffee, period. When I’m grocery shopping, doing my best to not purchase anything in excessive packaging. Keeping reusable silverware and straws with me, and bringing my own to go containers when we eat out (if that’s ever a thing again). I can do better and I will.
-Conscious clothing purchases. This means second hand if possible, sustainable/eco friendly brands if not, and only things that I truly love and will wear for a long time. No more cheap, overly trendy clothes (not that I’m even remotely trendy, but sometimes I pretend) that I wear a few a times then donate. I want to focus on fewer items, but higher quality things that I love from brands that I am proud to purchase from.
-Reduce, reuse recycle!! Our household has actually done an extremely good job at the reduce part over the past few years. We buy very few things and mostly only when we need them. I am not a browser (like I don’t get the whole spend 5 hours at Target thing), but I do sometimes give in to those impulse buys so I want to be more conscious of that. Reuse – there are so many things we can repurpose instead of buying new. Making homemade birthday cards out of paper products I already own is one that comes to mind. And we already recycle, but I know I can do a better job of ensuring everything that is recyclable actually gets recycled in the appropriate spot.
-Local sustainable food. We already purchase most of our meat from local, high quality farmers and try to do the same with veggies, but again, it’s an area I know we can improve upon. I’ve been learning to cook a bit more with this extra time at home and really want to focus on more homemade and simple, local, and seasonable ingredients.
-Conscious spending and decision making in general. I think the theme here is the word CONSCIOUS. This time at home has forced me to reflect on all of the decisions I make in a day. So often I jump in the car to go somewhere that’s 1/2 a mile away. I can easy walk there (and I love doing so), I’m just usually in too much of a hurry to think of it. I can choose to zone out in front of the tv or go spend 10 minutes picking up trash at the park by my house. I can buy something full of chemicals to clean the counter or buy/make a more earth friendly sustainable product. There are so many small daily decisions that I can make that I know will improve my life and the world around me.
All of these things may seem small and insignificant. Small, yes. Insignificant, not at all. If all of us did just a few small things each day, think of how much that adds up? Just think if even half of the people who normally get a to go coffee cup used a travel mug 3 days a week how many fewer cups would end up the landfills? Small things MATTER.
This got a bit longer than planned, so stay tuned for Earth Day, Part 2 all about what we are doing as a brand to protect Mother Earth!
