Small daily choices for mother earth – climate values

Small actions for the climate.

Way to vote with actions and dollars in a sick system.

Some ideas, if you’re feeling despairing about what you can possible do on a small-scale one-person daily basis.

Tranportation guidelines for myself

• If my destination is a 25 minute walk or less, choose walking or biking over driving.
• Walk everyday. Drive less.
• If traveling greater distances, for example, the 500 km drive to Vancouver, post rides on rideshare apps/websites. I’m really partial to Poparide. Bonus – travelers get a faster cheaper ride. I fill the car with passengers. My costs are cheaper. Wins all around.

Grocery shopping and food security guidelines for myself

• Choose local first.
• Make the weekly farmer’s market my first stop for food and groceries.
• Scope out local fish and meat and local/organic/fairtrade shops. Shop there. Yes, it’s more expensive. So shop with care, but prioritize locals working to raise food ethically, safely, locally. They’re building food security and a local food ecosystem. This is so important to support.
• Don’t buy plastic storage options – no ziplock bags, disposable bags or produce bags. I re-use yogurt containers and glass food containers as storage containers. Waxed fabric foodwraps – Abeego or locals at the farmer’s market that make them. Bonus – they smell so good.
• bring cloth shopping bags with you, and just don’t use those flimsy plastic produce bags for every different item of food. You can buy or make cloth produce bags if desired, but they’re actually not necessary. Just wash the food thoroughly once you’re home.
• Shop in bulk. Many bulk stores, suck as Bulk Bin, also encourage you to bring your own containers to fill up, which they pre-weigh before you shop. This is so great! If you’re not sure, ask them if they can do it. All you need is a post-it for each container, with the empty weight noted down.

Coffeeshops and eating out

• Have reusable water bottles and thermoses and hot drink cups so you can turn down single use disposable cups.
• Bring food containers so you can take food leftovers home in non-disposable containers.
• Make the weekly farmer’s market my first stop for food and groceries.
• never ever buy bottled water.

Garbage, recycling and compost

• Separate garbage from recycling and compost (food/organic scraps.)
• If your municipality doesn’t recycle or compost, find out where you can bring your recycling and compost. Make it part of your routine.
• My town doesn’t do compost pickup. You can always find a friend’s backyard with a compost bin and use it, or a business that collects compost. This is what I do – there’s a composting business with 4 bins around town, so I collect my compost and regularly drop it off. It’s a pain. That’s ok. There’s also vermicomposting (work composting, if you’re into figuring that out.) Can be done on apartment balconies.

Shopping and consuming

• Make a point of shopping second hand and at thrift stores and auctions first.
• I furnish most of my home with second hand items, and they tend to be more unique and higher quality than new for more cost.
• My daughter and I get almost all of our clothes from thrift stores. Bonus – it’s way cheaper, and more creative. For higher end clothes, check out clothing consignment stores. Bonus – you can drop off your clothes at thrift stores and consignment stores, so they’re going back into the flow once you’ve tired of them or grown out of them.
• I like sewing. The local thrift stores have plenty of interesting fabric and sewing patterns for really cheap. Bonus – it sparks the creative juices.