The imperfect reality of low-waste living
If you’ve ever triedto reduce the amount of plastic or food waste going in to your bin, if you’veever tried to cut back on packaging or unnecessary products in your shoppingtrolley, or if you’ve ever tried your hand at Plastic Free July and found yourselfoverwhelmed and frustrated at the lack of realistic low-waste options in yourhome town – this episode is for you.
Today we meet Amy, wholives in rural northern Maine, where recycling and low-waste resources arelimited. Amy has been making progress in lots of different areas of slowliving, but now finds herself at somewhat of a frustrating point where the lackof local services is making further progress tough.
She and I talk about the frustrations of living in a system that’s not set up for our success, and the importance of acknowledging when we’re doing the best we can given the situation we’re in. We also chat about the progress Amy has made already and I prove myself somewhat-useful (but mostly wrong) in offering compost advice.
Amy then asks me about another area of slow living that she’s working through at the moment: how to manage working from home/parenting/making low-waste choices while maintaining a semblance of balance. We have a really good chat about viewing life as seasonal, with some seasons offering us time to create new systems, while other seasons will be fuller, only giving us space to live with the systems that are already in place.
I’m then joined byTammy Logan of Gippsland Unwrapped – an online community and activism platformthat offers community-based and creative solutions to living a lower-waste lifein rural areas. Tammy has some fantastic practical suggestions for how Amycould reduce the amount she needs to compost, as well as some solutions forthose who might not have a typical compost set-up available. She also offerssome hard-earned insight in to the pros and cons of making green changes in asmall town, which are super helpful not only to Amy but also to me as I startto think more about the changes I’d like to help facilitate in our new hometown.
This is an episode foranyone looking for realistic low-waste options, as well as inspiration torethink what low-waste means. In a word, it’s encouraging!
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Things to Check Out After Today’s Episode:
- Plastic Free July
- The Green Cone composter
- Connect with Tammy:
- Listen to Carl on a previous episode of the poggie:
As always, thank you for listening!