Happy Birthday to this blog! Wow, I can’t believe that I’ve been writing stuff on here for an entire year, and what a year it has been. There’s no doubt that I wouldn’t have done as much on this blog if it wasn’t for the pandemic, because I had so much more time to spend on writing and researching. It’s also been a year where I started my masters degree in sustainability, so I have 100% more knowledge than I did this time last year! My perspective has changed a lot since I started this blog, so I thought that this week I would discuss that.
When I started this blog a year ago, I wanted to focus on waste (hence the name) and reducing what we use and throw away. Specifically, I was concerned about plastic. I had heard so much about plastic in the ocean, and seen how much we throw away in my own household, so it was initially my biggest concern. Naively, I thought that other forms of packaging were basically fine, because they’re easier to recycle. Of course, they are easier to recycle, but it’s still better to not have the packaging at all. I also started looking at the sustainability of products as a whole – for example, avocados come without packaging, but they are also imported and so they have a lot of airmiles. So as I started researching, I started realising that everything has multiple considerations, which is why sustainability can be hard.
I also started looking at sustainability from an individual point of view, like ‘what changes can I make to save the planet’. But, as I’ve gone through each topic from clothes to food to periods, I have realised how many of the problems that we have start at the very top. For example, I stop travelling by petrol car, but until better infrastructure exists for public transport or electric cars, it is very difficult to be truly sustainable. This applies to almost everything, which can be a little demoralising. I realised eventually that this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try our best individually, but it means that we have to also focus on the bigger picture, and keep these things in mind when we vote. Voting, signing petitions, activism and campaigning are all just as important (if not more in some ways) as recycling, using less or eating less meat and dairy.
So what will I do in the next year of my blog?
I hope to take all these things that I’ve learnt and learn even more. I love a tutorial on how to make wax wraps as much as the next person, but I also want to talk more on a larger scale about politics, conferences and climate strategy. Hopefully, I’ll be able to combine the two. As always, if you want to see more of me then follow this blog and follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter (@WasteMakesWaste)
Waste Makes Waste 