Are You Still Waste-Free?

How we're living waste-free, what's changed and what hasn't. And a little seasonal update.

Belongings by Audrey Carter, 2023. - yes, that’s our family’s waste jar, immortalised in oil paint.

We’ve been up to our elbows in work and life with teenagers, and all the things you’d expect from this season of our lives - and it’s mostly great! But we’ve been caught up in all that busy and trying to make ends meet that a couple of things have fallen by the wayside.

One of those things is social media - it’s looking a bit quiet around instagram these days! This has partly been intentional because social media seems to be doing more harm than good these days, and because there are just so many hours a person can give. An interesting side-effect of this quietness, and the understanding that we must be quite busy, is that we’ve had quite a few people ask: “Are you still waste-free?”

The short version of the answer is “Of course we bloody are!” We’re committed to this way of living for as long as we’re able (hopefully always). But we are living through a time where more obstacles to living this way seem to land in front of us every couple of weeks, so I thought it best to update you on HOW we’re living waste-free right now, and what’s changed (and what hasn’t) over the past 8 years.

Us two:

When we first went waste-free I was home educating and running an online business from our hallway, so I’ve always had a bit on and juggled things, just at different scales as the kids become more independent. We opened a bricks and mortar shop last year and work in it 2-3 days each, every week (plus the after hours work running a small business brings). Oberon still also works full-time as an ecologist (from home when he can), but fortunately the shop is fun and doesn’t really feel like extra work for him. Opening a shop feels like complete madness in the midst of a retail recession, but we love fostering care for preloved things and we love celebrating women making music so it also feels like good work.
We’re slowly getting back to some more waste-free advocacy because its still very important to us both. We visited and spoke at EcoFest in April - a great community gathering where we got to chat to lots of locals and hear about what’s going on in Northern Tasmania.

The kids:

When we first began living waste free, we had three kids aged 4-11years old. They’ll be 13-20 years old in the next few months. They all still live at home and we’re still supporting them all while they’re being kids or at university - down to employing them one day a week each in our shop. They eat MUCH more now, as you can imagine. They’re also contributing to things like cooking and cleaning more.

Home Education:

Our eldest is in 2nd year at university now (that’s her painting up above), and our middle daughter went to college (year 11 & 12) at the start of the year, so the youngest and I settled into one-on-one home education together. Five weeks later, her sister joined us at home again, realising she was much happier and more productive here. Their days are filled with reading, crafting, going to our homeschool group, making music, cooking and following their interests - right now it’s Greek myths, K-pop and Art Nouveau design. The girls also go to a local teen homeschool group at a youth drop-in centre, work in the shop with us and go to ballet and weekly crochet classes next-door to the shop.

The house:

We’re still living in the same small 3 bedroom 1950’s weatherboard house in the suburbs, which feels considerably smaller as the kids grow. It’s cosy, but we’re keenly aware of the privilege we have in having a solid roof over our heads. We have dreams of renovating it one day to make more space and light and connect the house with the garden better, but on only one solid income, that dream may be a while off. It’s always been our goal to improve one thing around the house or garden to help improve efficiency or care for the planet each year. We eco-paused our mortgage at the start of the year so we could put in underfloor insulation and a heat-transfer system, and this is the first warm winter we’ve had in the whole 17 years we’ve lived in lutruwita/Tasmania - and we’re saving a heap on our energy bills.

The garden:

We’re still growing what food we can, although owning a new business is quite like having a toddler, so our time spent in the garden has reduced significantly this past year. We’ve been late to plant, prune, harvest and process things - she says, looking out the window at the massive Jerusalem artichoke patch threatening us below the soil. It doubled in size this year because we forgot to harvest last year’s crop. All our old chooks died last year, so we adopted four lovely new girls who we’ve hilariously named after indie-girl musicians. We’re hoping they start laying soon! They’ve been working to reduce our weed issues, eating food scraps and just generally providing entertainment.

The food:

We’re still eating well, seasonally and frugally. And still waste-free. We’ve certainly noticed (like everyone else) the cost of everything has increased over the past year. This has been softened a little by the fact we’ve bought our food from small, local shops for years, and the price hikes seem to have been gentler than major supermarkets. We’re still spending less than the average household and we’re leaning into our waste-free ways to make life more affordable.
We are, of-course, living without soft plastic recycling (REDcycle) again, but as we switched to living waste-free before it became available, we never learned to rely on it in the first place, so there’s little change for us there.
Lots of things we’ve been in the habit of buying package-free are now packaged, thanks to societal fears around airborne germs, access to cheaper packaged food, and a general lapsed sense of care around waste and environmental issues. If businesses don’t think shoppers care about waste, their practices revert to include more packaging and plastic. Yes folks, your dollars matter!
We tend to adapt and just go without, getting creative rather than buying things in packaging. Or keeping an eye out for new options. We don’t feel like we’re missing out This week’s discovery was package-free vegan parmesan, which is actually quite good and will do for when we can’t justify the expense of our favourite package-free cheese grated over a bowl of pasta, but we want something a little more fun than salt.

The stuff (all the appliances have died):

Here’s where we also usually just make do. We’re down to a swift whip instead of mixer, a saucepan instead of a kettle that rusted, a frypan or the griller instead of a toaster, the mortar and pestle to make pesto… it’s getting a bit dire and hilarious though, so we’ll have to try to find room in the budget to source some good secondhand appliances soon. Especially as my essential tremor worsens and doing some things by hand become arduous (and dangerous). To be honest, money has been so tight that we actually forgot buying things is an option, as our wardrobes (and our 20 year old car) can attest. We find we don’t need to consume much stuff at all and we repair where we can.
We’ve been decluttering slowly - clearing out wardrobes to give clothes to friends, clearing off the secondhand bookshelves and clearing unused things from the kitchen. Making space and acknowledging the changes, keeping stuff in good use so our community doesn’t need to buy new stuff either.

Autumn to winter solstice at our place

How are things looking in your part of the world? Are you finding it challenging to stick to your environmental ethics in the face of the rising cost of living? Or are you finding it all ok? Have you had to adapt or make changes? We’d love to hear how you’re going.

Stay tuned for a climate solution this week!

Much love,
Lauren. xx