There are so many buzz words that orbit around the enviromental movement that it can be very difficult to figure out what label you fall under when you make the decision to live in an eco-friendlier sustainable way. What do you call it zero waste, eco minimalism, Earth Friendly, eco conscious, who knows? What I do know that it is a task in which you have to be very comfortable with failure. At least for most of us.

Unless you have endless amounts of money or lack attachments that won’t allow you to pick up and start over in a new location. You’re going to struggle to do the right thing with limited funds and limited resources and a lot of inconvenience that can sometimes be a bit to much.

I started this journey about a year ago. My goals were simple to use less plastic, less energy, compost and a myriad of other things that could lead to a more sustainable lifestyle for me and my family. One that I could feel good about, know that I was doing what I could to contribute to what I see as the most dangerous obstacle facing the human race, Climate Change.

I confess I also imagined myself as something of a pioneer woman. Making everything from scratch, growing my own food, and providing for myself in a sustainable way. This kind of mindset isn’t something that I picked up watching reality tv or reading about homesteading. I was raised in Alaska, and this is just part of the culture I grew up with. People fished for their own food and sometime grew it. Hunting and gardening and fishing camping living off the land were something that I thought was normal and part of everyday life for the formative years of my life.

However, I live in a modern family. While we have always been more concours then most of what we are putting into our bodies int terms of food. We haven’t been strangers to convenience and being a naturally lazy individual, doing things the hard way has never come easy to me. My family is like a lot of American families, we buy things packaged at the grocery store, we occasionally eat out, we are consumers in most ways. So, our lifestyle was wasteful and not at all where I wanted to be.

I got rather swept up in the zero waste idea at first. Like many people that start down this path I immediately sought to replace a lot of the things I was using on a daily basis with zero waste alternatives. I’m not going to lie this was not the cheapest part of my journey. However, it has probably led to some savings in the long run.

I began getting rid of the most wasteful thins in my life. Coffee k cups, I replaced with refillable pods. I started using bar soap, bamboo toothbrushes, silk floss, shampoo bars, reusable silicone bags instead of plastic, composting, and generally overhauling many areas of my life which I deemed wasteful and unnecessary. This was probably the easiest thing to do but is a slippery slope of products you don’t necessarily want or need. It turns out that the zero waste industry is like any other, a for profit, consumer based industry. Just because something was sustainable didn’t mean I should or have to buy it.

This is how I learned my very first lesson in sustainable living. Don’t buy what you don’t need. This has begun to guide my purchases from this point forward by evaluating carefully what I have and what I need to change, I can say I am making better choices and am actually getting somewhere.