Lifestyle & Accessibility by daphne armstrong A sustainable lifestyle is rooted in resourcefulness, creativity, and passion––not $200 organic dresses and $40 natural shampoos.
The average American discards 4.4 pounds of trash to landfill everyday. That may seem inconsequential, but with 327 million people residing in the United States, that adds up to 728,000 tons of trash dumped into a giant hole in the ground every. single. day. (enough to fill 63,000 trash trucks!) This is problematic because landfills are emitters of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, which heat up our planet. In 2009, Bea Johnson, a French-American woman living in California proposed an alternative way of disposing of trash. Her idea: avoid making trash in the first place. Bea Johnson is widely known at the matriarch for the zero-waste lifestyle, which she popularized with her blog “Zero Waste Home.” The goal of a zero-waste lifestyle is to send nothing to landfill. An intentional sustainable lifestyle is no small feat. It takes planning, motivation, and dedication. Bea Johnson received criticism because many argued that her lifestyle that includes a surplus of free time to shop in bulk, make DIY recipes, and make meals at home, which would be inaccessible to people who work long hours. Another perceived barrier to entry is cost. I was initially intimidated by the $200 organic cotton dresses and the $40 all natural shampoo that I thought I needed to purchase to be sustainable. However, a sustainable lifestyle can not be purchased and it is not inaccessible. The pillars of a sustainable lifestyle are accessible to all. They are rooted in resourcefulness, creativity, minimalism, and passion. A sustainable lifestyle is about progress, not perfection. It is about being intentional in all aspects of your life to cut back on things that do not serve you or the planet. The zero waste movement has extrapolated on the 3R’s to the 6R’s: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle, Rot. I will explain each and how they play out in everyday life. 9
