Tips for more sustainable shopping
Reduce
Identify why you shop for new stuff. Is it because you actually need new stuff, or because of other reasons? Are you feeling bored, neglected, uninspired, restless…and want to cheer yourself up by purchasing something? Is there peer-pressure and social media-pressure involved? Have you gotten into the habit of celebrating the victories and events of life by buying new stuff? When we understand why we do things, it is easier to change old behaviours from the past that are no longer serving us and our current self.
Get off the fast-fashion train
A great way of making our shopping more sustainable is to say bye-bye to fast fashion and hello to long-term wear.
- Buy one high-quality garment instead of ten cheap ones.
- Identify your style, instead of constantly chasing new trends.
- Learn how to identify high-quality garments, fabrics, materials, and techniques. A high price is not automatically the same as high-quality.
- Learn how to properly care for clothes, shoes and similar items to make them look good longer and not become worn out quickly.
Bonus tips: By clothes that fit you now, not clothes that fit your fantasy dream body.
Avoid buying stuff that will suck even more stuff into your home
If you buy a coffee machine that uses coffee pods, you are getting a gadget that will force you to constantly produce waste in the form of coffee pods. Yes, there might be a coffee pod recycling system in place in your area, but do you know what would be even better? Not using coffee pods in the first place. It is not difficult at all to make delicious coffee without using coffee pods.
The coffee pod machine is just one example of the many gadgets that have a tendency to draw a steady flow of new stuff into our homes and constantly create more waste. When you ponder a purchase, also take a look at the consequences for the future.
Avoid clothes that must be dry-cleaned
Avoid buying clothes that must be dry-cleaned. Dry-cleaning tends to involve some rather unsavoury chemicals and there is also the issue of transporting the clothes back and forth (unless you power-walk all the way, of course).
Yes, the company you work for has a dress code that calls for suits, but there are many suits that can be steam-cleaned at home instead of being dry-cleaned. Especially since jobs with a dress code like that tend to not involve playing with kids in the mud, working up a serious stinky sweat or getting blueberry porridge all over the fabric. Invest in a small good-quality steam-cleaner for home use and take good care of it. It will last you years and years and save you both money and the task of having to constantly bring clothes back and forth between your home the dry-cleaning place.