A Simpler Life 2018

GreyQueen

I think the thing about simplicity is that there is always going to be someone who is more simple than ourselves and perhaps lives an extremely minimal life which makes our own personal versions of a simple life look almost as ostentatious as Louis XIV..........

I was having a rueful laugh at myself with an allotment pal, as we planned the logistics of getting the many kilos of spent coffee grounds we each collect from different city centre coffee shops each week up to our respective allotments in a suburb. I joked that my life would be a lot simpler if I was less ecological............. and he agreed wholeheartedly about his own life.:rotfl:

I love to do crafts, although I limit myself to ones which can fit in my very small home and which are usable in said home and which don't cost very much in raw materials. I read (on 113th book of 2017) but don't hold onto books in most cases and various other things which give me great joy.

Ultimately, there isn't a right way to do simplicity, there's a right level of simplicity for each of us. We'll know when we hit the sweet spot.

Kantankrus_Mare

GreyQueen wrote: »

I think the thing about simplicity is that there is always going to be someone who is more simple than ourselves and perhaps lives an extremely minimal life which makes our own personal versions of a simple life look almost as ostentatious as Louis XIV..........

I was having a rueful laugh at myself with an allotment pal, as we planned the logistics of getting the many kilos of spent coffee grounds we each collect from different city centre coffee shops each week up to our respective allotments in a suburb. I joked that my life would be a lot simpler if I was less ecological............. and he agreed wholeheartedly about his own life.:rotfl:

I love to do crafts, although I limit myself to ones which can fit in my very small home and which are usable in said home and which don't cost very much in raw materials. I read (on 113th book of 2017) but don't hold onto books in most cases and various other things which give me great joy.

Ultimately, there isn't a right way to do simplicity, there's a right level of simplicity for each of us. We'll know when we hit the sweet spot.

Do you put your coffee grounds in with your compost or use it straight on the earth? Mine just gets thrown in the composter with all the other waste materials we collect at work. Im lucky that I work in a busy coffee shop/restaurant and have a huge bag of compostibles (is that even a word?) to fetch home every day which I then transfer to the allotment once every few days.

firebubble

I loved konmari, and have worked on simplifying for a while. I'm currently getting into 'zero waste', meaning that you aim to throw nothing into landfill, it all has to be recyclable/biodegradeable.

What kicked this off was seeing a horrific picture of thousands of used toothbrushes collected from the ocean, and I suddenly started thinking about this, and thinking why am I using a plastic toothbrush, when I could be using a bamboo biodegradeable one. I'm never buying another plastic toothbrush again.

I also discovered biodegradeable clingfilm exists.

I doubt I'll get to zero waste, but 2018 is going to be my year of reducing landfill as part of simplifying.

GreyQueen

Kantankrus_Mare wrote: »

Do you put your coffee grounds in with your compost or use it straight on the earth? Mine just gets thrown in the composter with all the other waste materials we collect at work. Im lucky that I work in a busy coffee shop/restaurant and have a huge bag of compostibles (is that even a word?) to fetch home every day which I then transfer to the allotment once every few days.

I'm experimenting.

At this time of the year, I have areas of bare soil which I fork over periodically to hoik out the horsetail roots. I am forking the coffee grounds under as I go.

I have read that the perfect way to deal with coffee grounds is to compost them at a ratio of 4 parts grounds to one part something carbonous such as shredded newspapers. For the purposes of composing compost ratios, coffee grounds are 'greens'. Atm, I have far more grounds than I have space in a compost bin, although I am toying with the idea of getting a second compost Dalek dedicated to coffee alone.

There is some argument that putting groundsd directly in/ on the soil causes nitrogen loving microbes to gobble on them and thus be less available for plants.

As I said, it's an experiment, and the areas being treated are not presently under cultivation and won't be for about 4-5 months in most cases.

My allotment soil is silt-over-sand (in geologic time it was a river bed) and is extremely free-draining. Thus, one of my major challenges is to build up the humus in the soil, and I grab anything which helps with that. I have added many tonnes (literally tonnes, not hyperbolic tonnes) of spent barley grains from the organic brewery directly to the soil, at a level of a heaping barrowful per square meter, and have had bumper crops as a result.

I am also an afficianado of zero waste, although I am far short of achieving it.

Emmala

firebubble wrote: »

I loved konmari, and have worked on simplifying for a while. I'm currently getting into 'zero waste', meaning that you aim to throw nothing into landfill, it all has to be recyclable/biodegradeable.

What kicked this off was seeing a horrific picture of thousands of used toothbrushes collected from the ocean, and I suddenly started thinking about this, and thinking why am I using a plastic toothbrush, when I could be using a bamboo biodegradeable one. I'm never buying another plastic toothbrush again.

I also discovered biodegradeable clingfilm exists.

I doubt I'll get to zero waste, but 2018 is going to be my year of reducing landfill as part of simplifying.

Thank you so much for posting this! I’ve been wondering what to replace cling film with that’s more environmentally friendly so I’m really pleased to have seen your comment about biodegradable cling. Hopefully I can pick it up in a normal shop too, looks like Sains do one which is great. I will also be replacing the kids toothbrushes with bamboo ones, just looked and H&B sell them, so again I can just get them when I pop to the shops. Thank you.

kettymerry34

Thank you! Great ideas! I think the main thing should be our mental health! No more stress, no more overworking. Just let's love ourselves!

suki1964

I haven't had time to read the whole thread yet but I'm along for the ride

Very reminiscent of the Not Buying It thread from a couple of years ago, which I loved, but then stopped posting to as we were spending quite a bit

But I loved the simpler style of life aspect of it so I think this thread will suit me

PollyWollyDoodle

Ooh, biodegradable cling film? I'm going to look for that. I use it as little as possible, but sometimes it's the most practical solution.

I've read articles and blogs about zero waste with interest, but I think for most of us it's just not practical. I try to always buy my veg loose, without plastic bags; I try to buy stuff in packaging that can be recycled, but it's not easy, for example spinach or kale always come in plastic bags that are non-recyclable. I do my best to minimise packaging, and recycle as much as I can.

I think GQ has got it right above; my life would make some of my friends' habits look like Louis XIV, although I'm probably living less simply than others on here. It's not easy being green!

SimpleLiving

Really enjoying everyone's input in this thread, although our family has been struck down with the winter vomiting virus so I have not had a great deal of time to read every comment. I seem to be the only one who hasn't caught it.........yet:eek:

[Deleted User]

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

Ooh, biodegradable cling film? I'm going to look for that. I use it as little as possible, but sometimes it's the most practical solution.

I've read articles and blogs about zero waste with interest, but I think for most of us it's just not practical. I try to always buy my veg loose, without plastic bags; I try to buy stuff in packaging that can be recycled, but it's not easy, for example spinach or kale always come in plastic bags that are non-recyclable. I do my best to minimise packaging, and recycle as much as I can.

I think GQ has got it right above; my life would make some of my friends' habits look like Louis XIV, although I'm probably living less simply than others on here. It's not easy being green!

Zero Waste is more hardcore than that.

It is about eliminating all waste - even recycling.

A lot of the plastic that goes into recycling can only be reused once. When the item made from recycled plastic comes to the end of its life then it ends up in landfill anyway.

So whilst recycling is better than landfill it is only slightly better. Also, a lot of what we think can be recycled usually cannot be. A lot of foil packages (e.g cat food pouches) are foil and plastic and the two materials cannot be separated and go into landfill. Even most teabags have plastic in them.

The idea is that you try and buy no packaging at all taking your own containers to shops for items such as meat, fish, cheese etc and buying dry goods in bulk too in your own containers.

Actually, the idea is that you try and not buy, or try and buy secondhand. Bea Johnson is one of the most well know Zero Wasters. The image on her website here:

https://zerowastehome.com/about/bea/

Shows how much waste her family of four (+ dog) create every year.

Really impressive, but impossible for most of us.