Welcome to Change The World Wednesday (#CTWW)! If this is your first visit, please click HERE for information and a complete list of all the challenges we've taken on so far.
I'm taking a break this week but I'll be back next week to update our current challenge. In the meantime, let's continue celebrating your green achievements and let's Up The Ante:
This week we'd like to hear about your proudest "green" achievement. Perhaps you started a compost for the first time or purchased organic food. Maybe you stopped driving a car or added solar panels to your home. It could be as small as carrying a reusable bag or as large as building an energy efficient home. Whatever your proudest Eco-friendly achievement is ... we want to know about it. Please leave details and tips/ideas so that we can all celebrate with you and perhaps try the activity ourselves.
Up The Ante: Of all your green achievements, which one was the hardest to accomplish and why? How did you overcome the obstacles?
See you next week ...
WE'RE CHANGING THE WORLD ... ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME!
enjoy your break; I hope everything is ok. xx
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to choose, so I'll name two that I'm proud of:
ReplyDelete1. Changing over to non-chemical personal hygiene products: Using only natural soaps (almost always handmade), shampoo (our local range from Bloublommetjieskloof biodynamic farm), deo (Earth Sap) and a menstrual cup (Mpower Cup - locally produced).
2. Making some "sacrifices" and better choices in my art making. This is also one of my hardest challenges since the art world is surprisingly slow to catch up and adhere to more environmentally conscious production methods and alternatives. It also requires a lot of research into where to find sustainably-attained natural ingredients to make your own paints, glues and other materials. Green art does not stop with making pretty things from waste materials. It's about rethinking everything you do as an artist - you paper, your drawing/painting materials, canvas, wood, printing methods, acids and chemicals, and even the very fact that you're producing something that might be 'waste' in a few decades or centuries. I don't think that I've overcome this obstacle yet, and it's an ongoing challenge and day-to-day learning process. But I'm proud and committed to this journey.
http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2011/07/save-world-dont-take-shark-fin-soup.html
ReplyDeleteMy proudiest: On my National day, I spend the day preaching Zero waste to festival goer. I was also a garbage sorter/collector.
Of all your green achievements, which one was the hardest to accomplish and why? How did you overcome the obstacles?
ReplyDeleteThe hardest of my "green" achievements was changing my mindset of "it doesn't matter what I do, I am just one person and somebody else will just do it anyway". To yes one person can and does make a difference. The obstacles to this different mindset were the modern press, some friends/family, marketing strategies employed by many companies and having done it the other way for so many years.
Am I perfect nope - but we are much further along towards being mostly organic in what we eat, reducing our carbon footprint and attempting to reduce our overall impact. Plus I keep trying and attempt to keep trying something new, when I can or have a choice between products or activities.
It is difficult to change after many years of doing things one way, but it does feel good to feel that if enough of us make the little changes, that others will see what we are doing does make a difference.
Harold
We have made a few changes.
ReplyDeleteWe carry reusable bags to the grocery store, buy more organic (if it isn't organic we are trying to do without), we are recycling paper towel and toilet paper tubes (we didn't know we could!), and we are saving to buy a table top distiller, and kitchen faucet water filter, to end buying water in bottle.
It's not easy, we forget sometimes, and other times a bottle of water is a convenience, but we are trying to change life time habits.
There are more we are working on, maybe some will end up being the next challenge.
(I just joined)
Enjoy your break! :-)
ReplyDeleteMy tomatoes are growing. It's the first time I'm growing them, so I'm still in awe. Every day. :-)
Miss you! Cannot WAIT for next weeks challenge...ooohhh....I hope its another activism challenge...that really got my GREEN blood flowing!
ReplyDeleteThe hardest challenges are probably the ones I haven't succeeded at yet ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe 2nd hardest challenges are geographical in nature: getting to work, and the social geography of getting my housemates to go green. I visualize an era in which we can make a game of it and blogged about it here
http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2011/07/save-our-worldsunday-scans-save-polar.html
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the things I am glad, write for those who can't help themselves like the polar bear
I think that one of the hardest has been to find local produce in the winter months. So we try our best to raise and put up the majority of our vegetables.What we don't raise we go to our local farmers markets and local orchards and purchase what we want and then either freeze or can them for use in the Winter months. I really don't like buying fruits and veggies that have been shipped from so far away and you have no idea what they have been sprayed with!
ReplyDeleteI just recently started cloth diapering and using cloth wipes also, making my own face wash (OCM), just found Dr. Bronners and using it for tons of stuff, I found skoy clothes to use instead of paper towels loving it, making my own cleaning products, I got a Diva Cup last month, no more tampons. I have done a lot in the last couple of months and I am so enjoying it!
ReplyDelete