Buy for your real life: Remember those high-heeled boots I bought that were perfect for life in New York City? I didn’t buy those for my real life, unfortunately. Figure out what you tend to buy for your fantasy life, and face the reality that perhaps those things aren’t for you.
― Tara McKenna, Don’t Be Trashy: A Practical Guide to Living with Less Waste and More Joy
CBR16 Bingo: Cult
I have anxiety. Every time I unwrap something packaged in plastic, or when I throw out a plastic bag, even if it goes into the recycling bin, my stomach clenches. What if this can’t be recycled? Should I have washed it and separated it? Is this paper the type that is trash or recyclable? All of these questions stress me out. I’m not a tidy person by nature, and worrying about where everything belongs adds another layer of anxiety to the already annoying process of doing household chores.
I constantly ask myself “Am I doing this right?” and “How do I consume less?” There are some obvious things that I try to do on a regular basis, but the sheer amount of plastic that I encounter every day really, really bothers me.
Don’t Be Trashy didn’t answer all of my questions or give me a single, clear path forward. This is because everyone’s circumstances are different. It did, however, help me narrow down what is important to me in terms of reducing and creating less waste in general.
The book is meant to be followed in order with a different bit of homework in each chapter, by tackling different areas of our “trashy” lifestyle (my words, not the author’s). The chapters that resonated with me the most were on how to get more out of the items I already own and how to fight the compulsion to collect more and “better” items.
I was worried that the only guilt-free path forward was to fully embrace the plastic-free lifestyle. I assumed I would be encouraged to make my own laundry detergent and eschew any product that came from a non-sustainable source.
Instead, the author offered a list of ways in which I can begin to make small changes in how I consume. This is based on what is important to me. I do not see myself making homemade cleaning products or replacing all of my food storage containers with organic beeswax wraps. However, I have some ideas about small steps I can make in my daily life that reduce waste, especially plastic or non-recyclable items.
This quote sums it up perfectly for me.
Remember this: You do not have to aim to fit all of your trash from an entire year or month or even week in a mason jar. That may be the path forward for some, but it won’t work for everyone. I personally can’t live up to that expectation. Being less trashy is about making better choices and building the habits necessary to make it easier to live with less waste.
For this year’s CBR16 Book Bingo Reading Challenge I’m choosing albums from the 1970s that helped raise me. When I think of Cult, I think of clinging to one way of thinking. As I go through the process of adopting new, positive habits and letting go of old ways of thinking, I can’t help but sing in my head the famous chorus from The Gambler (1978) from Kenny Rogers, about knowing “when to hold ‘em” and “when to walk away.”
