Stop Waste, Start Living Well :-)

                                              A Very Happy Earth Day

"Waste not even a single grain, single drop of water; for it amounts to waste of our own and someone else's love, labor & life. Everything is a gift of God" --LiveWell

We have been often asked about our journey and share our practices around minimizing waste especially around food, water, materials, transportation & living space. In a nutshell, it's our experience that once we live with minimal waste, one begins to see uncluttered, cleaner, brighter and welcoming space to live, to live well & thrive.

There were challenges that we had to consciously work through and change our old habits and patterns that had become a part of our daily life! It was not a easy path for us, but we stayed with the changes and now it's a very natural process for us. We cannot imagine our life with old dangerous habits and patterns that destroys everything precious on this planet Earth, home to billion of humans now. We have been living minimal waste life for the past few years, we feel grateful that we are able to do it and we hope our journey will help others to embark on this journey because we know it's possible to do it and do it now!

Lets first start with kitchen where there is a possibility of generating a lot of waste each day. It was the first place we decided to look into when we decided to make changes to reduce our waste.

Important steps to reduce the waste:
Kitchen

• We always have a bucket in the kitchen to collect the water after we  wash our vegetables, rice, lentils.
• We also have a vessel in the sink to collect the water when we wash our hands, other vessels, vegetables, rice and lentils.
• We use a Eco-friendly hand and dish wash liquid so that we can collect the water and use it for our plants and compost.
• We collect all the vegetable waste to compost at home, we like to do it at home than sending it away in a large truck to be turned into a soil in a far off place, by doing it at home we are able to reduce the impact far more. In fact composting is one of our favorite work to do around the home.
• Once you have collected the vegetable waste in the kitchen, add them to the big compost bins along with dry leaves, a little water and mix it up to allow proper amount air to flow through it to make a rich, fertile, healthy soil in a matter of 3-4 months.
• We never use paper towels at home, always use a cloth napkin to clean counter tops and appliances and definitely to wipe hands.
• We have taken a pledge not to use paper/plastic plates, spoons or cups in this life, so no using them at home or at any events.
  
• We have a limited set of plastic & cloth bags that we re-use for their full life, always keeping some of them available handy in the car. We use the emptied rice bags, bulk lentil bags as re-usable bags & use them for their full life & eventually recycle them.
  
• Waste not even a single grain, make an effort to pick up any few grains of rice, mustard etc spills. Once you practice this in one area it would apply to all aspects and you will soon see that you do not throw away even a tiny pencil, small piece of paper or a shipping package. I was deeply inspired from this Sri Ramana story.
  

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Bathroom

• We never allow the water to run while brushing our teeth or just rubbing soap while washing our hands.
• We always collect the cold water in milk gallons before taking shower so that we do not waste the cold water. We use the same water to flush the toilet through out the day.
• We also stop the water when we apply shampoo or soap during the shower so that we can save some more water.
• We use Eco-friendly Dr. Bronner's soap and shampoo for hand wash and bath.
• We use natural oils like almond oil as moisturizer rather than using a regular moisturizer which normally has a lot of harsh chemicals.
• We do not use perfumes,  regular face wash, no nail polish instead we make our own face wash with lentil powder, sandal wood powder and almond meal. 
  
• We take bath in warm water rather than hot water, it is not only good to environment, it's very good for our skin.  
  

Living Space

• We sit down to eat, have minimal furniture in the living room. All done by choice to de-clutter our space. Space feels open and inviting and becomes available for our community Yoga and such wellness practices several times each week.
• Have a very limited absolutely necessary electronic gadgets, promptly powered off after use. All un-used electric sockets sealed off with baby proof closures to avoid energy dissipation.
• Maximize the use of natural sun light for all our activities, rise before sun rise so the morning activities can be done by the sun rises, sleep early (avoids using lights etc late at nights). Harvest rain water -- a simple trash cans with open lids during heavy rain is a easy way to get started, starting is the key, it becomes a new pattern and high chance of keeping up the practice continuously improving along the way.
• We repair kitchen stuffs, electronics stuffs, stitch torn cloths -- great way to learn new skills and understand the value of everything in life. Instead of throwing away & getting new stuffs, a conscious shift to choose the options mindfully.
• Limited set of cloths (we are still working on reducing on this front), very limited set of shoes -- very basic ones for walk, hike, sports & work.
• We love our home decors as live plants (except in place of sleep) instead of artificial plastic/fiber/wood/cotton made decors. Connecting with indoor plants inspired us to start growing our own food and connect deeply with the plants outside. It's really true that "it all starts at home", applies to this one as well nicely.
  

Events
We are always attending different events, we made sure we do it a nature friendly way and keeping this in mind we started making an extra effort to carry our own bowl, spoon and water bottle. Now after many events, it's the most natural thing we do :-)) It feels the right thing in life.

Few more ways we reduce the waste:

• We always have cloth shopping bags with us, it's stylish too.
  
• We drive a Prius and we always make extra effort to drive less and less and walk more and more, plus carpool where ever there is a possibility. It's fun because we  have always end up meeting strangers who are our dear friends now :-)) we are a big fan of public transport as well.
  
•  We shop from local farmers market, it's been years that we have gone to all those big-marts!
•  We always carry our own containers if we are shopping for grocery at Rainbow, Sprouts or Berkeley Bowl
• We always turn off our computer and TV and unplug it when we we are not using them.
• We dry our clothes outside in the Sun, it not only helps to reduce our energy usage and costs, it has an additional benefit of natural immunity from Sun rays that embeds in our clothes.

We have few more ideas outlined in our previous blog. These are some of the things that are really simple and easy to do, I am glad that we changed our old habits and patterns and now cannot imagine our life with out these practices. It's Earth Day in a few days and we wish many of us would look into our habits and patterns and make conscious choices that would help the Mother Earth to heal and feel healthy again!