Day: January 31, 2018

Wasteless Pantry Mundaring News (1 February 2018)

Happy 2018!

With the kids back at school it really feels like the new year has begun 🙂

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and whilst we’re not big on giving stuff, we do love to share the love so…

ACTION REQUESTED:

We would really love you to nominate your favourite Wasteless Pantry staff member!  Send us a bit of love by email about someone at the store who has done something to impress you, help you or inspire you.  Make sure it gets to us by close of business Tuesday 13th February and we will pick the best nomination to reward that staff member with a $30 gift voucher of their choosing.

[Just so you know, we’ve asked our staff to nominate their favourite customers too!]

In case you are not sure of names…

In this photo L to R top row: Emily, Tessa & James

L to R middle row: Lizzy, Belinda & Jade

L to R bottom row: Jeannie & Amanda

What’s been happening at the store?

  • We’ve added a bunch of recipes to the wall – like flatbread, tortillas, pizza bases and doughnuts!
  • We had the arrival of stainless steel drinking cups, insulated water bottles, sisal exfoliating gloves, coconut fibre scrub pads and scourers, organic muslin produce bags, dish wash brushes and replacement heads as well as pouches of bamboo cutlery.
  • We also expanded our range of stainless steel lunch/take away containers to include bento snack boxes, Cheeki lunch boxes and stackable bento boxes
  • We updated the website so if you want a more recent idea of what we stock check out our Product List

Coming soon:

  • We’re about to do a big review of what we stock so we’ll keep you updated on the changes
  • We are hoping to add an Artisan Bread Mix for making cob loaves and baguettes as well as bringing back Wholemeal Bread Mix which has a new recipe that we are happier with

Photo credit:

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash


Are you punishing yourself?

Decluttering vs Wasting

The idea of less stuff, clean surfaces, and an organised home is appealing to most.  That thought that you could spend less time cleaning, that it would be so simple that your 3-year-old could do it and that you could enjoy your home is so attractive that many of us have been on and off the decluttering bandwagon for years.

But if you are also trying to be environmentally friendly and reduce your contribution to landfill, it can be a conflicted experience.  Likewise, if you are someone who is budget conscious you might be looking at your possessions in terms of the monetary investment that you are potentially throwing away.  Alternatively, you might be more a sentimental type who sees the love in the gift (wanted or not at the time) that you are now trying to disconnect from.

Personally, I struggled with all three.  I punished myself for purchasing or acquiring the thing in the first place by trying to find a use for it when clearly it was not for me.  The thing would hang around my house, then in some storage space making it difficult to get to other more useful things, then it would be relegated to the shed before I’d finally admit defeat and move it on.  I felt guilty and ashamed of my relationship with stuff and that I had been outmanoeuvred by marketing to buy things I really didn’t need.

There are two ideas that made the difference for me.

  1. I started thinking of stuff as having its own needs – a need to be used as often as possible.  Was I ever going to use this to its full potential?  Would anyone I know use it more?  Could it be recycled so that it could have a new life as something with purpose again?
  2. I also started thinking about waste more generally to do with my things.  What other waste am I creating because I am holding onto this thing when really it needs to go (even if it needs to go to landfill)?  Was it impeding my ability to use other things to their full potential – like the bowls I couldn’t get out of the cupboard because I had too many serving dishes in the way or the room that we only half used because it had a stockpile of stuff to find a use for?  Was I wasting time moving and reorganising this thing that I don’t use, instead of using that time to live more sustainably?  Was I wasting water and electricity cleaning it but never using it?

I follow the waste hierarchy pretty religiously:

Refuse – stop buying things or bringing things home unless I need them

Reduce – aim for the smallest amount of things that I serve my needs

Reuse – find a new purpose for an underused item or pass it on to someone that can use it more

Recycle – break it down into its core material and give it another life

Rot – some things can be added to a compost pile to at least build your garden on

Then if it has to go to landfill so be it.

 

We are all learning and growing.  We make mistakes.  In other areas of our lives, we have learnt to forgive ourselves, let it go and move on.  This is just one more area to practice this.  Stop punishing yourself for your past and give yourself permission to step lightly into your best future.