things you THOUGHT were sustainable but actually are NOT

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[Thoughtspresso]

Y'know how in the Philippines some group meals (often called a Boodle Fight) are eaten with a banana leaf laid out on the table and people just eat with their hands. So the banana leaf is totally compostable. A company came out with a "eco-friendly reusable banana leaf for boodle fight" made out of... plastic fabric. HAHAHhahHAHhahHAHAHhahahahH i HATE IT

[Antistylestyleclub]

*recycling is a business and we should treat it as such* This is something to keep in mind on so many levels 💚

[mynewworld]

I hate that “superfood hype” which promotes eating exotic food over regional food
For example I always see ads for quinoa and how good they are for the body but it has to go a long way to (in my case) Europe whereas millet grows in many diffrent climates also in Europe and has very similar nutrients
The same with cranberries where there is an amarican and an european type of them and in europe amarican cranberries get promoted a lot but they differ only in size
That makes absolutly no sense in my eyes

[christyes]

"The footprint of tech is HUGE."
Thank you for bringing this up and having us remember these devices don't just appear!

[DoctorWhoFanatic]

On the digital planning point as well: the cloud is not in a cloud, it is in a server farm. These server farms also take up tons space and recourses, among other ecological damages. Research from a couple of years ago estimated that these spaces would account for up to 5% of emissions by 2025. Users don't always think about that since they don't see these spaces usually, but just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

[katieslack]

"Throwing away something that is completely usable is... not a sustainable option." It seems so common sense, and yet we get caught up in the excitement and energy and joy of having the sustainable item now that we just... forget? Don't think? Part of true sustainable living is using your common sense! Loved this video!

[melissaf]

My husband is a WishCycle person. I keep going behind him and pulling out stuff that is not accepted. Every week I lecture him... "you're going to be responsible for an entire dumpster of recycling being put in the landfill".

[ClaireCaoimheRaeMoonshadow]

My grandparents lived near a leather processing plant. When the wind would shift just right, we were running around shutting the windows and gagging. It was so gross.

[elenakalliste]

The digitizing of everything is definitely something that fools a lot of us. I have always needed to physically write something down on paper to remember it, so I’m glad I’m not being pure evil

[inaleighjohnson]

The treatment of workers who make the tech products is something worth mentioning too! Also all of the electricity used to run the servers that store our data is a huge footprint as well.

[LarnieRadek]

The thrift store point is so true. I used to volonteer in a charity shop in the UK, and once an item had been on the shelf for so long, it went off to "recycling".

[MultiDaisy]

I love that you broke things down further than just ‘this is good or that is bad’ because there are SO MANY FACTORS that go into play with what is sustainable for whom.

[KaylaKukla]

It would be SO interesting for you to tour and spend a day in a recycling center. Perhaps this is a possibility?

[sierraroseprzybyla]

I wish that you would have talked about “up cycling” along with “wish cycling” ...so often things are made in-recyclable (and given a much shorter life cycle in general) with good intentions. A glass jar covered in paint can’t go to the recycling facility, a tshirt cut into a tank top won’t be sold second-hand. So many craft projects just run the life span of things... I know that it’s a fishy/nuanced area, but I hope that more people will be talking about *real* re-use/recycling.

[pthkpot]

hey! i dont know if you knew this, but a company called deserto makes leather out of cacti! its sustainable and organic. its not very widely available to purchase goods made from it yet but its something to keep an eye out for in the future!

[rachaelmow]

On the subject of leather: Thursday boots are made from leather but their shoes are designed to be easy to resole making them last a life time. If you email their customer service they can send you a link to their "factory defects" page which is just already made shoes that are less than perfect so they can't be sold regularly and they're discounted. Mine came with a small scuff on the toe and that's it. A scuff that would be there anyway once the shoes were worn. Save them from going to landfill and you've got good life long shoes.

[piperevelyn]

About clothing: I just recently read an article about how big fast fashion companies don't resell the items returned to them but instead they are shipped to Africa where clothes with good potential are sold to resellers, leaving majrity to end up in landfills. So that is one unsustainable thing, buying something online and thinking just because you return it, it will get sold to another customer. There was a mention by some company that if the item sells for less than 60€ it is not worth repairing and reselling. 🤬

[slightlycrummy]

The footprint while using tech is also massive! Like, if you're storing things on the cloud you're essentially just shipping off your data (photos, videos, other files) to be stored in massive servers that require a lot of resources to create and run. I'm currently looking into the different eco footprints that tech has and it's so hard to even begin to scope out. There are a lot of large tech companies trying to find greener ways of computing but since tech itself is still so new, the green movement in tech is barely there.

[jessicahartlein]

The notebook/planner vs digital is a good point. I burn through a lot of notebooks at work but so far I’ve only used my late grandmothers stationary and other peoples unused notebooks.

[WhimsicalCrochet]

The city I live in actually shut down their curbside recycling because of how contaminated it all was, I started a petition to bring it back and reached out to the city counsel, but I haven’t heard back from any of them yet:(