I have recently visited the US for the first time (I am from a small European country) and the amount of plastic you guys use without thinking literally gave me an anxiety attack. We stayed at a pretty nice hotel and there were PLASTIC cups for your morning water/juice and almost everyone was using them even for coffee and tea (the hotel also had ceramic cups for coffee but yeah). The amount of surprised faces we saw when we would bring our own tote bag when buying something (it is so normal in my country, even people who dont own tote bags just reuse those plastic ones until they literally fall apart), the amount of packaging on everything. And the worst thing is, how hard it is to avoid using it. In most coffee shops we visited, the barista would automaticaly put the coffee in a plastic cup even though it wasn't a to go order. Sometimes when I am watching you and other American sustainability youtubers talk about reducing waste and sustainable habits I am thinking that "Isn't literally everyone doing this already? That's not even an enviromantalist thing it is just a normal behavior.". Now I understand why. Love you Shelby, you are doing a great job on educating people!
I was disappointed by the lack of recycling in the hotel and other public areas. EVERYTHING is trash; glass, paper, metal, plastic, food scraps, all in the same garbage can.😢
I feel like people have completely forgotten that you can RENT dish- and glassware for parties! It used to be common practice. You can rent almost anything- even clothing! Do it!
Shelbi has talked about using goodwill/thrift stores as a “rental” service - ie just buying it to use a couple times and redonating it when she’s done.
My family decided I was weird when I was in college in the late 80s and became a vegetarian. Then when I bought a home in 1990, my neighbors though I was weird when I put in a compost pile and slowly shifted my front and back yard into less grass and added trees and shrubs, a veggie garden, and used herbs and strawberry bushes instead of flowers around my house. When they discovered it was all organic (not pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers) and saw us using a rotary mower for the small amount of grass left. My weird status was secure. Over the years, friends and family have just shrugged when I banned air fresheners from my home, dried my laundry on a clothesline and drying racks, chose a compact car over a van or SUV, brought my own bags everywhere, and had no interest in shopping for fun. Being called weird or a hippie is a badge of honor for me. My daughter did love going to other kids houses to eat "normal" food, but now prefers a healthier diet.
We reuse bread bags for everything -- food storage, litter box, loose change, odds and ends, etc. Basically everything you would use a Ziplock for, we reuse bread bags instead. It's actually really funny when someone asks if I have any quarters or whatever and I pull out a hot dog bag lmao
I do the same! I also get the 5lb cat food bags (I leave dry food out for my cats but then feed them wet food at meal times- i want to avoid bugs by avoiding leaving wet food out.) anyways, I use those as large trash bags.
I do the same- and reuse any bags. I seal in whatever (lunch/stuff/travel items, future yard sale items, gifts... ) with my Sealer. My sons always had their lunches in these "custom sealed" bread bags - I never bought any ziplog bags and wash and reuse if I get them from somewhere else. I only use the sealing option on the sealer (not the vacuum option) so I can use any plastic bags and just cut and seal to the right size
that's smart! we re-use any "regular" plastic bags we end up with. we take other soft plastic bags to the soft recycling but IDK why I never thought to reuse those too. thanks for the idea!
I was able to get my husband to start looking at bags (e.g. bread bags) for possible reuse purposes (que angels singing) - for him it’s about money but whatever works!
In the uk yards are referred to as gardens. It’s a simple thing but the culture around yards is way different here, much more biodiversity is normal and having things like ponds, rockeries and wildflowers is common. I feel like thinking of your yard, as a garden is a subtle way to acknowledge the value it adds to us and the wildlife.
It's crazy that one little word can hold such a big influence over someone's way of thinking. Us Americans should definitely normalize calling yards and lawns gardens!
Definitely felt like the odd one out and a buzzkill yesterday at lunch with my coworkers, they were talking about what they all have shopped for on temu and when it got to my turn told them I actually found it super wasteful
@@shv5626 Agreed. Though I think it's important to know your audience and try to say it in a way that will make them consider whether they might want to change their shopping habits rather than dig their heels in. So something like, "I don't enjoy housework and I find it a lost easier to keep things clean if I don't have lots of stuff" or "I was addicted to buying notebooks but I never used them so now when I'm tempted to buy one, I put the money I would have spent aside for a trip I'm saving up for" could work better than "That's super wasteful"
My friend's do this with shein and I'm just like "okay but I'm sure you didn't need earrings in the shape of a Christmas sock made by a 10 year old kid" 🗿
I live in Sweden and would never buy water in a plastic bottle. Not drinking tap water is insane, and honestly sad that it’s not possible in so many places!
i find the plastic to go disposable containers you mentioned weird honestly and this is imo an example of different cultural norms. i'm indian and in my culture whenever you want to send someone home with some food, you just give it to them in one of your regular containers with the expectation that the next time you see them, they'll give you your container back. sometimes, it would be like a continuing chain of people making food for each other so the next time we saw someone we gave our nice glass box too, they would give us our container full of something they made. i think it's really nice and builds community.
Same here in Germany. It is not common to fill the container new when you give it back. it just needs to be clean. Apart from that it is pretty much the same.
I love the idea of that! In my experience though, the nice glass containers have not been returned. I do reuse to go containers for my lunches in addition to sending guests home with food.
@@selenajosephina when I was growing up, we'd save a few sour cream, margarine, and whipped topping type containers to store leftovers in both in our own fridge as well as when sending them home.
My most recent conversation I had where someone thought I was ‘weird’ was when I told them I have never bought anything off Amazon.. they couldn’t believe it. It has never even crossed my mind!
Seriously! I feel this... I don't need a plastic bag to put in a plastic bag for a bannana. I am a reusable bag user, but still... people think it's so weird... Are they not washing their fruit and veg? Gross lol
I can't do it after being a cashier at a grocery store. I tried really hard to clean the belts constantly. I use reusable produce bags instead because even washing doesn't feel like it's enough
All of these were totally normal for me 😂 One big difference I've noticed between my friends and I over the last few years is that when I moved into a new house I didn't immediately go out and buy everything I need for it. I've spent 3 years finding the pieces that I LOVE secondhand rather than immediately going out and buying a bunch of cheap stuff that I don't really love and get tired of quickly. After being so excited about the pieces that I've found I've also noticed my friends changing their mindsets though! One friend just thrifted a pair of cabinets for her laundry room and that's something she never would have even thought to do before 🎉
I've mostly furnished my place with inherited stuff at first, and estate sales basically after that (excepting some appliances which I got when best buy was closing and had minor damage so the prices were super cheap). Find that stuff lasts longer, is usually hardwood, and honestly, it's my aesthetic. Also new furniture kinda sucks unless you pay for the quality (my desk chair I was spending 12+ hrs a day in for instance...)
The tap water one gets me! Everyone in my area says it’s gross but they all used to drink it. It’s not gross. It tastes fine! I hate when people buy plastic water bottles to use to fill their Stanley’s!!
I grew up only drinking water so now I can taste water and I personally don’t like the water from the tap. However my grocery store has a water refill system and I refill my 2 5 gallon jugs and it tastes better and spending $3 for a week worth of water for a 2 person household is worth it if we actually drink it. But that water filter looks good but I don’t want to spend extra money when I have a good system going
@@batmansuenosI think having a backup system would be a good idea. What happens if your store doesn’t have water? What happens if it goes out of business or removes that service? Or in the event of a storm and you can’t go out?
My newest habit is that I reuse every single small plastic bag as a poop bag. I go through 2-3 poop bags a day and I might as well reuse the ones that comes along when I buy regular groceries or when small plastic bags are becoming too filthy to use for other purposes. Im obsessed with it. I'd suggest anyoen do this tbh. It saves a lot of money and just makes sense. If you dont have a dog, you can give yours to a friend of yours. I wish other people in my life did that for me.
I do this, too! Take a walk around any shopping cart corral and you will find so many produce bags abandoned in there or even around the produce section at the store. I hate it when people grab a bunch just to leave them in the cart and get tossed!
I wondered if there was an eco friendly alternative for dog poop bags that society will accept. Otherwise dogs become a huge burden to the envirorment at no fault at their own (or benefit to the dog). If they are healthy poop around 3 times a day (of course can vary a bit) and you are then supposed to use 3 plastic bags per day per dog, for the dogs entire life. And plastic is something that never truly degrades in a way that is compatible with nature. Dogs are the most common pet too, so thats a problem at a large scale
I send people leftovers home in old plastic containers from the grocery store. Bought yogurt in this once, three years ago here you go. A lot of them are fr like 10 years old and were my grandparents first. They sent me home something in that and then i give it to someone else. No one finds it weird by whole family has done that for as long as can remember and I'm sure much longer
My “weird” sustainable habit is being very conservative with heating and cooling. In summer months, our air conditioning is set to 75° and heat is set to 65° in the winter. Most of the spring and fall months we just let the fresh air in and keep the central heating and cooling off. Friends and family think it’s “weird,” but you know what’s actually weird? Going into someone’s house in the heat of summer and being frozen or overheating in someone’s house in the dead of winter. Of course it is necessary to a degree to manage the temperature of ours homes, but people go WAY overboard with it.
I'm similar in this way, and I am also strategic and intentional about opening/closing windows and curtains whether I'm trying to let cool air in, let sun in, keep the sun out, etc. I don't have central air and I don't have AC units all over the house, just one in my bedroom that I have used a couple of times overnight this year when it got unbearable. (I also don't live where it's as hot as somewhere like Texas or Florida.) I'm with you on going somewhere in summer and freezing- I went over to a friend's the other day and took a sweatshirt with me because I knew I'd need it on account of the air conditioning.
I'm close to there with ya, summer AC is 74, winter heat is 68. Except for the random week or 2 that it gets extremely hot or cold, then we'll adjust accordingly a few degrees.
Lawns are so WEIRD! Why are we literally farming ornamental grass in the yard? And that’s normal?? And we don’t do any sort of crop rotation so it looks terrible. It honestly has become kind of creepy to me, walking around suburbia where I grew up and and seeing lawn after lawn after lawn for absolutely no purpose.
To me, mowing the grass short only takes away the beaty of all the flowers that would otherwise grow there. People need to start thinking differently about it, but first and foremost there shouldnt be neighboorhouds that straight up demand it from everyone who lives there to have a plan grass lawn. If people still wanna mow their lawn, there are actually manual grasscutters that use no fuel whatsoever, I visited a friend who had it. It was just a wheel with many knives basically that you push forward and it cuts the grass just as well as a lanmower. Thats still a good step in the right direction. Its not hard to use, and actually safer too. Another may be regular input of other vegetation, flowers, bushes, trees, and a variety of types. I think that makes it far less damaging
My mom used to work in a hotel for 15years and she would always take paper towels form work to not buy it. When I moved out amd realised I actually had to BUY it. I was shocked 😮. That was enough of a reason for me not to buy it ever
Drinking from the tap! My coworkers will say, "I wish we had water at work..." we have multiple taps, with a filter! But they will bring plastic bottles to work, drink two sips and leave them EVERYWHERE. One day I cleaned ten water bottles up in the breakroom and in the fridge, that had been sitting there for a week but no one finished any :( The plastic bottled water companies have really convinced the general public that tap water is dangerous. Anytime I see people leaving costco with carts full of MINI plastic water bottles 😵💫
I did an internship at a public institution (I hope I translated this correctly 😅) where they actually had a kind of task force working towards getting the institution to be more sustainable. They met once a month as far as I know and discussed strategies for reducing waste during the work process as well as reducing waste created during breaks (e.g. there was no single use dishware, no vending machines, no individually wrapped portions of sugar or creamer, a coffee machine you could refill with loose coffeebeans and tap water - no capsules!, and the list goes on). Also, there were several bins in the break room for plastic, paper and biodegradable waste for better recycling. ♻️ Maybe, if you have the time capacity and your coworkers aren't totally against the idea of saving the environment, you could initiate such a kind of task force for where you work? 💪😀 Just an idea! Don't get me wrong! 😉 Edit: Accidentally pressed the arrow button before finishing the comment, so I had to edit it to finish. 😅
As a swede, not drinking from the tap is so wierd. Here almost everyone have a dedicated water bottle, either bought for this purpose or just reusing a PET bottle.
Absolute same here. Accidental pee, poo (I use toilet paper to pick up then flush) upchuck, etc. we go through it pretty slowly since that is the main purpose but unless you immediately hand wash the rag or have enough for a load in the washer, that is going to stink to high heaven. Wasn’t an issue as much back in the day since most people kept dogs outside. I’ve got four doggies and all live indoors and accidents are going to happen.
Yeah, I use paper towels for the worst of the throw up, but that's it. The big pack lasts me literal years. Pee is easy enough to wash, so I just use rags/towels for that, but if they throw up, I do take care of the worst of it with paper towel then use a rag to do the last bit with whatever cleaner I'm using. The only exception is if I have some kind of cloth something that is old enough/worn enough that it's actually trash. Instead of throwing it out, I save it in the same place I keep the paper towel roll and then use it as a "disposable" when a dog throws up.
I keep paper towels on hand for pet vomit, but a roll lasts me pretty much forever, even with 6 pets! We have old, retired bath towels if there is ever a urine accident, and we wash them immediately after use, though they are not often needed.
I live in Ottawa Canada and we have some of the worlds safest and highest quality tap water and yet so many people here still buy and use single use water bottles. It’s wild to me.
When I worked in the office I brought in my reusable napkins & everyone would comment about how cute they were. I think it didn’t occur to them you could just…buy fabric napkins and wash them (these same people couldn’t believe I brought my own lunch every day). They are also good for leftovers like sandwiches & non wet food you could wrap up to send with your friends and just have them wash and bring back to you next craft party. I’ve done that before & people actually brought them back! Other than that a weird thing I do is I’m very careful on rainy days to not step on worms 😂 if they’re still alive I pick them up and put them back in the dirt. People have thought I’m weird for stopping them from stepping on worms. I have found that most of my friends have told me they’ve learned a lot for me & I’ve made them change the way they do things so I think it does make a difference.
This is so reassuring to know that even Shelby, who is so vocal, educated and active when it comes to sustainability, still has family and friends who question her practices. Oftentimes I’m just quiet about the things I do for sustainability purposes, but it’s a good reminder that people are gonna find it weird anyway, so may as well just do it!
I use cloth diapers which is not as complicated as it sounds and the waste it saves us is incredible. Also I recently celebrated my wedding in our garden and we rented glassware, dishes, napkins, etc. It was great and little to no waste. Our gifts for the guest were glass straws with the names ingraved. Everyone loved them!
OHHH, those are GREAT, one of my kids loved them and the other one didn´t. Guess which one was potty trained before she turned 2 🤣 (by her own choice tbh, but still a win)
For me it’s turning the lights and/or TV off before I leave my place. My family can be out of the house for hours yet they don’t bother turning these things off before they leave. It’s so irritating.
Wonderful vid! Lots to stay, but I'll try to stick to one: my 71 year old physicist husband never agrees with anything, but he *loved* your lawn video! Unheard of, so be proud, 🤣 Also, I'm a long-time viewer, and I converted to rags and a bidet years ago because of you, and I can't thank you enough. Incoming TMI: the bidet solved my chronic yeast/thrush problems! *hugs*
For fireworks, i advocate for people going to larger town shows rather than multiple households doing their own separate shows. It pushes it into one area on one night often with better safety and clean ups.
I call myself a tree hugger. If folks don't understand, it's their problem. Today, I took my 10 yo grandson in the back garden to teach him about composting. Small tiny steps. Yes, I'm the weird one.
I use to go to Dollar Tree fairly regularly (when the products were $1) & I usually bought more than I intended because everything was cheap. I haven't been in months. I passed by one recently and said to myself "But I don't NEED anything".
My family thinks it's a little weird that I have paper towels, but I have them because I'm disabled so I only use them when I don't have the energy to wet a cloth and dry after. I do use plastic bags to freeze food into portion sizes, but people think it's weird that I reuse them until they break. I think that's the same with a lot of 'disposable' items such as plastic straws (for those with disabilities who can't use alternatives), medical masks (I know they're not that sustainable but causing mass disability is less sustainable). I also want to add that if you have plastic tubs you don't need to go out and buy nice glass ones (you actually taught me that).
Love it! I do most of these things as well. Another thing I do that people think it’s really weird is if I am going to a family gathering where I know they will have paper plates and plastic cups, I bring my own real dishes. If people say anything, I just tell them I don’t want to create more waste. It’s super easy to put them in a tote bag with small towels between so they don’t break and I just rinse them off before we come home!
@@lestrangedmy mom also uses hot oil after she fry’s things haha. The weeds never come back and then the oil doesn’t have to go in the garbage either lmao.
I cycled through the implant, IUD and shots. Eventually my hormones got so out of whack it was affecting my private life, making it feel like im going through menopause at 27. So my husband got the snip and I'm using reusable underwear/pads. I do miss not having periods though. 😅
Totally not weird omg! I’m the environmentalist of my family and they are BEWILDERED by several things I do: using shampoo and conditioner bars, a safety razor, compost, hate paper towels, don’t use a britta and drink straight from my tap, refusing to purchase plastic bottles or bottled water and bring a water bottle everywhere with me, thrifting 90% of my stuff… and so much more lol
i always ask people if they drink from the tap in their house, because i have been lots of places where the tap water is not potable. i also drink tap water at home, but i always check when i'm visiting someone. i wish i had a bidet, and i hate balloon arches. that wasp you caught was a parasitic wasp, they don't sting people they kill bad bugs in the garden, but yes they're creepy looking. i'm the 'bug whisperer' in my house, everyone just hollers for mom when there's a bug and i get out my little catching kit and remove whatever with no drama. my 7yo endearingly wants to save and be friends with all the bugs.
Putting our compost in the freezer has been a GAME CHANGER, so thank you for sharing that tip! The smells and the flies that our compost was attracting was disgustingly impressive, lol. 🤣
You inspired me to put my reusable towels in a jar, but other than that, I do all that and more :) for instance, I wear only cotton, that when it breaks down after years of washing, I cut up into cushion stuffing or the aforementioned towels. I line dry only. I don't even own a car, I only carpool. I walk everywhere. I borrow books from the library. The list is endless!
I love that you not only dont push things onto people, but you also stand up and say no to participating in things that go against unaliving this planet! Speaking up and being active makes a huge difference in the world.
I agree with you on almost everything. I’m used to be “weird” and I can’t care enough. It’s frustrating and sad how hard people push back on the smallest changes. Even if it requires the tiniest effort, my family just doesn’t care or want to change.
The 2 things people think I'm really weird for, that honestly makes me roll my eyes, is literally that I compost (it's literally required by my city now, along with recycling) and that I actually give a shit about things. It makes me so mad sometimes cuz these are the simplest things in my opinion. Yet for some reason its less weird to use reusable things, except for paper towel, yea no one seems to understand spending money on them is so stupid
A lot of these are weird only in the USA...many of the habits that you're describing here are the norm in India ( and many other Asian countries). Having a water filter on the kitchen tap, using bidets, using cleaning rags made of old clothes is absolutely the norm here.
I stayed in India for 1.5 months a few years ago and didn't see a single bidet, are they mostly in family homes rather than guest houses or public places?
My friends find it weird that I drink tap water too (I still distill it tho for tea and drinking as usual), I keep the plastic bags of my house in tissue boxes (my grandmother always saved her plastic bags), my mother finds it weird that I want to put a garden in the backyard of our new home, she also finds it weird that I freeze my compost 'til I can compost it at work or at a local bin program that my city started. I have been like this for most of my life but, more in the past 2 years.
I basically do all the ones mentioned. I’m a weird person, so I think everything I do is weird. When it comes to bugs I let friendly spiders 🕷️ stay in. They’re great with killing unwanted insects. I also water my plants outside, specially if it’s raining I put them outside. I just can’t stand to see good water been going to the drainage. All my old cloths become rags, as I like to also design shashiko patterns on them.
Hand washing socks, underwear, and cloth pads. They come out cleaner and there are no infections in our house for those areas. Also, my father had a thing about not wasting that I seem to have in my blood too. He reclaimed building materials before it was a thing and would get so irritated that people would just “let that go to waste! Why? You can still use it!” I love that. I don’t build houses, but I reuse everything I possibly can because I can still hear my dad and wholeheartedly agree.
I can't drink from my tap right now because the aquifer is too salty so I have to buy water and I miss my tap! We get the big 5 gallon jugs and return the jugs when we drink all the water instead of buying the small bottles.
Something my friends and family consider weird that I do is that I carry silverware and a reusable napkin with me. So long as I have those on deck, I never have to use disposable cutlery. Food tastes better with real utensils, too!
oh my goddd like ive been trying to be more sustainable and my mom had to make a snide comment like "her new thing is the environment" and my family just looks at me weird for things i do !! I was saving up my coffee grounds for a body scrub and then i saw someone threw them away ! This video is v v cathartic lollll
I’m definitely from the camps of “buying a bidet changed my life” and “switching to reusable period products changed my life”! I’m not ashamed and no one gets it till they do it. Thankful to you for bringing these ideas to my life and I’m passing on the knowledge 😊❤
When I was living in metro Atlanta, I could drink from the tap (although we filtered), but now that I live farther south, the water tastes like sulfur. It's awful, even filtered. I filter it, run it through the coffee maker to distill it, then filter it again, and it stops tasting weird.
My mom has never been able to accept that I do not like shopping if it's not second hand. A lot of times she goes out of her way to buy me things without my permission because she knows I won't buy it for myself and she thinks these things are "necessities". No matter how many times I try to explain it to her, she just doesn't get it. So I think that kinda fits with the 'not shopping for fun' thing. My mom has also always been super against any form of reusable period product I have tried (I'm absolutely loving the K&S Period Underwear btw, its the best period product I have tried so far). She thinks they are unsanitary and weird, even though I have told her all this research to show her that it's really not. I've tried to stop shaving in the past as well because I think it's pointless and I feel like I'm just complying with sexist norms, but my mom has repeatedly called me disgusting for that as well, even though I now have a partner (who accepts and loves me regardless of if I grow out my body hair) and even though I compared it to my dad's leg hair, which is the same. But apparently she doesn't think so. I think her judgement, more than anything, has been the reason I've never been able to fully swear off razors. Even when it comes to social media, which I pretty much abhor except for RUclips after I turned off automatic suggestions, my mom tries to force me to do the "normal" thing for people my age and basically live online. No matter how many times I've tried to explain to my mom that social media is NOT the "new way for my generation to interact" (and in some cases it's really just pulling us apart) she refuses to listen and wishes that I would just be like everybody else. It's just so so frustrating when people in your life refuse to view life as something greater than just what we are told is "normal" and what modern life is "supposed to be like". I just can't understand why people like my mom are so determined to have the same things as everyone else, look like everyone else, be like everyone else. Sorry for the little rant lol but I definitely get what you're saying and it bothers me so much.
I'm sorry your mom is unable to let you live your life the way you want. I know exactly how you feel. I also struggle with my mom giving me stuff I didn't ask for. She constantly overbuys food and then expects me to eat the extra. It's so frustrating. I have thought of having a mantra for when she gives me stuff, like "Thank you, but I don't want the responsibility of dealing with this." Hopefully she'll eventually get it after I say it a hundred times...
When I go shopping I often don’t have my reusable bags because I’m forget and leave them in the car. I get so many looks when I just leave with all my items naked. I will walk it to the car and bag it with the bags in the car. 😂😂😂
For me it’s explaining composting and asking to compost, using rags instead of paper towels, explaining the laundry powder and dryer balls are all we have (instead of all the scent stuff people use) when people stay over and do laundry, the different non toxic cleaning products I have under the sink and explaining each of them when someone asks, the Aleppo olive oil soap we use as dish soap compared to dawn, my stainless steel crock with reusable pads in my bathroom 🤦🏽♀️🤣, homemade goats milk skincare I keep in the fridge, and all my other “weird” natural products including bar soap for hand washing, oh and my fabric bag stash since plastic bags are banned statewide and you have to pay to use bags. Family is also native to Texas and finds a lot of this weird, especially asking to recycle and having 0 disposable dish ware as well. I live in the PNW though and it’s WAY more accepted and common here to adopt these habits and eco friendly alternatives are still being sold and marketed locally too so it’s not uncommon to find fabric bowl covers, beeswax wraps, compostable party plates and utensils, compostable straws at restaurants, bring your bottles to coffee shops, see reusable bags everywhere, everyone walking biking or taking public transport, recycling and composting literally everywhere in every neighborhood and city, tons of food donation programs to prevent food waste, LOTS of natural habitat yards and tons and tons of gardens and csa’s nearby, tons of local farm stands in people’s front yards, huge push for natural and holistic living including the government programs with food as well as all the naturopathic medicine providers, nature preschools (yes those exists, think yurts in the forest with a bunch of children), thrifting is hugely popular (almost too much, it’s getting pricy sadly) and I noticed people here don’t dress “fancy” but dress for the weather and wear practical clothing, in fact everyone looks unique and I don’t hardly see a “trend” in fashion here aside from outdoor gear that is necessary, pop up markets are huge as everyone aims to support locally and shop sustainably, makeup is not big here and I don’t see very many women hiding their natural beauty which was extremely refreshing, hardly any gyms- the outdoors is everyone’s gym, everyone hikes and swims and kayaks and does every outdoor activity you can think of- so naturally there’s a huge respect for nature and preserving parks as well as being aware of climate change in general, and there’s far less urban development here than I’ve ever seen, in fact I felt this place looked extremely “grungy” when compared to Vancouver British Columbia which is insanely urbanized and developed! Where I live, we have maintained minimal urbanization while thriving in public transit, the outdoors, and not having as much retail cluster and opportunity as other cities yet I still feel that there is plenty to do here. Really the “weird” habits we have depend on where you live, it’s not weird to people here but weird to my family back home. Oh and I also drink from the tap. The water just tastes so much better here. I plan on getting a filter soon, but my family only drinks plastic bottled water and it is funny telling people all we have is tap. It’s actually common for people to drink tap here which was something I had to get used to as well as I was always told you don’t think tap water because our water was constantly contaminated and we would get warnings from the city back in Texas all the time not to drink it. Now I drink room temperature tap water lol. Oh and fragrances, I don’t burn candles, I just crack open the windows. Luckily it’s cool enough that I can do that and it’s not gonna heat my entire place up. We don’t hardly have acs or fans up here, so our electricity bill is insanely lower than it was in Texas and that can be weird for visitors when I tell them to just open a window at night to cool down or to air out the place.
I use rags to clean the kitchen rather than paper towels. And I also hang dry about half my laundry. Linens and towels still get put in the dryer due to lack of space to hang dry. Also I make ice from a tray, rather than buy an ice maker. My roommate used to buy ice and I thought that was the weirdest thing. We have a tap and a water filter. Why for frozen water when we already pay for the electricity to run the freezer and we have clean water? We can freeze it outselves 🤷♀️
12:30 I was at work yesterday and there was a spider in our break room. Everyone freaked out and was like kill it, I just picked it up and took it outside. Like he's a harmless lil guy he's lost and scared. I live in Australia and everyone thinks everything kills you but we only have one species of spider that can kill you, its extremely uncommon. Snakes on the other hand, worry about those.
Honestly I get beef when I use reusable periods pads cause it's "gross" the idea on that topic, also the idea of not over consuming and not really into the trendy buy unnecessary stuff just to get social approval kinda blows their minds. Btw love the content, such a break from spams of trendy wasteful consumption ❤
@@justine4652I also don't get it.🤷♀️ Btw you don't even have to wash your washing machine after cleaning reusable pads. (Saying this in general, for everyone. 😉) Washing them (also underwear, bedsheets and towels) at a temperature of about 60°C/140°F k*lls bacteria and germs almost completely anyways. The washing machine should be fine without the extra cleaning. 😉 However, if there are people with a weakened immune system or little ones or elderly people living in a household, you should do part of your laundry (underwear, bedsheets and so on, even kitchen towels) at 90°C/abt. 194°F to be completely on the safe side. This also applies to laundry that had immediate contact with people who were or are sick (a cold, a yeast infection, ... you name it). Otherwise, these high temperatures are not necessary. Not for getting your laundry superduper clean (we all have and need at least some specific kind of bacteria on and in our bodies that are not harmful and most of us have a strong enough immune system to counteract the remaining 0,...% of bacteria on clean laundry) and also not for doing the environment a favour with avoiding to release hot water into the system. Also, your detergent plays an important role as well. You don't need 3 cups of it to get one load of laundry clean (exaggeration here, but I hope, my point gets clear). And you don't need immensely high temperatures for normal laundry as you use the detergent. Apart from that, using 60°C/140°F as described with a load of laundry at 90°C/abt. 194°F about once a month to sort of "desinfect" the machine is the way to go. Harsh chemicals are not needed. The machine kind of cleans itself when doing laundry at higher temperatures and using laundry detergent on top - except for all the nooks and crannies the hot water has no contact with such as the rubber ring at the top or front opening of the washing machine. These you will indeed have to clean with some kind of (preferably natural) desinfectant. Oh, and your washing machine will stay cleaner in the first place if you don't use fabric softener which often leaves a residue that attracts additional dirt. It's not good for the environment anyways, so I personally don't use it. Sorry for this spiel. I just wanted to share my knowledge about doing laundry 😅🤓😂😂😂 Please feel free to correct me on my explanations - but please be nice 🌻😊
In addition to being more sustainable and effective, reusable period products also take so much less space! I don't get the negative stereotypes around them at all. If it's a hygiene issue, it says more about people assuming you don't wash your reusables (because they wouldn't maybe?) than you wearing and looking after them!
I can relate to everything, especially the not killing bugs part. It's mind-blowing for me how people don't see bugs as living things part of a complex ecosystem. We are in the middle of a bugs mass extinction, and some people still kill the random bug passing by just for fun😢
I only kill them when they’re in my house, I have contamination OCD and see bugs as “contaminated” 😬 I also get pest people to come in on a regular basis because bugs send me into a full panic when I see too many of them a couple days in a row. I am also DEATHLY afraid of spiders. Sometimes I do feel bad about it but idk I can’t help it, usually people don’t do it out of malice, I’m pretty sure most people are just scared.
Personally I can see it from both sides. Generally see insects as living beings that I actively try to avoid harming most of the time, and an important part of the ecosystem. But with wasps (and ants that bite) there has always been an exeption because I have a serious phobia of them, completely panic and cannot even control myself near them. So if pesticides was needed to deal with them (without getting near them myself, not an option), then I would. However my dad suggested a solution when i accidentally got a wasp into my bathroom through the fan: just dont see the wasp. I used a buff to cover my eyes so I can barely see anything, and then I could actually go and open the window to let it fly out. May be a solution most people have never thought of (I hadnt), but could use in a similiar situation. Not seeing helps a lot. I also use mosquito nets on all my windows, so I can get fresh air without the risk of insects getting in
I love your garden reserve! I think it’s so much more aesthetic than just a plain grass lawn. I wish we put more native plants and personality back into our living spaces
The last time we hosted a party here there was a big spill and people went for the paper towels, and I told them to use the cloth kitchen towels instead and it was like it hadn't occurred to them that was what kitchen towels were for. The one thing that I haven't been able to go paperless for is seasoning the cast iron. Cast iron seems so much less harmful to the environment, but when I tried ro figure out how to season using cotton cloth towels I just ended up with charred towels that weren't any good for more than a few uses and that seems way more wasteful than 1 paper towel per seasoning.
I still feel weird about being mostly plant based for sustainability/ethical reasons even after like 8 years of doing it. Especially lately I feel like people are shocked that people are still doing the plant based thing
I grew up with composting and no pesticides,and also plenty of bugs, which dad always said were generally useful. I do most of the things you mentioned except biking, we live deep in bush land so no safe bikes for travellling and no public transport,so try to minimise trips in the car. You seem pretty normal to me.💗❤️💗
I'm definitely the "weird" one in my family with a lot of these. I'm very proud of my sister because she has been working on reducing her waste and recently she made the change with reusable stasher bags 😊
i do buy natural spring water by the gallon because i'm afraid our tap has added chemicals and whatever else from the city (no i don't have a water filter, just haven't had money for that) BUT i reuse the gallon jugs for storing tap water for gardens, mini greenhouses on plants and other "grey water" stuff.
IDK if you have a video for this yet, but I'd love to see how your house is set up with these sustainable habits in mind. Like how many rags do you have rather than paper towels, do you have a dirty bin nearby to throw them in, how often do you do the laundry to keep them in stock easily etc. I feel particularly with paper towels it's something I try to get away from but with 2 kids under 3 I feel like I cannot keep up with the laundry to keep rags/towels in stock.
love this. My mom can't stand that I don't use paper towels, yes the tap water thing too ( I've met so many people who think this is strange) , If I forget my bags I'll take the plastic bags, but I always take them to the recycing bins, I want to get rid of my grass lawn, but right now it is mostly creeping charley 😪 any suggestions?
Ahh I love these kind of videos♥︎ I've been really enjoying your content, it's very inspiring so now I try to live more sustainably. Thank you for caring about our planet and the animals too^^ you're awesome!
I don’t have a dishwasher so I use a lot of water washing dishes. I’ve started washing dishes over a bucket, then using that bucket to flush the toilet (#1 only…need a real flush for #2). My mom hates that I do that and constantly reminds me that I’m not saving that much water. But it makes me feel better knowing I’m doing something.
I 100% agree with you on all these points and especially the not killing bugs part. I work at a local museum here in Austin in their landscape as the landscape specialist and educator. I’m currently removing hackberry saplings that are growing under one of our heritage post oak trees to ensure the health of the larger oak tree. Well, I’ve been stung four times by wasps doing this because they like to build their paper nests on the saplings. Despite the multiple stings I don’t kill the wasps. I don’t see the point in doing that as they’re part of the habitat I am taking care of. This landscape is for all creatures to live in. But girl, I’ve been stung on my hands twice, today I got stung on my right hand. I just leave the saplings that the wasps put their nests on. My coworkers think I am real weird, but very helpful and hardworking. Keep up the good work on your lawn and don’t let silly comments get to you.
Im not zero waste and even i harldy ever buy paper towles or ziplocks 🤷♀️. I might buy one roll of paper towles occasionally to keep in my cabinet for really bad pet messes . But they are waaay to expensive to be using on the regular
I think especially the last part with the biking and reusable cutlery and plates is so much more common where I'm from - I'd never even consider buying single use items for a party! Apart from the fact that it's wasteful, it also just looks hideous and is awful to eat from, so I use whatever I have and if it's a really big party I can just rent the plates
i thought I wasn't doing enough for being sustainable habits but I'm doing a lot of this on this list. glass containers, the reusable rags in a jar, the bug friendly garden, period underwear instead of tampons, no paper towels or plastic bags, avoiding fireworks, etc. But yay!!! But also the yard one my friends must also be weird because they have all been doing that and as soon as I bought my house were will to send me native seeds to get me started.
If you have a filter system and you drink tap water, I think it's fine. What throws me is when people drink straight from the tap with NO FILTER!!!! I think that's weird for some because water's not clean everywhere.
I do not use paper towels, I drink from the tap, I do not want a front yard!! I love your habitat yard! I love the way you do things.. I have a bidet and like you, try to convert and encourage people to use it. No air freshener or wipes cause the bidet does it all! I don't shop for fun, no fireworks, ... uhm... I kill some bugs lol glad these aren't weird to me!! we're practical ❤
We don't have paper towels growing up (and still now) because we're a low income family 😅 It's literal money being thrown away! We have washrags and a sink for a reason. I was given cups, cloth pads, and menstrual underwear (by my stepmom as soon as I started my period) because free pads were always too big for me and I could not rely on my mother to supply them if needed. I will never stop laughing at how my gateway into sustainability is because I come from frugal families. The fact that it's better for the earth and my values have always been in line to do what is better for the environment is a bonus 😊
Taking containers with me for leftovers!!!! When I am eating out I always try to remember my containters for leftovers, Because I either way have to put them in a airtight containers straight when I get home and the disposable take away boxes just goes to waste
period panties are the BEST thing i ever discovered, i haven't found a good solution for me to use at work on heavy days yet so i still use other stuff on those days but when i am at home or when its not very heavy its just period panties for me. i would do anything for them! i need to invest in some heavier ones so i can use on heavier days as well
I'm a catch a release girly with bugs as well as much as I can but I also feel better catching a wasp than swatting at it like what if I miss and it gets mad!😂
We have a yearly party for just anyone we know to come hang. So we went to goodwill years ago and picked up a bunch of plates, bowls, cups, and silverware and keep it in a bin in the garage. Whenever we have more than 8 people (our standard dish set) we drag out that bin and voila we have more reusable stuff!
We recently moved and used to drink tap water (straight from the tap) and it was fantastic! Unfortunately, at our new place there is a weird taste to the tap water so we grabbed a massive filter system we can keep in the fridge and still use the tap water and it’s perfect. But never would I ever buy water for my house (unless it was totally unsafe from the tap)
Found out that all the other moms in my church also keep the plastic tupperware from their mealtrains and save it for when they make meals for other family's meal trains. We also all save the plastic takeout containers, wash them, and use them for mealtrains as well 😂 just a giant community tupperware exchange lol a few also mentioned that they too wait for the food to cool down before they put it in the containers so the heat doesnt leach plastic into the food. A lot of us cloth diaper too.
This is encouraging to watch, I want to implement more sustainable habits when I move into my own apartment in the next couple months. I'm going to need to find a roommate to split costs though and that's making me nervous, living with people is hard enough without having to explain my weird habits and accept their wasteful habits. 🥴 Any tips on how to deal with this? My mom and her boyfriend have mostly accepted my weird habits like minimizing food waste, reusing plastic bags and plastic wrap, avoiding paper towels and reusing them if possible, but it took a long time and was frustrating. In turn, I overlook their wasteful habits like using piles and piles of paper napkins at every dinner, running the AC till the house is freezing (sometimes with the outside door open, WTF), throwing out recyclable items etc, but it still makes me wince to see this. Thinking about having to go through it again with a roommate is disheartening.
Just starting to make some swaps. But didn't know not having paper towels at your home was such a big deal! Growing up we've never had paper towels... even now in my adult life i've always just used like rags.... 🤣
Your videos made me stop using paper towels so much. We used it for everything - cleaning, wiping, napkins, etc. We got reusable cloths for cleaning and spills and it has been great! Saves money and we use waaaay less paper towel. The next steps now will be to invest in reusable napkins and completely break up with paper towels.
OMG yes on the activities! So many people just assume that certain activities are universal. I hate fireworks just anyhow because the noise stresses me out but also the environmental impact on top of that and our neighbor uses so many that I'm honestly afraid our house will catch fire. Then we had relatives try to push fishing on our daughter when they know we don't eat animals and she is really sensitive to that. They tried to make it better by saying she could do catch and release but she was still horrified at the thought of hurting the fish even if she didn't kill them and it took days to calm her down.
I like "shopping" for fun, as in going into shops and looking at things for inspo. I went into an outdoor shop to try on a jacket i wanted today, but i'm going to buy it second hand, i just needed the sizing lol.
For me and my family everything you said is quite normal. I spent ten years building a garden that can sustain insects and birds and every day we are excited to see so many spiecies living or visiting our patch. Only thing that my family finds weird are wasp nests that me and my husband have on our windows but they are like pets now and they have never stung us even when I clean around them. But I think that this weirdness works out great because my litlle nephews are so interested in auntie's bugs so they always check on them when they visit so I hope this beheviour will live on in the future.
You’re definitely not weird - I do most of those - my next toilet will 100% be a bidet. You give me so much hope for younger generations - just live your channel and your education - proud of you ⭐️
I have recently visited the US for the first time (I am from a small European country) and the amount of plastic you guys use without thinking literally gave me an anxiety attack. We stayed at a pretty nice hotel and there were PLASTIC cups for your morning water/juice and almost everyone was using them even for coffee and tea (the hotel also had ceramic cups for coffee but yeah). The amount of surprised faces we saw when we would bring our own tote bag when buying something (it is so normal in my country, even people who dont own tote bags just reuse those plastic ones until they literally fall apart), the amount of packaging on everything. And the worst thing is, how hard it is to avoid using it. In most coffee shops we visited, the barista would automaticaly put the coffee in a plastic cup even though it wasn't a to go order. Sometimes when I am watching you and other American sustainability youtubers talk about reducing waste and sustainable habits I am thinking that "Isn't literally everyone doing this already? That's not even an enviromantalist thing it is just a normal behavior.". Now I understand why. Love you Shelby, you are doing a great job on educating people!
I had similar experience, ( because) similar background, and therefore similar shock.
It truly is almost impossible to avoid around here. It's disheartening, but I have to try or I can't live with myself. I wish the US would wake up😢
I was disappointed by the lack of recycling in the hotel and other public areas. EVERYTHING is trash; glass, paper, metal, plastic, food scraps, all in the same garbage can.😢
What European country are you from? I’m American and have lived in European countries half My life
I feel like people have completely forgotten that you can RENT dish- and glassware for parties! It used to be common practice.
You can rent almost anything- even clothing! Do it!
I did not know this, thank you for sharing.
Shelbi has talked about using goodwill/thrift stores as a “rental” service - ie just buying it to use a couple times and redonating it when she’s done.
My family decided I was weird when I was in college in the late 80s and became a vegetarian. Then when I bought a home in 1990, my neighbors though I was weird when I put in a compost pile and slowly shifted my front and back yard into less grass and added trees and shrubs, a veggie garden, and used herbs and strawberry bushes instead of flowers around my house. When they discovered it was all organic (not pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers) and saw us using a rotary mower for the small amount of grass left. My weird status was secure. Over the years, friends and family have just shrugged when I banned air fresheners from my home, dried my laundry on a clothesline and drying racks, chose a compact car over a van or SUV, brought my own bags everywhere, and had no interest in shopping for fun. Being called weird or a hippie is a badge of honor for me. My daughter did love going to other kids houses to eat "normal" food, but now prefers a healthier diet.
We reuse bread bags for everything -- food storage, litter box, loose change, odds and ends, etc. Basically everything you would use a Ziplock for, we reuse bread bags instead.
It's actually really funny when someone asks if I have any quarters or whatever and I pull out a hot dog bag lmao
I do the same! I also get the 5lb cat food bags (I leave dry food out for my cats but then feed them wet food at meal times- i want to avoid bugs by avoiding leaving wet food out.) anyways, I use those as large trash bags.
I do the same- and reuse any bags. I seal in whatever (lunch/stuff/travel items, future yard sale items, gifts... ) with my Sealer. My sons always had their lunches in these "custom sealed" bread bags - I never bought any ziplog bags and wash and reuse if I get them from somewhere else. I only use the sealing option on the sealer (not the vacuum option) so I can use any plastic bags and just cut and seal to the right size
that's smart! we re-use any "regular" plastic bags we end up with. we take other soft plastic bags to the soft recycling but IDK why I never thought to reuse those too. thanks for the idea!
I was able to get my husband to start looking at bags (e.g. bread bags) for possible reuse purposes (que angels singing) - for him it’s about money but whatever works!
When I was growing up, I thought it was strange that my dad would make sandwiches and carry them to work in the bread bag, but it’s actually genius!
In the uk yards are referred to as gardens. It’s a simple thing but the culture around yards is way different here, much more biodiversity is normal and having things like ponds, rockeries and wildflowers is common. I feel like thinking of your yard, as a garden is a subtle way to acknowledge the value it adds to us and the wildlife.
I was thinking this while she talked about that too! I second this
Germany’s word for yard is Garten so also literally garden
It's crazy that one little word can hold such a big influence over someone's way of thinking. Us Americans should definitely normalize calling yards and lawns gardens!
Yeah in uk if you have a back yard its literally concrete
It's common across the whole of Europe! And yet you still find people paving their entire front garden for their car. It's always sad to see
Definitely felt like the odd one out and a buzzkill yesterday at lunch with my coworkers, they were talking about what they all have shopped for on temu and when it got to my turn told them I actually found it super wasteful
Slave drivers fr
I REFUSE to even go to Temu's site, much less shop and buy.
Well done for being honest in your response! That can be super hard
@@shv5626 Agreed. Though I think it's important to know your audience and try to say it in a way that will make them consider whether they might want to change their shopping habits rather than dig their heels in. So something like, "I don't enjoy housework and I find it a lost easier to keep things clean if I don't have lots of stuff" or "I was addicted to buying notebooks but I never used them so now when I'm tempted to buy one, I put the money I would have spent aside for a trip I'm saving up for" could work better than "That's super wasteful"
My friend's do this with shein and I'm just like "okay but I'm sure you didn't need earrings in the shape of a Christmas sock made by a 10 year old kid" 🗿
I live in Sweden and would never buy water in a plastic bottle. Not drinking tap water is insane, and honestly sad that it’s not possible in so many places!
Problem is most western government have pumped it full of fluorite which is a neurotoxin
i find the plastic to go disposable containers you mentioned weird honestly and this is imo an example of different cultural norms. i'm indian and in my culture whenever you want to send someone home with some food, you just give it to them in one of your regular containers with the expectation that the next time you see them, they'll give you your container back. sometimes, it would be like a continuing chain of people making food for each other so the next time we saw someone we gave our nice glass box too, they would give us our container full of something they made. i think it's really nice and builds community.
Same here in Germany. It is not common to fill the container new when you give it back. it just needs to be clean. Apart from that it is pretty much the same.
I love the idea of that! In my experience though, the nice glass containers have not been returned. I do reuse to go containers for my lunches in addition to sending guests home with food.
We do this in Spain. At one point I accidentally accumulated 4 or 5 reusable containers from my boyfriend😅
@@selenajosephina when I was growing up, we'd save a few sour cream, margarine, and whipped topping type containers to store leftovers in both in our own fridge as well as when sending them home.
My most recent conversation I had where someone thought I was ‘weird’ was when I told them I have never bought anything off Amazon.. they couldn’t believe it. It has never even crossed my mind!
I get looked at sideways for loosely putting my veg in my cart. I'm going to wash it anyways!
Seriously! I feel this... I don't need a plastic bag to put in a plastic bag for a bannana.
I am a reusable bag user, but still... people think it's so weird...
Are they not washing their fruit and veg? Gross lol
I can't do it after being a cashier at a grocery store. I tried really hard to clean the belts constantly. I use reusable produce bags instead because even washing doesn't feel like it's enough
All of these were totally normal for me 😂 One big difference I've noticed between my friends and I over the last few years is that when I moved into a new house I didn't immediately go out and buy everything I need for it. I've spent 3 years finding the pieces that I LOVE secondhand rather than immediately going out and buying a bunch of cheap stuff that I don't really love and get tired of quickly. After being so excited about the pieces that I've found I've also noticed my friends changing their mindsets though! One friend just thrifted a pair of cabinets for her laundry room and that's something she never would have even thought to do before 🎉
I've mostly furnished my place with inherited stuff at first, and estate sales basically after that (excepting some appliances which I got when best buy was closing and had minor damage so the prices were super cheap). Find that stuff lasts longer, is usually hardwood, and honestly, it's my aesthetic. Also new furniture kinda sucks unless you pay for the quality (my desk chair I was spending 12+ hrs a day in for instance...)
The tap water one gets me! Everyone in my area says it’s gross but they all used to drink it. It’s not gross. It tastes fine! I hate when people buy plastic water bottles to use to fill their Stanley’s!!
A lot of people think tap water is less safe to drink and don’t trust that it doesn’t have harmful contaminants.
the water in plastic water bottles is just tap water anyway. they get it from hetchy hetchy, etc in California!
@@BouncyBrownOK but you can buy good jugs of clean water like
I grew up only drinking water so now I can taste water and I personally don’t like the water from the tap. However my grocery store has a water refill system and I refill my 2 5 gallon jugs and it tastes better and spending $3 for a week worth of water for a 2 person household is worth it if we actually drink it. But that water filter looks good but I don’t want to spend extra money when I have a good system going
@@batmansuenosI think having a backup system would be a good idea. What happens if your store doesn’t have water? What happens if it goes out of business or removes that service? Or in the event of a storm and you can’t go out?
My newest habit is that I reuse every single small plastic bag as a poop bag. I go through 2-3 poop bags a day and I might as well reuse the ones that comes along when I buy regular groceries or when small plastic bags are becoming too filthy to use for other purposes. Im obsessed with it.
I'd suggest anyoen do this tbh. It saves a lot of money and just makes sense. If you dont have a dog, you can give yours to a friend of yours. I wish other people in my life did that for me.
I do this, too! Take a walk around any shopping cart corral and you will find so many produce bags abandoned in there or even around the produce section at the store. I hate it when people grab a bunch just to leave them in the cart and get tossed!
I wondered if there was an eco friendly alternative for dog poop bags that society will accept. Otherwise dogs become a huge burden to the envirorment at no fault at their own (or benefit to the dog). If they are healthy poop around 3 times a day (of course can vary a bit) and you are then supposed to use 3 plastic bags per day per dog, for the dogs entire life. And plastic is something that never truly degrades in a way that is compatible with nature. Dogs are the most common pet too, so thats a problem at a large scale
I send people leftovers home in old plastic containers from the grocery store. Bought yogurt in this once, three years ago here you go. A lot of them are fr like 10 years old and were my grandparents first. They sent me home something in that and then i give it to someone else. No one finds it weird by whole family has done that for as long as can remember and I'm sure much longer
margarine tubs and kool whip containers were my families tupperware growing up
There's never butter in the country crock tub 😅
My “weird” sustainable habit is being very conservative with heating and cooling. In summer months, our air conditioning is set to 75° and heat is set to 65° in the winter. Most of the spring and fall months we just let the fresh air in and keep the central heating and cooling off. Friends and family think it’s “weird,” but you know what’s actually weird? Going into someone’s house in the heat of summer and being frozen or overheating in someone’s house in the dead of winter. Of course it is necessary to a degree to manage the temperature of ours homes, but people go WAY overboard with it.
I'm similar in this way, and I am also strategic and intentional about opening/closing windows and curtains whether I'm trying to let cool air in, let sun in, keep the sun out, etc. I don't have central air and I don't have AC units all over the house, just one in my bedroom that I have used a couple of times overnight this year when it got unbearable. (I also don't live where it's as hot as somewhere like Texas or Florida.) I'm with you on going somewhere in summer and freezing- I went over to a friend's the other day and took a sweatshirt with me because I knew I'd need it on account of the air conditioning.
I'm close to there with ya, summer AC is 74, winter heat is 68. Except for the random week or 2 that it gets extremely hot or cold, then we'll adjust accordingly a few degrees.
Lawns are so WEIRD! Why are we literally farming ornamental grass in the yard? And that’s normal?? And we don’t do any sort of crop rotation so it looks terrible. It honestly has become kind of creepy to me, walking around suburbia where I grew up and and seeing lawn after lawn after lawn for absolutely no purpose.
To me, mowing the grass short only takes away the beaty of all the flowers that would otherwise grow there. People need to start thinking differently about it, but first and foremost there shouldnt be neighboorhouds that straight up demand it from everyone who lives there to have a plan grass lawn. If people still wanna mow their lawn, there are actually manual grasscutters that use no fuel whatsoever, I visited a friend who had it. It was just a wheel with many knives basically that you push forward and it cuts the grass just as well as a lanmower. Thats still a good step in the right direction. Its not hard to use, and actually safer too. Another may be regular input of other vegetation, flowers, bushes, trees, and a variety of types. I think that makes it far less damaging
My mom used to work in a hotel for 15years and she would always take paper towels form work to not buy it. When I moved out amd realised I actually had to BUY it. I was shocked 😮. That was enough of a reason for me not to buy it ever
Drinking from the tap! My coworkers will say, "I wish we had water at work..." we have multiple taps, with a filter! But they will bring plastic bottles to work, drink two sips and leave them EVERYWHERE. One day I cleaned ten water bottles up in the breakroom and in the fridge, that had been sitting there for a week but no one finished any :( The plastic bottled water companies have really convinced the general public that tap water is dangerous. Anytime I see people leaving costco with carts full of MINI plastic water bottles 😵💫
I did an internship at a public institution (I hope I translated this correctly 😅) where they actually had a kind of task force working towards getting the institution to be more sustainable. They met once a month as far as I know and discussed strategies for reducing waste during the work process as well as reducing waste created during breaks (e.g. there was no single use dishware, no vending machines, no individually wrapped portions of sugar or creamer, a coffee machine you could refill with loose coffeebeans and tap water - no capsules!, and the list goes on). Also, there were several bins in the break room for plastic, paper and biodegradable waste for better recycling. ♻️
Maybe, if you have the time capacity and your coworkers aren't totally against the idea of saving the environment, you could initiate such a kind of task force for where you work? 💪😀
Just an idea! Don't get me wrong! 😉
Edit: Accidentally pressed the arrow button before finishing the comment, so I had to edit it to finish. 😅
As a swede, not drinking from the tap is so wierd. Here almost everyone have a dedicated water bottle, either bought for this purpose or just reusing a PET bottle.
Dog mess, I can't get past using anything but paper towels to clean up dog mess. But that's their only use in our house.
Absolute same here. Accidental pee, poo (I use toilet paper to pick up then flush) upchuck, etc. we go through it pretty slowly since that is the main purpose but unless you immediately hand wash the rag or have enough for a load in the washer, that is going to stink to high heaven. Wasn’t an issue as much back in the day since most people kept dogs outside. I’ve got four doggies and all live indoors and accidents are going to happen.
Yeah, I use paper towels for the worst of the throw up, but that's it. The big pack lasts me literal years. Pee is easy enough to wash, so I just use rags/towels for that, but if they throw up, I do take care of the worst of it with paper towel then use a rag to do the last bit with whatever cleaner I'm using. The only exception is if I have some kind of cloth something that is old enough/worn enough that it's actually trash. Instead of throwing it out, I save it in the same place I keep the paper towel roll and then use it as a "disposable" when a dog throws up.
I keep paper towels on hand for pet vomit, but a roll lasts me pretty much forever, even with 6 pets! We have old, retired bath towels if there is ever a urine accident, and we wash them immediately after use, though they are not often needed.
I live in Ottawa Canada and we have some of the worlds safest and highest quality tap water and yet so many people here still buy and use single use water bottles. It’s wild to me.
When I worked in the office I brought in my reusable napkins & everyone would comment about how cute they were. I think it didn’t occur to them you could just…buy fabric napkins and wash them (these same people couldn’t believe I brought my own lunch every day). They are also good for leftovers like sandwiches & non wet food you could wrap up to send with your friends and just have them wash and bring back to you next craft party. I’ve done that before & people actually brought them back!
Other than that a weird thing I do is I’m very careful on rainy days to not step on worms 😂 if they’re still alive I pick them up and put them back in the dirt. People have thought I’m weird for stopping them from stepping on worms. I have found that most of my friends have told me they’ve learned a lot for me & I’ve made them change the way they do things so I think it does make a difference.
I do the same thing, pick up worms. Even my boys think it’s weird. I just think it’s a nice thing to do. I love all creatures not just ‘cute’ animals.
This is so reassuring to know that even Shelby, who is so vocal, educated and active when it comes to sustainability, still has family and friends who question her practices. Oftentimes I’m just quiet about the things I do for sustainability purposes, but it’s a good reminder that people are gonna find it weird anyway, so may as well just do it!
I use cloth diapers which is not as complicated as it sounds and the waste it saves us is incredible.
Also I recently celebrated my wedding in our garden and we rented glassware, dishes, napkins, etc. It was great and little to no waste. Our gifts for the guest were glass straws with the names ingraved. Everyone loved them!
OHHH, those are GREAT, one of my kids loved them and the other one didn´t. Guess which one was potty trained before she turned 2 🤣 (by her own choice tbh, but still a win)
Cloth diapers (or nappies for me in uk) are the best! I did not regret buying them and even passed them along after! ❤
For me it’s turning the lights and/or TV off before I leave my place. My family can be out of the house for hours yet they don’t bother turning these things off before they leave. It’s so irritating.
Wonderful vid! Lots to stay, but I'll try to stick to one: my 71 year old physicist husband never agrees with anything, but he *loved* your lawn video! Unheard of, so be proud, 🤣 Also, I'm a long-time viewer, and I converted to rags and a bidet years ago because of you, and I can't thank you enough. Incoming TMI: the bidet solved my chronic yeast/thrush problems! *hugs*
For fireworks, i advocate for people going to larger town shows rather than multiple households doing their own separate shows. It pushes it into one area on one night often with better safety and clean ups.
I call myself a tree hugger. If folks don't understand, it's their problem. Today, I took my 10 yo grandson in the back garden to teach him about composting. Small tiny steps. Yes, I'm the weird one.
I use to go to Dollar Tree fairly regularly (when the products were $1) & I usually bought more than I intended because everything was cheap. I haven't been in months. I passed by one recently and said to myself "But I don't NEED anything".
My family thinks it's a little weird that I have paper towels, but I have them because I'm disabled so I only use them when I don't have the energy to wet a cloth and dry after.
I do use plastic bags to freeze food into portion sizes, but people think it's weird that I reuse them until they break. I think that's the same with a lot of 'disposable' items such as plastic straws (for those with disabilities who can't use alternatives), medical masks (I know they're not that sustainable but causing mass disability is less sustainable).
I also want to add that if you have plastic tubs you don't need to go out and buy nice glass ones (you actually taught me that).
Love it! I do most of these things as well. Another thing I do that people think it’s really weird is if I am going to a family gathering where I know they will have paper plates and plastic cups, I bring my own real dishes. If people say anything, I just tell them I don’t want to create more waste. It’s super easy to put them in a tote bag with small towels between so they don’t break and I just rinse them off before we come home!
Refusing to put weedkiller down in my garden. My neighbour even suggested I put bleach down to kill the weeds 😬
boiling water works great to kill weeds and does not harm the environment because it's just water
@@lestrangedmy mom also uses hot oil after she fry’s things haha. The weeds never come back and then the oil doesn’t have to go in the garbage either lmao.
@@user-mg3ix7sz7n interesting 🧐 That might be good for the cracks in the cement.
My weird thing is my IUD prevents me from having periods so I don’t have to use tampons or pads or period underwear or cups or anything.
I cycled through the implant, IUD and shots. Eventually my hormones got so out of whack it was affecting my private life, making it feel like im going through menopause at 27. So my husband got the snip and I'm using reusable underwear/pads. I do miss not having periods though. 😅
Totally not weird omg! I’m the environmentalist of my family and they are BEWILDERED by several things I do: using shampoo and conditioner bars, a safety razor, compost, hate paper towels, don’t use a britta and drink straight from my tap, refusing to purchase plastic bottles or bottled water and bring a water bottle everywhere with me, thrifting 90% of my stuff… and so much more lol
i always ask people if they drink from the tap in their house, because i have been lots of places where the tap water is not potable. i also drink tap water at home, but i always check when i'm visiting someone. i wish i had a bidet, and i hate balloon arches. that wasp you caught was a parasitic wasp, they don't sting people they kill bad bugs in the garden, but yes they're creepy looking. i'm the 'bug whisperer' in my house, everyone just hollers for mom when there's a bug and i get out my little catching kit and remove whatever with no drama. my 7yo endearingly wants to save and be friends with all the bugs.
Putting our compost in the freezer has been a GAME CHANGER, so thank you for sharing that tip! The smells and the flies that our compost was attracting was disgustingly impressive, lol. 🤣
Thank you thank you for the sensitive language around “menstruating humans”
We love all kinds here ❤
Only Women Bleed-- Alice Cooper
You inspired me to put my reusable towels in a jar, but other than that, I do all that and more :) for instance, I wear only cotton, that when it breaks down after years of washing, I cut up into cushion stuffing or the aforementioned towels. I line dry only. I don't even own a car, I only carpool. I walk everywhere. I borrow books from the library. The list is endless!
For leftovers, freezing etc save, wash put and reuse the plastic containers with lids u get when ordering takeout
I love that you not only dont push things onto people, but you also stand up and say no to participating in things that go against unaliving this planet! Speaking up and being active makes a huge difference in the world.
Fireworks is waste of money to me. My BF likes them but I don't wanna waste no money on that shit 😂
I agree with you on almost everything. I’m used to be “weird” and I can’t care enough. It’s frustrating and sad how hard people push back on the smallest changes. Even if it requires the tiniest effort, my family just doesn’t care or want to change.
The 2 things people think I'm really weird for, that honestly makes me roll my eyes, is literally that I compost (it's literally required by my city now, along with recycling) and that I actually give a shit about things. It makes me so mad sometimes cuz these are the simplest things in my opinion. Yet for some reason its less weird to use reusable things, except for paper towel, yea no one seems to understand spending money on them is so stupid
A lot of these are weird only in the USA...many of the habits that you're describing here are the norm in India ( and many other Asian countries). Having a water filter on the kitchen tap, using bidets, using cleaning rags made of old clothes is absolutely the norm here.
I stayed in India for 1.5 months a few years ago and didn't see a single bidet, are they mostly in family homes rather than guest houses or public places?
@@oksanakaido8437 yes, more common in homes. Now in many public restrooms as well.
My friends find it weird that I drink tap water too (I still distill it tho for tea and drinking as usual), I keep the plastic bags of my house in tissue boxes (my grandmother always saved her plastic bags), my mother finds it weird that I want to put a garden in the backyard of our new home, she also finds it weird that I freeze my compost 'til I can compost it at work or at a local bin program that my city started. I have been like this for most of my life but, more in the past 2 years.
I basically do all the ones mentioned. I’m a weird person, so I think everything I do is weird.
When it comes to bugs I let friendly spiders 🕷️ stay in. They’re great with killing unwanted insects.
I also water my plants outside, specially if it’s raining I put them outside. I just can’t stand to see good water been going to the drainage. All my old cloths become rags, as I like to also design shashiko patterns on them.
I also let spiders hang around. They're one if my favorite bugs. Just chill little guys ❤
Hand washing socks, underwear, and cloth pads. They come out cleaner and there are no infections in our house for those areas.
Also, my father had a thing about not wasting that I seem to have in my blood too. He reclaimed building materials before it was a thing and would get so irritated that people would just “let that go to waste! Why? You can still use it!” I love that. I don’t build houses, but I reuse everything I possibly can because I can still hear my dad and wholeheartedly agree.
I can't drink from my tap right now because the aquifer is too salty so I have to buy water and I miss my tap! We get the big 5 gallon jugs and return the jugs when we drink all the water instead of buying the small bottles.
Something my friends and family consider weird that I do is that I carry silverware and a reusable napkin with me. So long as I have those on deck, I never have to use disposable cutlery. Food tastes better with real utensils, too!
I do this, too! When I think of how many disposable pieces of cutlery I have NOT thrown away, it makes it worth all the judgment.
The tap water in my town is nasty. So filters are mandatory.
oh my goddd like ive been trying to be more sustainable and my mom had to make a snide comment like "her new thing is the environment" and my family just looks at me weird for things i do !! I was saving up my coffee grounds for a body scrub and then i saw someone threw them away ! This video is v v cathartic lollll
I’m definitely from the camps of “buying a bidet changed my life” and “switching to reusable period products changed my life”! I’m not ashamed and no one gets it till they do it. Thankful to you for bringing these ideas to my life and I’m passing on the knowledge 😊❤
My mom still thinks it's "Weird" i cloth diaper.... i can't. lol
Lots of people thought we were weird for doing that, too. I just wanted to say, "I'm doing something GOOD for our planet. Maybe you should try it!"
When I was living in metro Atlanta, I could drink from the tap (although we filtered), but now that I live farther south, the water tastes like sulfur. It's awful, even filtered. I filter it, run it through the coffee maker to distill it, then filter it again, and it stops tasting weird.
My mom has never been able to accept that I do not like shopping if it's not second hand. A lot of times she goes out of her way to buy me things without my permission because she knows I won't buy it for myself and she thinks these things are "necessities". No matter how many times I try to explain it to her, she just doesn't get it. So I think that kinda fits with the 'not shopping for fun' thing.
My mom has also always been super against any form of reusable period product I have tried (I'm absolutely loving the K&S Period Underwear btw, its the best period product I have tried so far). She thinks they are unsanitary and weird, even though I have told her all this research to show her that it's really not.
I've tried to stop shaving in the past as well because I think it's pointless and I feel like I'm just complying with sexist norms, but my mom has repeatedly called me disgusting for that as well, even though I now have a partner (who accepts and loves me regardless of if I grow out my body hair) and even though I compared it to my dad's leg hair, which is the same. But apparently she doesn't think so. I think her judgement, more than anything, has been the reason I've never been able to fully swear off razors.
Even when it comes to social media, which I pretty much abhor except for RUclips after I turned off automatic suggestions, my mom tries to force me to do the "normal" thing for people my age and basically live online. No matter how many times I've tried to explain to my mom that social media is NOT the "new way for my generation to interact" (and in some cases it's really just pulling us apart) she refuses to listen and wishes that I would just be like everybody else.
It's just so so frustrating when people in your life refuse to view life as something greater than just what we are told is "normal" and what modern life is "supposed to be like". I just can't understand why people like my mom are so determined to have the same things as everyone else, look like everyone else, be like everyone else. Sorry for the little rant lol but I definitely get what you're saying and it bothers me so much.
I'm sorry your mom is unable to let you live your life the way you want. I know exactly how you feel. I also struggle with my mom giving me stuff I didn't ask for. She constantly overbuys food and then expects me to eat the extra. It's so frustrating. I have thought of having a mantra for when she gives me stuff, like "Thank you, but I don't want the responsibility of dealing with this." Hopefully she'll eventually get it after I say it a hundred times...
When I go shopping I often don’t have my reusable bags because I’m forget and leave them in the car. I get so many looks when I just leave with all my items naked. I will walk it to the car and bag it with the bags in the car. 😂😂😂
For me it’s explaining composting and asking to compost, using rags instead of paper towels, explaining the laundry powder and dryer balls are all we have (instead of all the scent stuff people use) when people stay over and do laundry, the different non toxic cleaning products I have under the sink and explaining each of them when someone asks, the Aleppo olive oil soap we use as dish soap compared to dawn, my stainless steel crock with reusable pads in my bathroom 🤦🏽♀️🤣, homemade goats milk skincare I keep in the fridge, and all my other “weird” natural products including bar soap for hand washing, oh and my fabric bag stash since plastic bags are banned statewide and you have to pay to use bags. Family is also native to Texas and finds a lot of this weird, especially asking to recycle and having 0 disposable dish ware as well. I live in the PNW though and it’s WAY more accepted and common here to adopt these habits and eco friendly alternatives are still being sold and marketed locally too so it’s not uncommon to find fabric bowl covers, beeswax wraps, compostable party plates and utensils, compostable straws at restaurants, bring your bottles to coffee shops, see reusable bags everywhere, everyone walking biking or taking public transport, recycling and composting literally everywhere in every neighborhood and city, tons of food donation programs to prevent food waste, LOTS of natural habitat yards and tons and tons of gardens and csa’s nearby, tons of local farm stands in people’s front yards, huge push for natural and holistic living including the government programs with food as well as all the naturopathic medicine providers, nature preschools (yes those exists, think yurts in the forest with a bunch of children), thrifting is hugely popular (almost too much, it’s getting pricy sadly) and I noticed people here don’t dress “fancy” but dress for the weather and wear practical clothing, in fact everyone looks unique and I don’t hardly see a “trend” in fashion here aside from outdoor gear that is necessary, pop up markets are huge as everyone aims to support locally and shop sustainably, makeup is not big here and I don’t see very many women hiding their natural beauty which was extremely refreshing, hardly any gyms- the outdoors is everyone’s gym, everyone hikes and swims and kayaks and does every outdoor activity you can think of- so naturally there’s a huge respect for nature and preserving parks as well as being aware of climate change in general, and there’s far less urban development here than I’ve ever seen, in fact I felt this place looked extremely “grungy” when compared to Vancouver British Columbia which is insanely urbanized and developed! Where I live, we have maintained minimal urbanization while thriving in public transit, the outdoors, and not having as much retail cluster and opportunity as other cities yet I still feel that there is plenty to do here. Really the “weird” habits we have depend on where you live, it’s not weird to people here but weird to my family back home.
Oh and I also drink from the tap. The water just tastes so much better here. I plan on getting a filter soon, but my family only drinks plastic bottled water and it is funny telling people all we have is tap. It’s actually common for people to drink tap here which was something I had to get used to as well as I was always told you don’t think tap water because our water was constantly contaminated and we would get warnings from the city back in Texas all the time not to drink it. Now I drink room temperature tap water lol.
Oh and fragrances, I don’t burn candles, I just crack open the windows. Luckily it’s cool enough that I can do that and it’s not gonna heat my entire place up. We don’t hardly have acs or fans up here, so our electricity bill is insanely lower than it was in Texas and that can be weird for visitors when I tell them to just open a window at night to cool down or to air out the place.
The PNW sounds like a dream to live in, honestly, sounds like my kind of people😅 Is it easy to get around without a car where you live?
I use rags to clean the kitchen rather than paper towels. And I also hang dry about half my laundry. Linens and towels still get put in the dryer due to lack of space to hang dry. Also I make ice from a tray, rather than buy an ice maker.
My roommate used to buy ice and I thought that was the weirdest thing. We have a tap and a water filter. Why for frozen water when we already pay for the electricity to run the freezer and we have clean water? We can freeze it outselves 🤷♀️
12:30 I was at work yesterday and there was a spider in our break room. Everyone freaked out and was like kill it, I just picked it up and took it outside. Like he's a harmless lil guy he's lost and scared.
I live in Australia and everyone thinks everything kills you but we only have one species of spider that can kill you, its extremely uncommon. Snakes on the other hand, worry about those.
I always keep "old" water for watering plants. Like from (reusable) water bottles from the day before etc
Honestly I get beef when I use reusable periods pads cause it's "gross" the idea on that topic, also the idea of not over consuming and not really into the trendy buy unnecessary stuff just to get social approval kinda blows their minds.
Btw love the content, such a break from spams of trendy wasteful consumption ❤
I don't get it either. You wash them and then you can wash your washing machine afterward.
@@justine4652I also don't get it.🤷♀️
Btw you don't even have to wash your washing machine after cleaning reusable pads. (Saying this in general, for everyone. 😉)
Washing them (also underwear, bedsheets and towels) at a temperature of about 60°C/140°F k*lls bacteria and germs almost completely anyways. The washing machine should be fine without the extra cleaning. 😉
However, if there are people with a weakened immune system or little ones or elderly people living in a household, you should do part of your laundry (underwear, bedsheets and so on, even kitchen towels) at 90°C/abt. 194°F to be completely on the safe side. This also applies to laundry that had immediate contact with people who were or are sick (a cold, a yeast infection, ... you name it).
Otherwise, these high temperatures are not necessary. Not for getting your laundry superduper clean (we all have and need at least some specific kind of bacteria on and in our bodies that are not harmful and most of us have a strong enough immune system to counteract the remaining 0,...% of bacteria on clean laundry) and also not for doing the environment a favour with avoiding to release hot water into the system.
Also, your detergent plays an important role as well. You don't need 3 cups of it to get one load of laundry clean (exaggeration here, but I hope, my point gets clear). And you don't need immensely high temperatures for normal laundry as you use the detergent.
Apart from that, using 60°C/140°F as described with a load of laundry at 90°C/abt. 194°F about once a month to sort of "desinfect" the machine is the way to go. Harsh chemicals are not needed.
The machine kind of cleans itself when doing laundry at higher temperatures and using laundry detergent on top - except for all the nooks and crannies the hot water has no contact with such as the rubber ring at the top or front opening of the washing machine. These you will indeed have to clean with some kind of (preferably natural) desinfectant.
Oh, and your washing machine will stay cleaner in the first place if you don't use fabric softener which often leaves a residue that attracts additional dirt. It's not good for the environment anyways, so I personally don't use it.
Sorry for this spiel. I just wanted to share my knowledge about doing laundry 😅🤓😂😂😂
Please feel free to correct me on my explanations - but please be nice 🌻😊
People are very weird about periods :( I love my period underwear, it's the most comfortable thing ever
In addition to being more sustainable and effective, reusable period products also take so much less space! I don't get the negative stereotypes around them at all. If it's a hygiene issue, it says more about people assuming you don't wash your reusables (because they wouldn't maybe?) than you wearing and looking after them!
I use reusable pads myself I've had less issues using them than the disposable ones less chemical junk put in a very delicate area
I can relate to everything, especially the not killing bugs part. It's mind-blowing for me how people don't see bugs as living things part of a complex ecosystem. We are in the middle of a bugs mass extinction, and some people still kill the random bug passing by just for fun😢
I only kill them when they’re in my house, I have contamination OCD and see bugs as “contaminated” 😬 I also get pest people to come in on a regular basis because bugs send me into a full panic when I see too many of them a couple days in a row. I am also DEATHLY afraid of spiders. Sometimes I do feel bad about it but idk I can’t help it, usually people don’t do it out of malice, I’m pretty sure most people are just scared.
Personally I can see it from both sides. Generally see insects as living beings that I actively try to avoid harming most of the time, and an important part of the ecosystem. But with wasps (and ants that bite) there has always been an exeption because I have a serious phobia of them, completely panic and cannot even control myself near them. So if pesticides was needed to deal with them (without getting near them myself, not an option), then I would. However my dad suggested a solution when i accidentally got a wasp into my bathroom through the fan: just dont see the wasp. I used a buff to cover my eyes so I can barely see anything, and then I could actually go and open the window to let it fly out. May be a solution most people have never thought of (I hadnt), but could use in a similiar situation. Not seeing helps a lot. I also use mosquito nets on all my windows, so I can get fresh air without the risk of insects getting in
I love your garden reserve! I think it’s so much more aesthetic than just a plain grass lawn. I wish we put more native plants and personality back into our living spaces
The last time we hosted a party here there was a big spill and people went for the paper towels, and I told them to use the cloth kitchen towels instead and it was like it hadn't occurred to them that was what kitchen towels were for. The one thing that I haven't been able to go paperless for is seasoning the cast iron. Cast iron seems so much less harmful to the environment, but when I tried ro figure out how to season using cotton cloth towels I just ended up with charred towels that weren't any good for more than a few uses and that seems way more wasteful than 1 paper towel per seasoning.
I still feel weird about being mostly plant based for sustainability/ethical reasons even after like 8 years of doing it. Especially lately I feel like people are shocked that people are still doing the plant based thing
I grew up with composting and no pesticides,and also plenty of bugs, which dad always said were generally useful. I do most of the things you mentioned except biking, we live deep in bush land so no safe bikes for travellling and no public transport,so try to minimise trips in the car. You seem pretty normal to me.💗❤️💗
I'm definitely the "weird" one in my family with a lot of these. I'm very proud of my sister because she has been working on reducing her waste and recently she made the change with reusable stasher bags 😊
i do buy natural spring water by the gallon because i'm afraid our tap has added chemicals and whatever else from the city (no i don't have a water filter, just haven't had money for that) BUT i reuse the gallon jugs for storing tap water for gardens, mini greenhouses on plants and other "grey water" stuff.
i had paused the vid to comment but i definitely will look into that water bottle !
IDK if you have a video for this yet, but I'd love to see how your house is set up with these sustainable habits in mind. Like how many rags do you have rather than paper towels, do you have a dirty bin nearby to throw them in, how often do you do the laundry to keep them in stock easily etc. I feel particularly with paper towels it's something I try to get away from but with 2 kids under 3 I feel like I cannot keep up with the laundry to keep rags/towels in stock.
love this. My mom can't stand that I don't use paper towels, yes the tap water thing too ( I've met so many people who think this is strange) , If I forget my bags I'll take the plastic bags, but I always take them to the recycing bins, I want to get rid of my grass lawn, but right now it is mostly creeping charley 😪 any suggestions?
Ahh I love these kind of videos♥︎ I've been really enjoying your content, it's very inspiring so now I try to live more sustainably. Thank you for caring about our planet and the animals too^^ you're awesome!
I don’t have a dishwasher so I use a lot of water washing dishes. I’ve started washing dishes over a bucket, then using that bucket to flush the toilet (#1 only…need a real flush for #2). My mom hates that I do that and constantly reminds me that I’m not saving that much water. But it makes me feel better knowing I’m doing something.
I 100% agree with you on all these points and especially the not killing bugs part. I work at a local museum here in Austin in their landscape as the landscape specialist and educator. I’m currently removing hackberry saplings that are growing under one of our heritage post oak trees to ensure the health of the larger oak tree. Well, I’ve been stung four times by wasps doing this because they like to build their paper nests on the saplings. Despite the multiple stings I don’t kill the wasps. I don’t see the point in doing that as they’re part of the habitat I am taking care of. This landscape is for all creatures to live in. But girl, I’ve been stung on my hands twice, today I got stung on my right hand. I just leave the saplings that the wasps put their nests on. My coworkers think I am real weird, but very helpful and hardworking. Keep up the good work on your lawn and don’t let silly comments get to you.
Im not zero waste and even i harldy ever buy paper towles or ziplocks 🤷♀️. I might buy one roll of paper towles occasionally to keep in my cabinet for really bad pet messes . But they are waaay to expensive to be using on the regular
I think especially the last part with the biking and reusable cutlery and plates is so much more common where I'm from - I'd never even consider buying single use items for a party! Apart from the fact that it's wasteful, it also just looks hideous and is awful to eat from, so I use whatever I have and if it's a really big party I can just rent the plates
i thought I wasn't doing enough for being sustainable habits but I'm doing a lot of this on this list. glass containers, the reusable rags in a jar, the bug friendly garden, period underwear instead of tampons, no paper towels or plastic bags, avoiding fireworks, etc. But yay!!! But also the yard one my friends must also be weird because they have all been doing that and as soon as I bought my house were will to send me native seeds to get me started.
I will say there's certain tasks i prefer paper towels for, but I fully dont understand needing one to dry your hands every. single. time.
My mom does half these things. She upgraded from a “butterfly garden” to a “local wildflower patch” which is the entire front yard after I left.
If you have a filter system and you drink tap water, I think it's fine. What throws me is when people drink straight from the tap with NO FILTER!!!! I think that's weird for some because water's not clean everywhere.
thank you for being inclusive and saying "menstruating human" instead of woman. it makes non-binary people like me feel included. :)
You're either a woman or you need to get those hemorrhoids checked out!
I do not use paper towels, I drink from the tap, I do not want a front yard!! I love your habitat yard! I love the way you do things.. I have a bidet and like you, try to convert and encourage people to use it. No air freshener or wipes cause the bidet does it all! I don't shop for fun, no fireworks, ... uhm... I kill some bugs lol
glad these aren't weird to me!! we're practical ❤
We don't have paper towels growing up (and still now) because we're a low income family 😅 It's literal money being thrown away! We have washrags and a sink for a reason.
I was given cups, cloth pads, and menstrual underwear (by my stepmom as soon as I started my period) because free pads were always too big for me and I could not rely on my mother to supply them if needed.
I will never stop laughing at how my gateway into sustainability is because I come from frugal families. The fact that it's better for the earth and my values have always been in line to do what is better for the environment is a bonus 😊
Taking containers with me for leftovers!!!! When I am eating out I always try to remember my containters for leftovers, Because I either way have to put them in a airtight containers straight when I get home and the disposable take away boxes just goes to waste
period panties are the BEST thing i ever discovered, i haven't found a good solution for me to use at work on heavy days yet so i still use other stuff on those days but when i am at home or when its not very heavy its just period panties for me. i would do anything for them! i need to invest in some heavier ones so i can use on heavier days as well
I keep food storage containers in my car. People ALWAYS say "that's such a good idea!" (Friends', restaurants, parties, etc)
Nature is beautiful! I love front yards like yours
I'm a catch a release girly with bugs as well as much as I can but I also feel better catching a wasp than swatting at it like what if I miss and it gets mad!😂
How do you handle oil spills, cat puke and similar waste with non-disposible cloths? I keep one roll of paper towels for those.
We have a yearly party for just anyone we know to come hang. So we went to goodwill years ago and picked up a bunch of plates, bowls, cups, and silverware and keep it in a bin in the garage. Whenever we have more than 8 people (our standard dish set) we drag out that bin and voila we have more reusable stuff!
We recently moved and used to drink tap water (straight from the tap) and it was fantastic! Unfortunately, at our new place there is a weird taste to the tap water so we grabbed a massive filter system we can keep in the fridge and still use the tap water and it’s perfect. But never would I ever buy water for my house (unless it was totally unsafe from the tap)
Found out that all the other moms in my church also keep the plastic tupperware from their mealtrains and save it for when they make meals for other family's meal trains. We also all save the plastic takeout containers, wash them, and use them for mealtrains as well 😂 just a giant community tupperware exchange lol a few also mentioned that they too wait for the food to cool down before they put it in the containers so the heat doesnt leach plastic into the food. A lot of us cloth diaper too.
This is encouraging to watch, I want to implement more sustainable habits when I move into my own apartment in the next couple months.
I'm going to need to find a roommate to split costs though and that's making me nervous, living with people is hard enough without having to explain my weird habits and accept their wasteful habits. 🥴 Any tips on how to deal with this?
My mom and her boyfriend have mostly accepted my weird habits like minimizing food waste, reusing plastic bags and plastic wrap, avoiding paper towels and reusing them if possible, but it took a long time and was frustrating. In turn, I overlook their wasteful habits like using piles and piles of paper napkins at every dinner, running the AC till the house is freezing (sometimes with the outside door open, WTF), throwing out recyclable items etc, but it still makes me wince to see this. Thinking about having to go through it again with a roommate is disheartening.
Just starting to make some swaps. But didn't know not having paper towels at your home was such a big deal! Growing up we've never had paper towels... even now in my adult life i've always just used like rags.... 🤣
Your videos made me stop using paper towels so much. We used it for everything - cleaning, wiping, napkins, etc. We got reusable cloths for cleaning and spills and it has been great! Saves money and we use waaaay less paper towel. The next steps now will be to invest in reusable napkins and completely break up with paper towels.
OMG yes on the activities! So many people just assume that certain activities are universal. I hate fireworks just anyhow because the noise stresses me out but also the environmental impact on top of that and our neighbor uses so many that I'm honestly afraid our house will catch fire. Then we had relatives try to push fishing on our daughter when they know we don't eat animals and she is really sensitive to that. They tried to make it better by saying she could do catch and release but she was still horrified at the thought of hurting the fish even if she didn't kill them and it took days to calm her down.
I like "shopping" for fun, as in going into shops and looking at things for inspo. I went into an outdoor shop to try on a jacket i wanted today, but i'm going to buy it second hand, i just needed the sizing lol.
so hard living with roommates who think you’re obsessive and controlling because you care about these things 😢
For me and my family everything you said is quite normal. I spent ten years building a garden that can sustain insects and birds and every day we are excited to see so many spiecies living or visiting our patch. Only thing that my family finds weird are wasp nests that me and my husband have on our windows but they are like pets now and they have never stung us even when I clean around them. But I think that this weirdness works out great because my litlle nephews are so interested in auntie's bugs so they always check on them when they visit so I hope this beheviour will live on in the future.
Not weird! Even my husband had to do some adjusting but we got there 😊. I would love a sustainable hosting guide video!! ❤
You’re definitely not weird - I do most of those - my next toilet will 100% be a bidet. You give me so much hope for younger generations - just live your channel and your education - proud of you ⭐️