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I became a minimist to save the planet as much as i could. Its easier than any one could think you know. Here is what i have been doing for a decade and would
by realshadow 3y ago
I became a minimist to save the planet as much as i could. Its easier than any one could think you know.
Here is what i have been doing for a decade and would receommend
1. Reusing plastic bags (i love cotton bags but not ideal). Fold and keep one or two in your pocket before you leave home
2. Support and use light software so you dont need to upgrade your gadgets (12y laptop i use)
3. Prepare and eat home cooked meal (its 360d in my life). Good for your health and the environment
4. Plant Trees. i plant one every month on average
5. Collect rain water and/or use less water
4. Prefer walking over any other transporation
5. Dont fucking care about trends.
6. Sleep 8hrs. less waking hours means less consumation.. lol
7. Prefer quality over quantity everytime.
8. Carry a water bottle (copper ideal).
9. fuck sugary drinks.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago> 8. Carry a water bottle (copper ideal). Why is copper better than stainless steel?
- civilitty 3y agoCopper has anti-microbial properties and acts as a spermicide in a pinch.
- dustypotato 3y agoWait, what use do you see for it as a spermicide? How would you use it?
- irrational 3y agoYou don’t use copper condoms?
- Maxion 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_IUD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_IUD
- dustypotato 3y agoDoesn't seem like a water bottle though :|
- civilitty 3y agoFiguring it out is half the fun! ;-) (For some hints, see the sketches of the Dwarven Kama Sutra found in JRR Token’s estate)
- darkwizard42 3y agoCopper is known to help kill more bacteria and thus helps additionally purify the water (1) 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3067274/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3067274/
- morsch 3y agoWon't it also kill you if you put something acidic in the bottle? Like water with a spritz of lemon? That's why copper pots have a lining, anyway. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdigris https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdigris
- voxelghost 3y agoYup, and although correct about coppers antimicrobial effect it only kills bacteria on contact. So I suspect a majority of any bacterial contamination in the water, will never come in close enough contact with the copper walls for it to have any real effect.
- c00lio 3y agoWater bottles, if not cleaned properly with a soap and brush on the inside, will be coated with a bacterial "lawn". Copper prevents that. Lots of bacteria need such a lawn to propagate, only some can multiply without a substrate. So even if the "free" water part won't be desinfected, copper has an overall positive effect on the bacterial content of your drinking water.
- thorncorona 3y agoAs someone who washes my (steel) water bottle at most 1x a week, and drinks ~10-14L of water a week, I've never gotten sick from drinking out of my bottle before. You can usually tell if the water in your bottle is going bad / filled w bacteria..
- kelipso 3y ago
- bombolo 3y agoIt's not better, since it's toxic.
- saiya-jin 3y ago> Is it safe to drink water from copper bottle everyday? > If you have been drinking water that has been constantly stored in copper bottle or vessel, chances are high that you might be at the risk of copper toxicity. It can cause severe nausea, dizziness, abdominal pain and can result in liver and kidney failure. No thank you. I get the struggle to not use plastics, I try to avoid it myself too (especially buying water in plastic bottles in shops is something I never do), but alternatives are subpar, either very heavy, fragile and overall impractical for outdoor sports (ie glass), or some other issues. What happened to stainless steel? Heavy but at least should be inert and nearly indestructible, no? I mean those without some crap BPA lining inside, like thermos but single walled.
- morsch 3y agoNothing happened to stainless steel bottles, they're available. About twice as heavy as a plastic bottle, when empty that is. Full it's more like 900g vs 750g.
- Glawen 3y agoI stopped using plastic bottle because it tends to accumulate biological matter or whatever, and a smell / bad taste builds up over time. I switched to stainless steel and couldn't be happier. Decathlon stores in europe sell very good stainless steel bottler for different size.
- 11235813213455 3y agoI'm like you, just adding a bike (found in garbage), foraging (figs, medlars persimmons, oranges, lemons), collecting food at the end of garbage (lots of waste), no fridge, no hot water, no A/C or heating, €10/mo electricity bill
- NovaDudely 3y agoI think my two pieces of luxury technology I use are my laptop and by Fridge. Being able to preserve food without 'preservation techniques' is just so dang handy!
- yetihehe 3y agoSome of those preservation techniques are also considered unhealthy.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y agoIncluding refrigeration?
- aembleton 3y agoNo, refregiration allows you to avoid those 'preservation techniques'
- cinntaile 3y agoSuch as?
- yetihehe 3y agoSuch as adding saltpeter, lots of sugar or smoking.
- 11235813213455 3y agojust a cave is good enough for vegetables, or somewhere ventilated and not under the sun
- ateng 3y ago> 5. Collect rain water and/or use less water Not sure about that -- With modern pollution rain water is not likely to be safe to drink (depends on your location) > 9. fuck sugary drinks Massive yes! Amazing for your own health too.
- perlgeek 3y ago> With modern pollution rain water is not likely to be safe to drink (depends on your location) There are lots of "grey water" uses that don't require drinkable water, like watering plants, flushing toilets.
- vram22 3y ago>There are lots of "grey water" uses that don't require drinkable water, like watering plants, flushing toilets. Yes. I've heard/read grey mentioned many times in permaculture articles. I like the fact that permaculture takes a systems or holistic approach. Another nice, small but useful example of permaculture design is the concept of guilds, when it comes to planting crops around a house. They plant by category, in concentric bands called guilds, with the guild nearest to the house having most commonly used plants such as herbs, then vegetables, then grains, then fruit trees, etc. So you have to walk less to tend to or harvest them. Edit: I may have used the term "guild" incorrectly. The Wikipedia article on permaculture uses it differently, under the section "Guilds". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_(ecology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_(ecology)
- smallerfish 3y agoYeah you're talking about zones. Zones refer to the intensity of maintenance / how often you'll be harvesting from them. Zone 1 around the house is most frequent - zone 5 is way in the jungle where you harvest wild guavas once a year. Guilds are about companion planting - they're combination of plants that form a small ecosystem where they provide benefit to each other. E.g. comfrey is often used around fruit trees to break up subsoil (it has very long taproots, to 10 feet or so), and as a prolific mulch producer (cut it back every couple months, and chop and drop the leaves in place). Nitrogen fixing plants are common, as a way of providing nutrients. Etc.
- NovaDudely 3y agoYes, yes ,yes! I am completely on board with this, but then that because your post is like looking in a mirror. ;)
- perlgeek 3y agoI'm curious, where do you plan trees? Do you have land on your own, or is there some public land where you can plant trees?
- CalRobert 3y agoNot OP, but ag land can be under €10,000 an acre (well under in some places) which puts it in the "pricey but not unobtainable for the serious tree-planting enthusiast" category.
- realshadow 3y agoI have a garden where i spend an hour or two watering plants and feeding birds. thats one hour away from screens.
- iso1631 3y agoYou'd have a job on planting one tree a month in an average garden
- _dain_ 3y agoThe elites don't want you to know this, but you can put seeds anywhere you like
- perlgeek 3y agoPutting a seed somewhere has a pretty low chance of producing a tree some years on. Conditions need to be good enough, and there's fierce competition in the plant world, as well as animals and lawn mowers that curb growth. Which is why I asked, what OP actually did. I know folks who have planted trees on public land and on land owned by corporations, which seems cool but also kinda stressful.
- bombolo 3y ago> 8. Carry a water bottle (copper ideal). It's toxic… Copper pots are not copper on the inside because of this reason.
- realshadow 3y agoThanks. i think you are all right about that. ill get a stainless steel bootle soon
- anoplus 3y agoWhat also important in what you do to minimize personal footprint, is that you influence others by sharing it
- aziaziazi 3y ago4. Walking. A bit less minimalistic: ride your (non e-) bike, scooter, skateboard, kayak, sled, basically anything non motorized. Use best tire quality so you don’t change then often. A bite more minimalistic: prefer walking barefoot anytime you can. Shoes are tire that wear out. King of related: still looking for shoe/soles that last. My grand mother used to wear wood clogs, not sure where to find some that fits me.
- _dain_ 3y agoDo you wear a hair shirt too? How are you going to transport heavy goods without some kind of motorized or motor-assist vehicle? Unless you want to keep horses or donkeys. Ebikes are a godsend. Without one I'd have to get things delivered by van. This is the problem with environmentalism-as-actually-practiced -- the conversation starts with plastic pollution, you look away for five seconds, and suddenly there are a bunch of ascetics one-upping each other in the "LARP as a third-world peasant" game. There is no social defense mechanism against it. Normal people look at this and think "no thanks". It's all about focus on minimizing downside and (implicitly) self-flagellation for the sin of living in a rich country; there is no focus on things with upside potential, like "how do we increase the supply of clean energy so we can have cheap material abundance". I don't want to live in squalor. I want to enjoy a hot shower of crystal clear desalinated water, heated by electricity made in the searing heart of a nuclear reactor, and it all costs a fraction of a penny to run.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aziaziazi 3y agoI want to live in the same world as you but we’re not here yet! Our best way to get there is to use our current tech and ressources as they are precious while keep on advancing tech, instead of using those ressources to build the maximum throwable stuff we can and disperse the waste. It’s not about copying thinks third world but about health, resource management and public space enjoyability.
- fgededigo 3y ago
- nicbou 3y agoA few missing ones: 1. Buy less stuff 2. Buy secondhand stuff 3. Ride a bicycle 4. Eat less meat, more local produce
- Sankozi 3y agoIt does not seem that easy and does not seem that important to be honest. Donating 100 dollars monthly to sensible causes seems more beneficial than all combined and easier for lots of people. 3. 4. 5. 4. are barely positive if positive at all (considering environment, some are definitely healthy)
- lotsofpulp 3y agoPreferring walking is a big one, definitely worth more than “donating“. For most, it would require living in a smaller space, in a more urban area and is probably the most people can do to reduce that impact on the environment. The energy spend that comes from living in detached single family home that multiplies all the distances mass has to travel back and forth from that home (and subsequent homes) dwarfs everything else.
- Sankozi 3y agoWalking is healthy and often is a signal that you live in a walkable place. Living in walkable place (concept similar to lately popular 15-minute cities) is important from environment perspective. But, for example, preferring walking to more energy efficient cycling means you need more calories => eat more => affect environment more. Very often living healthy is at odds with being environment friendly. I do not say you should live unhealthy but lets not confuse those two things.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoWalking and cycling go hand in hand in terms of neighborhood design and land use. I guess a more accurate descriptor is “non car dependent living”.
- SamuelAdams 3y agoI feel the same way. One private jet flight would take 100+ years of OP’s “minimalism” lifestyle to be carbon neutral. Want to know how many private jet flights left the Super Bowl in 2023? And that’s just one event. Being politically active and pushing for a carbon tax would do far more than any amount of individual lifestyle choices.
- krembo 3y agoAs for 6 - dead people also have less waking hours. Just saying...
- sliken 3y ago> 4. Prefer walking over any other transporation Sure, for walkable destinations. Having a bike is more efficient (calories per mile) and hugely increases the practical range. Commuting, even grocery shopping, and being social is hugely more practical on a bike then walking.
- pvaldes 3y ago8 -> copper is toxic. People with some genetic traits will suffer cirrhosis and shouldn't use it for water storage. Cooking on copper pots specially should be avoided. Iron and Aluminum are safer.
- daddylongstroke 3y agoHmmm, copper is an essential trace nutrient found in the soil. Your body will not survive without it. As always, devil's in the details, but it is believed most humans are low in copper. Aluminum is a disaster for your body and the bodies of other creatures as far as we know.
- kashunstva 3y ago> suffer cirrhosis …and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Wilson’s disease is surprisingly common at 1 in 30,000.
- hilbert42 3y ago"9. fuck sugary drinks." Especially when they come in plastic bottles and not glass ones.
- ThinkBeat 3y agoI cook most of my family's meals at home. I dont think cooking at home necessarily produces less plastics. Most (in Norway) veggies, meats, some spices, sauces, etc come in plasticcontainers. This is good since it preserves the produce, so it has a longer shelf life. but the drawback is plastic. Not being a fan of sugary drinks is fine, but as long as people buy water coffee, etc in pastic it is not a clear win for the environment. It is a win for a persons health.
- myshpa 3y agoGood points. Minimalists saving the planet should add one more: 10. Eat plants. Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares (and free an area as big as Africa for wildlife/reforesting) https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets Eat more plant-based foods https://www.un.org/en/actnow/food https://www.un.org/en/actnow/food Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357 Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010 https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal... Livestock and climate change: what if the key actors in climate change are... cows, pigs, and chickens? https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Livestock-and-climate-change%3A-what-if-the-key-in-Goodland-Anhang/6704c7a0777c82357704d82b9ae8007c1197cb07?p2df https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Livestock-and-climate-... Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806
- shortcake27 3y agoI’ve had a lot of water bottles over the years. This is quite an unpopular take, but I believe PET to be lesser of all evils. I’ve spent a lot of money on numerous steel and plastic water bottles. They all break and good luck recycling them. Most likely they end up in landfill. PET bottles use less raw resources, are cheap, lightweight, extremely durable, and when they reach end of life they’re easier to “recycle” (downcycle is probably more accurate). Modern PET bottles shouldn’t leach into your water. You can at minimum use them until the expiry date on the bottle. If you’re concerned about leaching, don’t take my word and do your own research.
- literalAardvark 3y agoSteel is mostly recycled. Pet is very much not. Pet does leach (as microplastic). No point in buying plastic bottles unless they're pla. Just reuse a water/soda bottle you bought on a whim.
- hgomersall 3y agoI read PET actually is recycled extensively. I mean, you need to recycle it, but it's economically viable to actually recycle it rather than just make it "someone else's problem".
- literalAardvark 3y agoIirc it gets downcycled, not recycled. You can't make bottles out of it anymore, it goes into textiles or something. And that's in the highly optimistic case in which it makes it to a recycling center, which doesn't happen for 80% of plastic.
- shortcake27 3y agoSteel is not recycled by consumers. You cannot put steel in a recycling bin. You _ may_ be able to take steel to a resource recovery centre. However if the travel uses oil or electricity that comes from coal, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up being worse for the environment than a PET bottle. With regards to leaching, the FDA has declared PET bottles safe for repeated use.
- acumenical 3y agoI was with you until the whole sleep away the day bit, then you lost me. It sounds more like a cover for depression or learned helplessness than a desire to do good. If that's how you see things then I question the rest of it.
- foo-bar-bat 3y agoSorry, who suggested sleeping the day away? The suggestion above was sleep 8 hours, ie per night, not 8 extra hours during the day.
- dinkleberg 3y agoReally? Sleeping the recommended 8 hours a day is a cover for depression or learned helplessness? Apparently I’m depressed too then, as I value my sleep.
- middle_earth 3y agoWhat I have been wondering is, as an one mere person, trying my best to save the planet is really helping the earth while the industry is ruining the earth by tremendous impact? I mean, I am doing my best what I can to save the planet but sometimes I felt it is a droplet into the ocean so I want to find some logical reasons why I keep doing that.
- blueprint 3y agothe ocean is made of drops. without anyone changing their behavior, a massive collapse is guaranteed with only a portion of people changing, eventually the world all switches over even besides all that living healthy is to avoid disease, pain, low function, feeling like crap etc
- cynicalsecurity 3y ago[flagged]
- grimgoldgo 3y agoIncredible, "do fascism" is your only solution?
- idopmstuff 3y agoUsername checks out, at least.
- cynicalsecurity 3y agoIf you've read Dune, you would get it. I welcome you to propose a better solution than eco-fascism. I would be genuinely interested in hearing any other suggestions that could work. Just saying "Let's all stop being nasty and live in peace" doesn't work, unfortunately.
- grimgoldgo 3y agoOh I get it, I just think it's naive. I've read dune several times over the past 40 years, and the person I was in my youth would have agreed with you. These days, not so much. I believe in building communities via mutual aid and support, and that if people have their basic needs meet they will produce incredible results. People want to do good, but are often too tired or too afraid or too burnt out to do it.
- monktastic1 3y agoThere are two possibilities for each human to try: 1. Pour all your effort into becoming a kinder, wiser human, and watch as it rubs off on the people around you in surprising and far-ranging ways, amplifying itself into the world through "network effects." Allow this to become a virtuous cycle. 2. Become cynical and bitter, and watch the opposite happen. In either case, the world will present you with all the evidence you need that your way is objectively correct and that everyone who sees it differently is clueless (though in the first case, probably not with so much disdain and contempt...).
- hammeiam 3y agoThis sounds like a good life regardless of the health risks of plastics
- mrybczyn 3y ago4. Biking - way more energy efficient - you'll get more MPG (Miles-Per-Gnocci).
- bilkow 3y agoBiking instead of planting trees??? (there are two 4. on the grandparent post)
- ericpauley 3y agoDepending on the carbon footprint of the food you eat to power that bicycle the effective MPG may actually be quite poor. A e-bike has lower emissions than a cyclist powered by lentils.
- etch-ray_specs 3y agoAny source for this?
- namaria 3y agoYou should look into the battery supply chain. It's quite horrible for the environment. There's no way of consuming that will save us, we need to consume drastically less. We won't turn society around before hitting rock bottom because that's who we are.
- DoingIsLearning 3y agoWait what's wrong with lentils?
- VoodooJuJu 3y agoThis stuff feels good on a personal level and does absolutely nothing to "save the planet" or our ailing bodies. Still tons of plastic everywhere throughout our lifestyles, primarily from industry and infrastructure. The entire chain of things you listed are riddled with plastic. Tools in the manufacturing and shipping processes, to build the roads, insulation, millions of miles worth of pipes for fuel, insulation, water, all the packaging for the food and products, packaging for shipping the products, metric tons of single-use disposable things, large and small, used in all kinds of industry, in our air, food, water. Fucking everywhere. Oh but thank God I planted a tree and reused a little plastic shopping bag. That'll really hedge against the hell wrought by the plastic-industrial leviathan that's coiled around every part of our lives.
- daddylongstroke 3y agoHow do you eat an elephant?
- kaitai 3y agoSmall actions on a personal level can help people feel efficacy and engage on a larger level. Political and economic action is absolutely what's most important, but humans have weird psychology. Some for instance will not engage in the larger political action because they feel they are not virtuous enough (they don't bring a plastic bag along, they don't recycle) and if they can't do the small things that they misconstrue as essential, then f*(& it might as well just run the F-150 all day in a parking lot with the windows open and the AC on and vote for drill and burn politics. In a rock band, you have a guitarist and a drummer and a singer and a bass player. Not everyone does the same thing. We all need to contribute in different ways at different times. Plastics are indeed everywhere and have made some aspects of daily life better while making other aspects worse. Neither of the extremes of overemphasizing personal virtue and nihilism are useful.
- aio2 3y agoI think the issue isn't us doing these things, but if we did, it'd have no impact. I would look into the mass production of these plastics and try to change some things there.
- concordDance 3y ago> 5. Collect rain water and/or use less water A lot of the classic list of feel good things do little or come with giant asterisks and this is a good example. Potable water shortages are a very serious problem... that affects particular areas at particular times. A little town on a tributary of the amazon in the rainy season can use as much water as they want to water their lawns or bath in and it will cause no issues, while a drought striken area must preserve all their water.