We live in a disposable culture that when we are done with something, normally just throw it away.

We have all come to realise by now, that there is no such place as away. Well, there is. And it is normally a big hole in the earth. And we are filling them at exponentially destructive rates. If you are interested in empowering yourself to make some simple switches in your waste habits to reduce your negative impact, you have come to the right spot!

Here are 11 things you can stop putting in the bin from today:

# 1. Food Scraps

The erosion of top soil of the planet is one of the biggest problems humans face. The organic living elements in soil we grow our food in are disappearing and not being replaced. While we are also letting tonnes and tonnes of decomposing food waste rot in landfills. The loop of natural cycles of organic matter is broken and causing catasphic scale damage. The easiest and most powerful thing you can do to be part of the solution, instead of...

Yep.

Doing a detox... but not the kind you would think.

This is a detox from fast fashion... an addiction that most of us have in Western countries, no matter our income.

Even if you don’t have an addiction to fast fashion, you probably have at least a bad habit. A habit of needing o wanting a new piece of clothing and immediately going to buy it new from the shops or online, instead of getting something already in circulation.

So what's this #fashiondetox?

I didn't make it up. I am joining 20,000 other awesome humans in pledging to not buy any new clothing from July till September. 3 months. 90 days. It is part of a movement of promotion of slow fashion rather than fast fashion.

3 reasons I am doing it:

1. To reduce ecological damage that I purchase into existence

Even though I am an advocator for the environment, minimalism, and circular economy... I feel that in the last year or so clothes have been my downfall. With my changing body...

My platform is very much a merger of cross-promotion of both minimalism and sustainability. In many ways, the two practices overlap by default.  But there are also ways that they can contradict each other and that's what I am writing about today.

Here are some common battles between 'Minimalism' and 'sustainability':

Disposable Minimalism

Let's get the elephant in the room out the way first. Minimalism is very much associated with the idea of less. However, in the pursuit of less, some people will throw things away... ending up buried in the earth in toxic landfills. What is even worse is having a disposable rotation of stuff to maintain 'minimalist' living. This is not the kind of minimalism that I promote.

Not my stuff, Not my problem- Minimalism

This very much ties into the above point. We need to think of minimalism holistically, not just what we own. A flawed version of minimalism is not owning a few reusable coffee cups because it...

If you look at the dictionary definition of minimalism you will be met with the idea that minimalism is an art style rather than a lifestyle. The term is used to describe a lifestyle that has only been popularized in the last 10-15 years. But seriously dictionary companies... Get with the times, yeah?

There is also a lot of misconception about what minimalism is out there, which makes me not want to call myself a minimalist. So if you want to know what minimalism really is, then you have come to the right place!

What is minimalism?

My favourite definition of minimalism is a quote from one of the most well-known minimalist advocates Joshua Becker:

“Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.”

Basically, it's about creating a life that only includes what you actually value by actively letting go of what you don't.

Minimalism is not: Having as little belongings as possible...

Now, I know my business name is Sort it Out Sustainably, so it might sound contradictory for me to say we don't need sustainability. 

I do not mean let's not be sustainable.

I mean let's be more than sustainable because sustainability alone won't work.

The definition of sustainability

What it means to be able to sustain, is to be able to keep going with what we are doing. Right now humans are continuing to cause harm to the planet and it is very unsustainable.

The scientific predictions of what the future on the planet looks like if we keep harming it, are really quite scary.

Sustainability seems to very much entail doing no harm, however, it doesn't encompass making the situation better.

The damage already done

We are, currently, so far removed from being sustainable than just implementing sustainability will not reverse the damage already done. We have cut down most of the world's forests, polluted the waterways, washed all the topsoil away, filled the ocean...