The Consumer's Choice - Yes to Circular Economies, No to Fast Fashion

Christmas brought me home to family and back to the urge to write. Here is once again a post where I ramble about more things I've learned over the past two(?) months.

First off I'm super thankful to have met and learned from amazing people who've helped broaden my horizons and sparked my interest in the other two pillars of sustainability - the economic and social. It's high time my mind was opened to encompass other fundamental fields into my vision of sustainability besides just the environmental one. I think it'd be most appropriate for me now to talk about circular economies and my new steer away from fast fashion.

In a nutshell of what I took away from a business-focused sustainability conference I attended last month, for the longest time the economy we live in has been very much Linear: raw materials are used to make things (resources & energy are used up) -> we buy these things -> things wear out (sometimes too quickly) -> we discard its waste (landfills get bigger, oceans get dirtier). Whereas in a Circular Economy that we strive towards, items are produced using renewable energy and non-toxic inputs, distributed using renewable energy, used by consumers ideally through leasing or sharing rather than ownership, reused/repaired at the end of their lifetime, and only then recycled. The design of new products would then incorporate these recycled materials, with a lesser need for raw materials. To illustrate:

Things I've Learned: Reducing Environmental Impact - How and Why

Following my last post in which I ended with a lot of questions on what my next steps should be regarding environmental action, once again I was blessed with all kinds of advice, help, inspiration and opportunities reaching out and pouring in and it was all amazing and has been helping to change my lifestyle into the way I wish it to be. The universe or God (or whoever you believe in) really does pave out the rest of the path for you and make things align in your favor if you're keen on and work towards a dream/goal enough while keeping gratitude at the same time. Really thankful for all the sources and people that have been helping me on my lower-impact journey. Over this summer I've been learning loads and trying to apply them to my life, and it'd be a shame or even a guilt to not at least try and share this new knowledge (well, new to me at least) in any way I can, so here is this post.

As condensed as I tried to make it, it first starts off with a list of environmental concerns and why certain things matter, followed by a list of tips & solutions to those concerns as well as some other things I've learned. They also answer questions I very often hear (though some of them weren't directed at me but my nosy self would like to answer them anyway!). These lists are copy-pasted from my Listography page :

Problems With Plastic & Other Waste

• plastic, made from fossil fuels, take a lot of energy to create and dispose of. An estimated 29% of U.S greenhouse gas emissions result from the manufacturing and disposal of plastic goods. 60-80% of marine trash also comes from plastic, which has been continuously killing all kinds of sea animals and birds who mistake them for food. [Images and stills by Chris Jordan below: Laysan albatrosses on Midway Island, with consumed plastics - including cotton buds - remaining intact even while their bodies are decaying.] A sad example is the whale in Thailand that recently died from swallowing 80 plastic bags.
  

More Things I've Learned + Thoughts: Consuming, Fossil Fuels, Climate Communication

I find myself lately typing down notes in my phone that I want to remember every time I learn/realize something new regarding environmental concerns. These scattered notes pile up until I decide it's time to lay them all out in one place, in a comprehensive way, for the purpose of reflection and sharing them with whoever might be interested. This is my prompt to write, and I do it here whenever I feel like it.
I'm not some expert on environmental impacts or climate change. If you are a pro environmentalist reading this, maybe you'll wonder why I write about such things that is basic knowledge to you or anyone who has long been involved in sustainability, but as I slowly learn more about these I'm compelled to share them in whatever way I can because there are people who do care about the earth but perhaps would like to know more in order to take concrete action, and I know how that feels because I only fairly recently got out of that directionless maze. I hope anyone reading the stuff I write can take away a thing or two that's helpful to them on their personal journey towards bettering themselves or our planet. So here are whatever lessons or thoughts that come to me, in point form if you don't mind, because I love lists and they're easier than stories or essays.

Canoeing Down The Fraser River

By some unexpected blessing, an application to the 3-day Rivers Clinic for Environmental Leaders (RCEL) program saw a small group of us UBC students going on a canoe-camping trip (courtesy of the UBC Sustanability Initiative!) over the weekend, along with students from other unis around Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. 18 of us - along with two coordinators and two canoe guides - made an unforgettable 60km paddle down the Fraser River from Fort Langley to Richmond's McDonald Beach Park in our two canoes, staying the nights out in our little tents. And every bit of it was fantastic.

On Change (A Reflection On My First Year At Uni Abroad)

(Note: this blog will likely get more textual than visual from now on. I'm in a writing phase.)

Now that it’s been a little over a month since first year ended, the days of summer school get warmer and go by quieter as most friends have flown home for the summer, taking with them the precious rowdiness that had filled my daily life with so much vibrancy throughout first year. A kind of lull settles in now, in a good way. Between classes and work, the summer somehow spares me time to bask in sun, in the outdoors, in books, and inevitably because of the quietness – in more of my own thoughts. I realize my passions for doing certain things (playing the piano, binge-watching films, reading voraciously, etc) approach me in waves, and now it is the wave of going back to writing.

On Empathy

[edit: took this down earlier bc of how 'vulnerable' it seemed but Amanda pushed me to re-upload it so here it is!]

Artistic expression holds such power to evoke empathy – empathy, one of the greatest emotions mankind is blessed with being capable of.