Sustainable living - Sustainability in the van - To buy or not to buy again

Every fortnight on Monday: "Something" with sustainability.

I have a lot planned, I have a thousand ideas that I would like to share. After all, we have been on the sustainability path since 2011 and I slowly have the feeling that it is not getting any less.

So where to start? 

How do you start with sustainability and how long does the transition take?

It's best to do the simple things, then you can celebrate the first successes and that's what motivates you the most, isn't it?

A rigorous buying freeze would be a good start.

No matter what your heart desires in terms of material things: don't follow this impulse for the time being. Because better than any sustainable organic-organic-soft-product is exactly that: no new products. 

Every product purchased has to be produced, transported and later disposed of. And so each thing consumes many resources in its life cycle. Materials, transport, labour, factory emissions, storage places, care, cleaning, maintenance, disposal capacities (again transport, labour, storage places, recycling plants, etc.). Toxins can also escape into the environment during the use of the products. In the worst case, also into our bodies. 

Everything that is not bought is definitely better than what is bought. Clear, isn't it? In second place, I would put the useful life. So if bought, use it for a long, very long time. 

It's not that easy, but if you make yourself aware of it, you can get started. 

Here are a few examples of prolonged use

• Kitchen utensils can be taken from the kitchen at home, you don't need two fully equipped kitchens (pots cook just as well in the van as at home if you still have a home).
• Towels, washcloths and cleaning cloths, blankets, duvet covers, pillows, duvets etc. can certainly be found in the normal household at home (or at mum's, grandma's, friend's etc.), we only exchange these if they are really beyond repair.
• Clothes can be the same as at home: you need significantly fewer clothes in the van. A fashion show is less necessary and when you are travelling with the camper van, you don't need matching shoes and handbags for every pair of trousers. 
• We have: Hiking shoes, (gym) shoes for every day and flip-flops for showers outside the house and summer days (in case they happen to us). Then there are Crocs, which are decades old but still good as house and camping shoes. Oh, and I have a pair of ballerinas for when I want to be "pretty". 
• We have a backpack that's good for hiking and shopping and going around town, and Gerd bought another souvenir handbag with a moose in Sweden (but I always carry it).
• When it comes to clothes, we keep it with Steve Jobs, everything has to be simple and combinable so we don't need so many combinations. We also have pants for 3 weeks, that's our washing machine rhythm: wash every 3 weeks.
• Clothes are another issue: we wear almost exclusively wool (except trousers), which can be worn for many days, aired out overnight and only when there are stains do they go into the laundry box.

When we make purchases, we always ask ourselves: do we really need this new?

Can't we use the old part? Can we get it used somewhere? Or do we know of something lying around unused somewhere?

• Barbara and Robert gave us a water bag from Ortlieb. It now functions as a hot water bottle.
• We got a thick feather bed (duvet) from our friend Regula, she had one too many.
• We got an old iPad from our children, it was lying around unused with them. And we can now comfortably watch videos in the evening. It's enough for that.
• We use a donated cloth from Turkey as a tablecloth, why not?
• We buy used travel guides or borrow them. When we are "through" with the country, we pass them on.
• When we realised that we didn't need our action cam at all, we sold it immediately.
• Our Nikon D5100 is really old, it is weakening in many programmes. But we are waiting until it finally dies before we buy a new one. (So if anyone has a camera that is still whole, we would be interested).

It's not about saving money for us. But we like to give things that have already gone through the production cycle a longer life.

New acquisitions? Still okay, right?

Yes, we have those too. Sometimes for the sheer joy of things, like our new SUP, sometimes because we simply haven't found any suitable chairs to work with, or even sometimes when my knitting projects require new wool. But then we enjoy the new acquisitions to the fullest. Without a guilty conscience. And we hope that we will own these new things for as long as possible, maybe even lend them to others (rather difficult with wool, but never a problem with the SUP or our ski clothes) and enjoy them for as long as possible.

And then there is upcycling, the recycling or repurposing of things that are no longer needed.

• So I cut stockings that no longer want to be stuffed into strips and have hair elastics, closures for müesli bags or slide slightly wider sock cuffs around glasses so that they don't rattle against each other. (Yes, there are products for all this in the camping or beauty shop, but I already have the material at home).
• I cut old towels that don't want to get clean anymore or already have holes into cleaning cloths or toilet tissues. Yes, that's right, we use cloth towels instead of toilet paper to clean up after our little business, we call them WC-Lümpli, which we wash again and again. That saves us a lot of toilet paper. More on the subject of the toilet, or rather the loo, another time.
• The T-shirts are first mended. Once they have survived that, they also end up as cleaning rags or the aforementioned small toilet lint. 
• We rinse out jars and boil down jam or applesauce on the way, fill bulk-bought lentils or all kinds of grains and spices into the jars. 
• Rubbers, often wrapped around spring onions or similar, go into our rubber jar. Because we always need rubber bands for sealing. And the wider ones from the spring onions are really sturdy!
• We collect decorations on the beach, in the mountains or on meadows. We have an old and beautiful bamboo bowl that we decorate over and over again to enjoy the travel souvenirs.
• I rib (separate) old woollen jumpers (when we don't want to wear them anymore) and roll up the wool nicely to knit new ones.
• We never buy flowers, on the roadside or in meadows you can always find a few little flowers that can go into the vase.
• We use plastic bags (when we get them) until they tear. 
• Candle remnants (oh yes, candles are also such an environmentally unfriendly thing to produce and pollute, but we love candles so much!) we collect and then use the stumps as campfire superlighters.

What is important in all of this is that we stand by all of our decisions.

We are not concerned with any kind of renunciation. We do not define sustainability in terms of renunciation, but in terms of abundance. Abundance in the knowledge that we can burden the earth less and still live contentedly.

For us, it's about taking pleasure in the things we own. It's also a bit of an attitude thing. We are not actually happier when we buy something. (Okay, I'll make an exception for wool, I could honestly title that lucky purchase or substitute gratification).

Wow, that was a roundabout way of talking about buying new, buying used or not buying at all. We are sure that everyone here has their own ideas. 

Maybe we could sharpen our view a little? Which things would be better not to buy, to buy used, to exchange, to borrow or maybe even to upcycle? 

We welcome your ideas or questions in the comments!

Links to the topic

We feed the World
Austrian documentary on globalisation of food production for the EU: causes, effects, raw material extraction, production, trade, transport, disposal, genetic engineering.

Taste the waste
German documentary, shows food waste in industrialised countries globally. Follows waste divers and farmers, shows reasons and amount of waste, e.g. because of standards. Shows ways to use waste profitably. Concrete examples show problems and frightening dimensions.

Plastic Planet
Docu: Director seeks answers about plastic industry worldwide, uncovers facts and connections. Does plastic damage health, who is responsible for mountains of waste in deserts/oceans, who wins/loses? Shows threat to humans/environment, that world without plastic has become impossible.

The true Cost
This documentary sheds light on how it is possible for clothes to be sold so cheaply and the journey they go through before they end up in the shops. It shows how the garment industry is distorted in some ways, as expensive garments are presented by models on catwalks while they are produced in slave-like conditions in third world countries. The documentary presents the places of production and working conditions, highlights the water requirements of cotton and shows how people and nature are exploited.

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Thank you for reading our sustainability thoughts. Every two to three weeks on Mondays we write something about the possibility of living future-oriented in the van. We try to shed light on different areas and hope to do so without pointing fingers.

Our focus is on the joy of van life and the many possibilities. We want to avoid the usual doomsday and renunciation communication.

You can find all the sustainability posts collected in the Category Future.

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Best regards - Heike & Gerd