Guilt and sharing the sustainability load

Over the last few weeks we’ve been exploring the concept of a ‘sustainable lifestyle’. Something that is not often talked about is the guilt that comes with not being a perfect environmentalist. I personally worry that I’m not doing the best that I can because I’m not doing absolutely everything. Trying to live a more sustainable lifestyle and run a sustainable home is a concerted effort. It requires time and hard work to make choices that are conscious of the environment and sustainability.  

It’s important to remember that everyone isn’t meant to do everything. Living sustainably is about trusting in your community and understanding that your role is adjusting the aspects of your life to be more sustainable, within your means. Whether you have financial constraints, circumstantial constraints (eg. health or safety concerns that make you apprehensive about riding a bike), or your personal preferences and source of joy (eg. loving dairy too much to give it up) – the whole point of collective (but imperfect) action is to let someone else pick up your slack while you do the same for someone else! If we’re all imperfect environmentalists together, it’s still making a whole load of difference. 

Discussing individual sustainable living is a privilege in and of itself. We have the agency, the means and the mental space to consider small lifestyle changes which will have a comparably small impact on our financial security or personal (including emotional) safety. Talking about accessibility of sustainable living is super important. We can talk about the various places available to recycle your waste if you know where to go, but not everyone is at liberty to collect and sort their plastics and be able to take it to 10 different places. Are sustainable choices accessible to you or is this something that you struggle with? How do we make sustainability the easy choice?  

For me the most accessible sustainability choices are eating vegetarian and looking out for my packaging and waste. These are the most tangible and obvious ways of reducing my personal waste. Buying based on my knowledge of what can be recycled or composted at home, or at the soft plastics disposal at the shops and charities such as Lids4Kids is much more straightforward than getting in my head around all the other factors that make something sustainable. 

We would love to get your thoughts on all these questions. Our community forum is a great (online) place to keep up the conversation. If there is interest, we can also arrange an in-person discussion group event or two. Email hello@seechange.org.au or simply respond below :)