How I started my sustainability journey as a five-year-old

My first memories as a child were of me helping my mom in the kitchen. She loved to cook for the family, she still does. She always let my brother and me sit on a stool near the kitchen door, watch her cook and taste what she cooked. To this day, those are part of my fondest memories. Now, as I look back, I realize that that was my first brush with sustainability, in the kitchen. We used stainless steel utensils, reused plastic bags & glass jars until they tore/broke, sanitized & used scraps of old clothes to clean, etc. 

I realized the value of little things like those when I grew up and became conscious of climate change & environment. There are so many such things we can adopt in our daily routine that can impact our planet positively. Here are a few more I can think of, which don’t take much effort... 

• Slow fashion is the best. We can buy stuff that lasts long. There’s no need to constantly upgrade to what’s trendy... be it clothes, shoes, accessories or mobile phones. When I was in 5th grade, my mom bought me a pair of school shoes, which I then felt were the ugliest possible. I tried really hard to wear them out as soon as possible so that I could get a new pair. But it was so difficult. The pair lasted me 2 years until I outgrew them. Wow! It’s difficult, but we should REFUSE as much as we can.
• When we go out for a meal, avoiding takeaways is better, so as to not create single-use packaging waste. It’s always better to REDUCE. We always ate home-cooked meals and went out to eat on special occasions. It was also very healthy & cost-effective.
• My mom’s sarees were the most sustainable! They were made of cotton, woven locally. They were first used for clothing. Then, they were cut & sewn up to be used as a tablecloth or pillow covers. Then, they were cut down into tiny scraps to be stuffed into pillows, or sanitized & sent to the kitchen to be used to clean the platform first and ultimately, the floor. REUSE and REPURPOSE at its best.
• In India, every morning, a milkman comes to the doorstep and drops milk pouches into the tiny cloth bag tied to the door. Even until today, after consuming the milk, my mom washes the pouches thoroughly and stores them in a corner of our backyard. As a child, I always wondered why she didn’t just trash them until I realized that she sold them to waste collectors. She would make very little money (probably a dollar or two in the whole year), but she would RECYCLE. It wasn’t that complex or time-consuming.

Small steps can lead to big changes. As a child, I just copied my mom and did what she told me to do. Who knew that it would inspire me to begin my journey to adopt a sustainable lifestyle!? Sometimes we do great things for the environment and we don’t even know it. Once we are aware, we can do even more. We can be conscious of our impact and help others as well. I am so thankful that my mom had a frugal mindset. 

I will sign off by saying that it’s never too late or too little. If a five-year-old can be sustainable, so can everyone! And... imagine the impact if millions of people across the world do it.

P.S: Notice the curtain in the background of this family picture? Those are cloth advertising banners that my dad made for outdoor advertising campaigns of his clients.