conscious consumption

The climate crisis became more apparent to me in light of all the garbage disposal rules in Amsterdam. I had never seen so many documents with instructions and schedules related to garbage in any of the other places I’ve lived in. I was nearly fined EUR 95 for not getting rid of a cardboard box properly! (While I had thrown it in the right container, I apparently did not flatten it appropriately - lesson learned, disassemble box and make sure to remove all shipping labels from boxes!)

In the last year, I learned that consumption is not just the things I buy when I’m out shopping (or online shopping) - in fact, I often put more thought into those purchases anyway. It’s actually in the day-to-day purchases where I tend to spend and consume mindlessly, particularly when it comes to food. Before I moved to Amsterdam, I never really spent much on anything related to being at home because I was barely at home. I didn’t need throw pillows on my couch because it was decorated with my unfolded clean laundry instead! I never cooked much at home when I was living in Singapore because I was able to get delicious inexpensive food at Hawker Centers as well as in food courts that were in just about every mall! In New York, my tiny apartment barely had a kitchen and my work and social life often involved (liquid) dinners and late nights that all I wanted to do when I got home was take a shower and sleep.

When social distancing measures started I didn’t even give a second thought to my overindulgent grocery shopping since I wasn’t even eating out anyway. Until I realized that I had more food than I could remember I had and ended up with a lot of waste every week. It’s taken me about a year to adjust and adapt practically to this new life, here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:

I buy potted plants for decor instead of cut flowers. Plants also help with clearing out the air in your living space which was fantastic over the winter when I couldn’t open any windows. Plants have turned into a new hobby and in a future post I will share the ones I’ve found to be the most low maintenance for first timers. Don’t get me wrong, I love fresh cut flowers and it’s been such a treat because they have a variety here in Holland and are inexpensive compared to getting them in Singapore and New York; but I now limit buying them for special occasions so having them stays special.

I now shop local and buy my produce from the neighborhood butcher and the weekly farmer’s market. I primarily did this to find the best quality produce as I overhauled my eating habits (will share more about this in the future). While I cannot guarantee that this means a smaller carbon footprint (I don’t ask if the produce is farmed in the Netherlands or not); I at least notice that I use a lot less plastic because the fruits and vegetables are not pre-packed into plastic containers. Shopping local was totally unnerving for me at first because this required me having to converse with someone (vs. just picking things off the shelf at the grocery store); but I started to use it as an opportunity to practice my Dutch! This was a large step outside my comfort zone but it does make me feel like a better contributing member of society. 

I use glass food containers particularly those that can go from oven, to serving dish, to food storage which allows me to have less things and save on space in the kitchen. Now I don’t need to buy separate baking dishes and serving plates. I had initially bought plastic food containers and quickly learned that the cheap ones needed to be replaced frequently. Better quality ones held up better but through time developed a film type thing on them no matter how many times I ran them through the dishwasher. Not to mention, plastic ones hold stains and smells so they never really appear to be as clean as glass ones.

I avoid any processed food as much as possible which means I do my best to keep the freshest food possible around me. I do my best to meal prep because I’ve come to observe that organic produce does ripen and rot faster. I’ve created for myself “waste-free Wednesdays” where I purposely look through my refrigerator to make sure I consume what is on the verge of going bad. This is a whole new discipline I had to teach myself because sometimes (most times!) the food is not exactly what I had in mind to eat that day but I do feel some sense of pride when the weekend comes and I don’t have any food waste to throw out!