Environment and awareness

As long as I can remember it was always very strange for me to see how much plastic waste and other artificial waste materials humans are producing. Just entering a supermarket, seeing that pretty much all items are packed in materials that will turn into rubbish and waste at some point feels quite awkward to me. So much rubbish that is increasingly becoming a huge burden for our environment…

I realize that we can’t change the world or the way how modern society is living at once. But we can do one thing: We can reduce waste and walk through our lives with an increased portion of awareness for our environment.

Since many years I have been shopping at the market with a little basket and reusable food containers. I also bring my own banana leaves so the market vendors don’t have to wrap the produce and the items that I buy in plastic bags. It is a very easy thing to do. – Just the way our previous generations were wrapping food and ingredients in a banana leaf. It works perfectly and does not produce any unnecessary waste.

As another example I also make my own dishwashing liquid and hand soap. For this I use the ashes from our charcoal stoves to produce an alkaline liquid. Then I an mixing this with the “juice” of pickled kaffir limes and voilá – I no longer need to buy industrial soap.

In addition to this I always like to get experimental about how we can use more sustainable and homemade products in our everyday life. From our coconuts we are producing our own coconut oil, I already produced my homemade fish sauce and I even have “brewed” my own mosquito repellent… Certainly there is always something new to discover.

If you visit our home I would be happy to show you some of all these small projects that contribute to a well-balanced lifestyle in harmony with nature.