20 Pledges for 2020: Living a zero waste life is challenging, even when everything is locked down

Living as sustainably as possible shouldn’t mean a joyless existence, writes Kate Hughes, but purchasing anything in lockdown appears to come with a lot of strings attached

Less is sometimes more (Getty Images for WARDROBE.NYC)

I don’t really get retail twitchy. That yearning for something new, shiny, clean and destined - we’re told - to solve all our problems the moment it emerges from the packaging doesn’t often do it for me. And anyway over the years we could rarely afford to splurge on the non-essentials.

Even before our zero waste and other lifestyle changes meant we stopped engaging with the majority of mainstream outlets, we couldn’t really think of anything worse than trudging round a mall with the rest of the world or losing hours hunched over phones and laptops browsing electronic shop windows.

But even I have to admit that after looking at four walls for weeks, the fraying rug, crayon-tortured sofa and the bathroom blind that never properly fit are doing my head in. I want comfortable. I want easy. I want my home, my possessions, the clothes on my back to offer a sense of continuity and resilience that is lacking in the wider world right now.

I want to feel like we’ve got this, despite it all. And one of the easiest, fastest way to do that is to buy stuff. At least, that’s what we’re lead to believe.

The chances are that I won’t though, not least because my money editor’s brain is screaming at me to save every penny I possibly can in preparation for a massive recession.

But if I do, the process of purchasing will be unrecognisable to most people.

If you were allowed to come round to ours at the moment, we’d obviously set you up with a cuppa or a glass of something on the sofa or at the kitchen table. You might not immediately realise that nothing you could see, no item of furniture, no lamp, book, rug or shelf was bought new.

That’s true of everything we buy for our home or person. I haven’t bought brand new clothing for years. And I don’t plan to again.

Fast fashion is now so notorious for its environmental impact that just saying the words is eco-swearing. Collectively, the global fashion industry emits more carbon than international shipping and flights combined.

That’s before we get on to the water use, the chemical pollution, the human exploitation and, finally, such collective disregard for the end product that the equivalent of a bin lorry full of clothes goes into landfill or the incinerator every single second.

But we’re not just chucking out clothes. More than 22 million tonnes of furniture is thrown away each year in the UK, according to research by Mattress Online.

In the US alone they bin 360 million books every year.

So our family’s buying habits are very different to what they once were. Though I suspect my grandparents would recognise the process.

If we need to replace something the first job is to work out if we can fix what we already have. Sounds obvious, but I’m not that handy, so I’m trying to pick up some skills. If that’s not possible, can we borrow or rent what we need? If the answer’s still no, then the second hand option kicks in. Still not possible? Can we buy the item new and responsibly – both environmental and socially? If none of that works, then we need to try to find something that is built to last at the very least.

It works… 95 per cent of the time.

My 2020 pledge was about finding out how far we can really go with green living, how deep a dive I’m willing to take and at what cost.

And I never thought that my first proper hurdle would be around clothes. I’m no fashionista. I get up, I put clothes on that don’t make me too hot, too cold, look weird, are covered in small child related stains or cut off my circulation - that’s the broad aim.

But when I need to replace those clothes – I only have around 50 items of clothing, including accessories, to start with most of the time – a whole bunch of self-inflicted rules mean that, right now for example, I only have one pair of trousers. And I hate them.

I don’t own a pair of jeans but I definitely need some. My last pair disintegrated in a way I can’t fix. I can’t go to a second hand shop because they’re not open, and the online options almost always send their items in plastic postage bags.

But even before lockdown I was overlaying so many eco obligations that if I did purchase an item, it rarely seemed to be because I actually liked it.

More often, it was the last thing that has got through the checklist: was it produced in as environmentally responsible a way as is possible; was it made in the UK; is it made of natural materials; is it second hand; can I buy it within walking distance or at least locally, and only then, finally; is it in my size?

As you can imagine, very little makes it through. Which is absurd.

Here I am, apparently a fully-functioning adult, incapable of purchasing a pair of jeans because of her own self-imposed and impossibly restrictive rules.

Living as sustainably as possible shouldn’t mean a joyless existence - not least because if it does, we’re all dead in the water because nobody in their right mind would sign up for that.

Clearly something has got to give. Or at least, I need some sort of easy points system to judge whether locally produced trumps second hand, or natural materials are more important features than UK made. And that is going to take a hell of a lot more research.

Maybe for now I’ll just live in my dressing gown and assume lockdown will last forever. It’s got to be easier than clothes shopping.