On reaching £1000

So I've lived - more or less successfully - without using disposable plastic for a nearly month. It is difficult at times. It requires thought and forward planning and also some expense. When the month is over, I will loosen up a bit but what I won't be doing is heading out on a plastic binge. My lifelong relationship with plastic has now permanently altered. Never again will I buy bottled water or drink coffee from a takeaway cup. I will continue to buy the fruit and vegetables that come loose instead of wrapped in plastic. I won't bother with clingfilm because I have reusable food wrap and sandwich bags. I will replace my bamboo toothbrush with another bamboo toothbrush but I will never again use the sodding Peppermint and Wintergreen clay-based toothpaste for people who live in the woods. I will also probably shave my legs now and then.

I am carrying out this act of environmentalist extremism because I am alarmed and anxious, and sometimes despairing, about the state the Earth is in. Very often, I regret the fact that I made myself find out about it because I cannot now un-know what I learned, and nothing has the power to upset me more than the sight of unnatural damage to the natural world.

There is nothing ugly in the natural landscape. Nothing. Ugliness exists only where people have altered it. It depresses the shit out of me.

But how far do you take it? Where do you stop when you're trying to minimise your life's impact on the planet? There is so much to cut out. Don't use plastic, don't fly, don't drive a car, don't buy food from other countries, don't buy food grown more than fifty miles away, don't eat beef, don't eat fish, don't eat meat of any sort, cut out dairy, become vegan, don't have more than two children, don't heat your home, don't turn lights on, don't use a computer, don't overeat, don't use carrier bags, don't use paper bags, don't use anything made with palm oil, don't buy mahogany or teak, don't buy wooden furniture, don't buy plastic furniture, don't watch tv, don't consume, live in a house no bigger than you need, don't use paper...

You can't breathe. You can't breathe without destroying something.

The trouble is, we exist in a system. A world system. We're trapped in it. Some of us would like to get out, but then where would we go? We'd be sent to the fringes, sent to live among the mad and the misfits and the ones who couldn't get on, and we want to get on so we stay, and we use plastic and we fly and we drive cars and we buy food from other countries and we buy food grown more than fifty miles away and we eat beef and we eat fish and we eat meat of every sort and we consume dairy and we don't become vegan and we have more than two children and we heat our homes and we turn lights on and we use computers and we overeat and we use carrier bags and paper bags and we use things made with palm oil and we buy mahogany and teak and we buy wooden furniture and plastic furniture and we watch tv and we consume and we live in houses bigger than we need and we use paper...

And we cannot stop.

And slowly, the world around us is falling apart.

We won't live to see the worst of it, although certainly, we will see some. We might live through the death of the Great Barrier Reef, but we won't see the full collapse of the Arctic or the disappearance of the tropical forests. We'll see the sea levels rise and some of the loss of land mass, but probably not the famine and the vast extinctions of species.

But if we don't change, now, our children will see all of this. And it is really important to me that when it happens, my children don't say, 'My mother knew this was coming, but she knew there was nothing she could do.' They need to be the ones that say, 'My mother knew this was coming, and did everything she could.'