Sustainable living. What does it mean to live sustainably anyway? Is it even possible in 2026? Do you have to draw away from society and urban settings to live sustainably? Move to an off grid cabin in the forest somewhere. An off grid cabin in the rainforest? One cannot deny it would be easier to live sustainably in an area where you don’t have to heat your house 8 months of the year. Even if you heat it sustainably. Life would be more sustainable if you didn’t have to do that. Harvesting firewood takes energy and fuel. Wind, solar, even geothermal heating takes resources to create and maintain.
I guess the best thing to do is to examine my own life and see how close I am to this sustainable living ideal we strive toward. Lets start with a back story. A baseline so to speak.
I am male. In my mid forties. I live in Alberta, Canada. In the part of Alberta that is prairie land, but the foothills are right there, to the west. So even in August it could be 30oC at noon and 5oC at midnight. This for me, sucks. I like when its 30oC at noon and 25oC at midnight. But, I digress. I have 2 kids that live with me half time (every other week), and we live in a 50 year old mobile home on an urban lot. I think its about an 1/8 of an acre. We have lived there for about 10 months at this point and have gone through 1 growing season. Coming up to the beginning of the second. There is a small gardening area which I am in the midst of expanding.
Sustainable Living – How to Measure
The first question would be how to measure our level of sustainability. What are the parameters? I read once in a book on sustainable living that, a garbage man should never visit a sustainable household. The author was leaning more toward a homestead, but basically what they were talking about was you should produce no garbage. So there is that.
What about food? How much food do you have to produce to be sustainable? It would make sense to strive for 100%. But how possible is that living in an urban setting. I could become a vegetarian and only eat what I can grow. However, I have a very short growing season here. I have also learned that starting seeds in the new place is harder than before. The window placement is all wrong for that. A greenhouse definitely needs to happen here somehow. Plus, I like meat. But, food production is another parameter, for sure.
I guess, overall resources used would have to be a factor as well. Things like water, electricity, and fuel. I don’t produce any of those things on my own. So that’s a real hit to my score. If we’re keeping score.
Striving For Sustainable Living
I think its rather fitting to start at the end when we examine the sustainability of ones life. Not just the end of ones life, but the end of the lifecycle of the things we bring into our house. Where did it come from? How long have we had it? And, did it serve its purpose, or better yet, did it serve more than one purpose? The easiest way to examine that I think is to look in the garbage bin before it’s wheeled to the curb.
I may have to admit to being a bit of a garbage snob!! Not that I do mean things, or say anything to people. I have definitely caught myself looking down my nose at peoples bins as I drive by, though. Cardboard boxes overflowing the top. The bin full every week. That kind of thing. What is the deal people!! Consumerism at its worst? Laziness? Ignorance? Come on!! I think that having to make numerous trips to the main lift of the city landfill over the years has really opened my eyes to just how much garbage is produced every day. The picture above is one I took on one of those visits. It is sickening. I tip my cap to the people who work there.
A few years back I challenged myself and my family.
Although the family had very little to do with it looking back. We shared the garbage bin with our upstairs neighbour at the townhouse we used to live in. The neighbours moved out at the end of January and my challenge was to not have to move the bin in February. As long as no one moved in upstairs of course. We were successful. Not that we didn’t produce any garbage, it just wasn’t enough to fill the bin to have to take it to the curb. It was awesome, especially because I remember that February being cold and snowy.
In the house we are in now, we again have a bin that gets wheeled to the curb. During the ten months that we have lived here, I have wheeled it to the curb once. In September after moving in in April. It is getting full again, in the middle of February. I am trying to get to the middle of April before wheeling it out again. So, twice a year. For the household garbage. I will say I did take a pick up load of old lumber and such to the landfill this past year also. Stuff that was rotten and was not burnable. Though some of that was here, left by the previous owners. Not perfect on the waste production side of things, but we are getting there.
Sustainable Living So Far
Around our house, we try different things and adopt the ones that work for us, and try to adjust the ones that do not work right away. My hope is that the visitors to this site can learn from our trials and errors, avoid the mistakes, and mimic the successes.
Food Production
The main thing that I have been focussed on in the past few years is growing our own food. The whole website is practically dedicated to that. So I won’t belabour it here. Check out the rest of the site for ideas on how to grow your own food in different ways.
Paper towels
I had been thinking that we, as a family, would need to have a surplus of reusable napkins in order to get rid of paper towels. I had a neurotic habit of wiping my chin as I ate (a bi-product of having my jaw broke years a go and the nerves being messed up). Using paper towels as napkins became just what I did. Then, one day, I just didn’t buy any more paper towels.
I have a bunch of rags to be used for spill clean up and for cleaning, so that is not a problem. Turns out we’re okay without paper towels. I just stopped buying them. We have napkins in the truck from food places, but so far so good. I will find some reusable napkins at some point, but it doesn’t seem to be as big of a deal as I thought it would be. Go figure.
Plastics
Plastics are a hard thing to get rid of in today’s society. Everything is either on or wrapped in plastic. One strive I have made lately, though, is to not use plastic wrap in the house and I use as reusable plastic containers for the kids lunches as I can. Eventually they will get worn out and cracked, but at least I can recycle them at that point. I do have plastic bags that I use for things like freezing pumpkin puree and storing things in the fridge. Again though, as reusable as possible.
I have noticed that our plastic recycling amounts are going down as well, so we must be doing something right. I did try to make beeswax wraps at one point. That’s the picture below. My daughter said everything tasted like wax! So I guess I missed the mark on the first attempt. But I’ll try it again sometime.
Food Waste
With the combination of the worm compost and the outside compost bins, the only food waste that really goes out the door is chicken bones. I haven’t figured out a way to compost them that really works. I could grind them I guess. Boil them for bone broth and grind them like a ogre! I’ll work on it. For the most part though, I think that we are doing okay with food waste. Historically, it was things the kids wouldn’t eat in their lunches that would go into the garbage. I think that has been remedied. I just don’t give them things in their lunches that I know they won’t eat and then their lunch bags get emptied as soon as we get home so I can salvage anything they did happen to get to that day.
Cooking
I have always enjoyed cooking. Since I was young. I did get out of it in the past. Life get busy and we get away from cooking for our selves in leu of fast meals. Unfortunately, those aster meals come with a foot print that makes them not so sustainable. Recently I have tried to slow down and make the things I used to buy. Ketchup and cheese sauce are two things I have recently started to make to get rid of the chemical preservatives in our diets. Turns out they aren’t that hard to make after all. The jury is still out on the butter making adventure. Is it worth it? I’m not sure. Next I’m going to try pasta. Looks easy enough on YouTube.
Sustainable Living – What’s Next
Garden Expansion & Food Storage
From the file of food production, I am planning a large garden expansion this summer (2026) so stay tuned for that. With that, I am also planning to renovate the root cellar so it’s more…appetizing for food storage. Less likely to be a mouse heaven.
Laundry
I really want to install a clothes line of some description this summer. I just have to figure out the best place to put it so I’ll use it. If it’s too much of a hassle, I will always think of an excuse to just throw the laundry into the dryer. And soap. I have to think of a clothing soap that is more sustainable than the plastic jug. There is a brand that uses a sheet that dissolves and comes in a cardboard envelope, rather than a plastic jug. It’s better, but not always available. Hopefully with time.
Windows
The old house is drafty. There is no getting around that. My heating bill has more than doubled this winter. I am unsure how much I want to invest into this house. I am going to move in ten years or so. However, I feel that new windows would be a wise investment.
So, In Conclusion….Sustainable Living is it worth it?
I think that once you start the change. Once you start to strive to not just consume and discard. Once you see the difference every little step makes. It becomes a different question. It’s not just “is it worth it” anymore. It becomes “how could I have lived any other way?”