In the last two meet-ups I had with my readers, I understood that a few people are interested in sustainable living. For those readers I am planning to start another series called the sustainable living. Since I don't know much about the topic and it is mostly run by my better half, I will hand over the reins to her when talking about sustainable living or organic gardening. To kick things off, I asked her to write a guest post as an intro to sustainable living and how she got started. So here is that one from her. Take it over mrs reynd.


How did our sustainable journey start

Our journey started with composting. Right about when we started homeschooling, I started to learn about composting. At that time, I was reading about how much waste is being dumped in the landfills. None of that either gets recycled or reused. We seem to consume quite a bit but not worry about the consequences of such behavior. I wanted to do something about it by reducing the amount of waste that ends up in the landfills. I thought composting would be a good start. And that is where the journey started.


Lots of blogs inspired me to start composting to at home. We have access to lots of dry leaves in our community as well as from the trees near my house. I started collecting dry leaves in rice bags and prepared compost with the left overs and the dry leaves. I will go more in-depth into the process in upcoming posts. But suffice it to say, within six months, I got the hang of how to do composting. We started using the compost in our home garden. After composting, my next project was learning about bio-enzymes.


Everything is homemade!

Bio-enzymes are replacements for all the cleaning products. With bio-enzymes, for the past two years, we haven't had to buy any chemicals for cleaning our bathrooms and floors. After getting some expertise with that, I started to focus on how to reduce our dependency on other household products we buy. I learned to make homemade soaps, butters to replace skin creams and lotions, hair oil, and even homemade toothpaste. I also focused on buying less ready made products for my kitchen. Started making homemade jams and masalas. There are so many things to write about, but given that this is an intro post, I will save them for future posts.


In the future, I plan to write a post or two on each of the following topics

  1. Homemade soaps (with and without lye)
  2. Ayurvedic Shampoo bars (with and without lye)
  3. Face wash powder
  4. Salt Scrub
  5. Beeswax wraps
  6. Hair oil
  7. Cotton pouches
  8. Body butter
  9. Lip balms
  10. Beard cream
  11. Dishwashing powder, liquid, and soap
  12. Foot cream
  13. Bubble bath
  14. Hand wash
  15. Bath powder
  16. Mosquito repellent
  17. Floor cleaners
  18. Bathroom and Commode cleaners
  19. Tooth powder and toothpaste
  20. Probiotic drinks and Kvass


Of course there was a lot of trail and error in figuring out those things. Many failures and a few successes. But now, I am at a point where I am finally not dependent on the supermarket for most things. I can make all the things mentioned above at home. More in the upcoming posts. Keep an eye on sustainable living series.