Day 116 of a Photo a Day: Consumption in Bulk

I'm trying to live a life where eating healthy is really accessible and simple. Today, I went to Bulk Barn and brought my own containers! Above is a photograph of my spoils.

Going to Bulk Barn was a shockingly inspiring experience for me for a number of reasons.

For one, as a person who's trying to live a healthier and less wasteful lifestyle, Bulk Barn has a lot of awesome options and is a cool environment to walk around in. Even if you're not bringing your own containers (which I will definitely suggest that you do), you can still fill a bag to the brim with, for example, pistachios, whereas if you bought pistachios in the grocery store, you might get a quarter of your Bulk Barn quantity with double the packaging. Plus, you pay a shit load more for most anything at the grocery store. Bulk Barn is cheap a/f!

But my real inspiration came from experiencing this new policy first-hand. Firstly, the employees gave me no sass when I walked right up to the cash with my many containers for them to weigh. I know that that attitude comes from them being employees of a not-so-busy store (I went to Metro afterwards and every single cashier looked like they had already decided that they were done living, it was so freaking busy), but also, it felt like they genuinely liked the policy themselves.

Secondly...and most importantly...I want to be a part of change like this.

Let's get one thing straight: when you throw something "out," out is not an actual place. It's not going into a black hole...it's probably ending up in a less privileged part of the world than the one that you're living in. Maybe it's going straight down the street if you happen to live in a community that's unlucky enough to have been chosen as the host of a massive heap of someone else's waste.

Some types of trash that we create--from clothing to electronics--end up in different countries, often leaching extremely toxic chemicals and metals into their local environments (and diverting these toxins from our own).

A lot of Toronto's garbage is shipped to London, Ontario. For a while, it was being shipped to Michigan. Toronto has a very high population, and I can't even begin to imagine my personal impact on London, Ontario, let alone our entire city's.

Recycling sounds good on paper, but it also creates heaps of waste. Air pollution, contamination, but also, the whole process is still pretty inefficient.

Re-using things and reducing our overall consumption is so important. Sometimes I have a lot of difficulty convincing people that caring about the environment is worthwhile. It seems like an abstract concept and the impacts of neglecting it are about as visible to the average person as our trash is.

Basically, I think that I can change perspectives and habits by allowing people to make informed decisions about how they buy things like Bulk Barn has through this new policy. Bulk Barn is not discouraging consumption (because they know that people need to eat food to live), but they are definitely promoting smarter and more free consumption. I want to make a difference by informing people of what concepts like "throwing things out" really mean. I want to open peoples' eyes and then let them decide. It's hard to make decisions like whether or not to bring your own container or bag when you don't know what the impact of not doing so is. It's hard to remember that just a month's worth of consumption for the average Torontonian can be humongous.

To say that life is short and we should live it as we want to (as wastefully as we want to), is to ignore the impacts that this philosophy has on those in London who are dealing with higher levels of air and water pollution because of our actions. It's ignoring the lives of people in Guiya, China, who used to live off of the rice that they produced, but whose waters and soils are now too contaminated by our electronic waste to grow it anymore.

You don't need to upgrade your phone. Your phone can still call people, even if it's glitchy as hell (that message is a reminder for myself, but also for you if you're in a similar boat). You don't need to pay companies to package food for you. Bring your own containers to Bulk Barn. It's sweet, their selection is killer, and you might be happy that you thought ahead to the consequences of your consumption. Wake up. Open your eyes. Inform yourself.

#PhotoaDay