A Better Home Inside and Out

Shifting residences is one of the most formidable tasks we often encounter in our lives. It takes an immense amount of effort- right from packing all the household items, coordinating with packers and movers to transport it, to unpacking and storing the items in the new house. It is common for this tedium of shifting, as well as the emotions involved with entering a new abode, to dominate our headspace while moving. But you'll be pleasantly surprised to know that the benefit of this process extends not just to you but also to the environment. I shifted residences recently, and I found it intriguing how most of the procedures used were sustainable, even without sustainability being a core focus area during the moving. Instead, the key focus area for these procedures was economisation- spending money wherever needed but also relying on our resources as much as possible. Below mentioned are some examples of the same:

1. Minimalism

While packing for the move, particularly when the new house is physically smaller or has lower storage capacity, we often find ourselves getting rid of stored items that we don't need. This is done to save packing costs and effort, but there are 2 takeaways about how minimalism comes to the rescue from this exercise:

-- Fighting the urge to impulse buy: Controlling our tendency to buy on impulse ensures we buy only those products that are genuinely useful to us. This reduces wasteful buying- buying products on impulse but then never using them as much. Less waste is better for the environment, as we all know. Thus, while avoiding impulse buying makes our packing process quicker by giving us lesser items to sort through and pack, it also has environmental benefits.

-- Digital copies: Taking digital copies of handwritten content wherever possible, ensures that you have to carry less physical books and sheets. You could send off these books and sheets for recycling instead, whilst also saving physical space in your new house.

2. Using everything as much as possible, and buying less

As mentioned before, the focus during mine and my family's shifting of residence was to rely on our existing resources as much as possible. Accordingly we used most of the boxes, bags, pouches and even bedsheets we have, to pack all the items. It was refreshingly amusing seeing all of us emerge out of our individual packing, nonchalantly suggesting the weirdest combos of container and packed item. For instance, " I found this spare makeup pouch, we could store the toothpick box in it" or "hey, keep this old gym bag aside, we'll store our stock of small devices here" and many iterations of these statements.

Thus instead of buying too many cardboard packing boxes, we took the above approach, with the eccentricity of it being that the containers met a functionality not initially planned for. This links with the Reuse component of the 3Rs of environment-friendly behaviour, and gives rise to Repurposing . There was no confinement to the original functionality of the containers at all- as long as they securely held the items, it was enough. Even after having shifted to the new house, the reusing and repurposing did not stop. We reused many more plastic bags we found during the packing stage, and repurposed a few plastic bottles, for holding grocery essentials.

I do want to mention that repurposing and reusing might not always make aesthetic sense. For instance, in a house with sophisticated looking interiors, people might want to use utensils that match the interiors. So a green plastic jar used in a brown color-themed house, to store lentils, might look out of place. In such scenarios, avoiding repurposing is the understandable alternative. YouTube also has numerous aesthetic upgrade tutorials for making the best out of such waste for home interiors- these could also be referred in case you are keen on repurposing such waste.

3. Fostering community bonds:

Moving brings our attention to a lot of items that are functional but not needed for us. This could include clothes that we have outgrown, or excess stationery bought during school days, and other things as well. In that case it is obviously wise to give it to other people who could benefit from the functionality. This is often done by the Indian middle class, as I mentioned in Desi Sustainability, where the recipients of such items include low-income groups such as domestic help, drivers and more. It creates goodwill on their end when we support them beyond just monetary aspects like salaries.

As far as the decor of the new house is concerned, a sustainable approach would be to buy from local artists and businesses. Reason? Their 'local' presence ensures that the purchase and delivery of their products takes up lesser carbon emissions (flight and truck travel used in delivery for example). My family ensured the same, by buying plants and other decor from local plant- sellers and artists.

One disclaimer I have for this article is that, every family operates differently, therefore their approach on the 'right' way of doing things, and their money management approach, might differ. From an implementation perspective, for every family, the utility of the above mentioned tips might differ. But either way, knowing about the environmental impact of our actions is a good starting point to make informed decisions about tasks like shifting. Because the same terrestrial, planetary home Earth, that houses our house and us, is also just as powerful enough to snatch our home from us, due to the consequences of neglecting the environment.

So the next time you find yourself shifting residences, you could ask yourself: I'm moving into a new house, but am I creating a better home 🌏? Chances are, the answer is a YES.