10 Sustainability Practices You Can Do At Home
Magdalena Peñasco, Oaxaca, Mexico // Photo Credits: C. Penn
10 Sustainability Practices You Can Do At Home
Inspired by the indigenous women partner artisans of Custom Tradition
Over the past (almost) three years, Custom Tradition has traveled miles to source the best fair-trade home decor goods for our community. This has required us to spend time bonding with our partner artisans, the indigenous women who uphold Custom Tradition and keep us running. In the time we’ve spent with them, our eyes have been opened to the various sustainable practices that these women and their indigenous communities have been implementing for centuries. We wanted to share with you all 1o Sustainability Practices You Can Do At Home that are inspired by the lives of our partner artisans.
Eat Locally
One of the things we love about Oaxaca, and about visiting it yearly to meet with our partner artisans, is how fresh and local all the food is. There have been so many times where we’ve been told that the food we were eating was grown/made by the owner of the restaurant, or the neighbor of the owner of the restaurant, or the owner’s grandfather who grows all the produce they use.
If you can eat locally, do it! There are farmers’ markets in nearly every city and town and many often have CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs that make it easier for you to stock up on locally-grown products like eggs, honey, fruits and vegetables.
Ditch the Plastic
One of the first products we started sourcing from the Mixtec women of the Ñaá Ka Jani Collective were tortilla baskets: a simple, plastic-free solution for keeping tortillas stored and warm. These tortilla baskets, as well as many other basket types used by the women, are woven with simple palm leaves and contain not one bit of plastic.
Consider implementing more natural materials in your home for food storage, such as palm leaf baskets, cloth wrapping, and, more commonly used, glass jars.
Ugly Produce is Still Good
In Oaxaca, the women we work with minimize food waste by using produce that most of us would consider as “ugly”. When you have fewer funds to spend on buying prettier fruits and vegetables, sometimes you have to make use of what you have.
In the west, restaurants and grocery stores generate tons of food waste a year simply due to laws that require them to toss away food and consumer preferences that make selling produce with cosmetic deformities difficult.
Shop wisely: consider buying the tomato that is a little dented, or that banana that just started going brown! How a product looks has nothing to do with whether it is still edible or nutritious to eat or not.
Collect Rainwater
The water in Oaxaca isn’t the best and every local there understands that. In the smaller communities, like the one in which the ladies of the Ñaá Ka Jani Collective live, water is constantly a problem and is known to cause issues for the eldery and youth. However, if you go to their town, you will see many of the families have implemented rain-water collecting solutions to have better and alternative water options for their families.
In Oaxaca, the rainy season start around the first week of June and goes until about the last week of September, making rain water collection the perfect choice during this time.
If you live in an area where it rains frequently, consider investing in rainwater tanks. While you don’t necessarily have to use it for consumption, you can reuse it for other things like watering plants or putting it in your toilet’s cistern.
Clean with Vinegar
Sometimes the only thing you have in your home to clean is vinegar. This is a tactic that many indigenous women we’ve met and worked with use and continue to use. Although the smell is pungent, it eventually goes away and does just as good of a job as Windex or your other favorite house cleaner.
Nowadays you can even purchase pre-made natural cleaning products in the store, making it easier to reduce your chemical waste.
Check out your local grocery store for natural cleaning products, or make your own using simple ingredients like vinegar and baking soda.
Turn off the Water
One thing that many people don’t know about Oaxaca and other states in Mexico, is that nearly every home has a tinaco (a tank filled with water) located on the roof. Unlike in the United States where the water is filtered into the home through underground pipes provided by the city, most Oaxacan homes get all their water by tanks that have to be refilled monthly.
Considering the limited financial abilities of many people here, it is common practice to conserve as much water as one can by implementing practices such as turning off the water and not letting it run (while brushing teeth for example). Even more so, households in Oaxaca even implement the “if it’s yellow let it mellow” tactic just to conserve the water they have allotted to them for the month.
Turning off the water (i.e. not letting it run unnecessarily) is a great practice to implement to help conserve the earth’s water source.
Grow Your Own Food
After spending a full day with Isabel & Vicky, our lovely partner artisans from the Martinez-Mendoza Family Collective, we sat down to chow on some elote (a traditional corn on the cob smothered in cheese, mayo and hot sauce). The ladies soon informed me that the corn came from their father’s crops, where he plants and cares for corn year round. This was so amazing to hear because we had never met someone who grew their own corn.
There’s something satisfying about growing and cultivating your own food. With it comes a sense of pride that you can share with others. Additionally, growing your own food helps cut down on emissions caused by transporting foods from long distances.
Share Your Space
In the U.S. we have gotten used to having our own everything, whether it be our own car, our own house, etc..
However in Mexico, and especially in Oaxaca, it is common to share space with family members, making everything more cost effective for everyone. Some may consider it a cultural practice more than anything, but it is definitely something that can help people all over the world reduce expenses and conserve more. Sharing is caring!
Eat Lower On the Food Chain
In September 2019, when we first met the ladies of the Ñaá Ka Jani Collective, we were surprised to find out that they don’t eat meat daily, simply because its more expensive for them. This was surprising because in larger cities in Mexico (like Mexico City), meat seems to be consumed daily, if not for multiple meals. Food stands are everywhere, and it is common to see people out late at night chowing down on fast foods like hamburgers and tacos. However, in smaller indigenous communities in Mexico, like the various municipalities of Oaxaca, it is common for indigenous communities to have a diet of non-meat food products, like corn, beans, nopales, and rice, foods that are grown locally.
Meat takes a lot of the earth’s resources to be produced, and its consumption is known for releasing greenhouse gases into the environment, such as CO2 and other harmful gases. Consider skipping out at least 1-2 times a week on eating meat.
Walk More (If You Can)
Walking is a no-brainer for many of our partner artisans, as they live in very walkable small communities and have limited public transportation options. While this is not necessarily extremely easy for most of us in the U.S., consider which parts of your community are closest to you and see if you’d be willing to walk there instead of drive. Biking is also great!
