 Living in a throwaway culture has brought about the level of laziness in our society. It does take more time to repair things than simply clicking a few buttons to replace them, but by doing this, we create a more circular economy, with things like even a second, third and even fourth life, and existing materials are valued rather than seen as dispensable. Don't get me wrong though, I was that person who used to throw things away as soon as they broke or were damaged, but when I began my journey to living a simple, more natural lifestyle over 8 years ago, I became more and more conscious about the waste I was creating on a day-to-day basis than the footprint I was having on the planet. I slowly shifted from the person who threw things away to the other extreme. I started hoarding everything that broke, waiting for the day where I found a way to reuse, repair or recycle this stuff, doing my utmost best to keep it all out of landfill and the environment for as long as I possibly could. My home became cluttered with broken or old things, such as clothing, batteries, phones, sunglasses, used wrapping paper, backpacks, flip flops, anything and everything that was no longer able to be donated or resold. This created another problem, where could I store all this stuff? It was affecting my mental health as I became overwhelmed by the amount of things I had lying around the house, and I didn't want to be that person who hoarded everything. I wanted to live a more minimalistic lifestyle, but how could I do that with all of this junk in my house? So I made a list of everything I needed to find a home for, and began researching how I could either repair or recycle each different item. So the first thing that I actually replaced, and honestly my first instinct was to go, oh I'll just go out and buy another one, but I had to stop myself and go actually, so what's going to happen with this thing? And it's a camera stand bag for my camera that I have, and what happened was when I was filming my sunrise, as I was packing up the stand to put my bag to then carry away with me right back home with the zipper broke on the barge, and I was like, of course it breaks, you know, it's not good quality, they don't make it as they used to anymore. And Miami thought it was like, I'll have to go out and get another camera stand bag, so I'll do that later that day. And then I stopped myself because I was like, wait, maybe I can get it fixed, because I myself don't know how to sew, that's something I really want to learn and actually build on, the skill of learning how to fix my own clothes, my own things. So I want to actually build on that skill, but for now, I took it to a second hand tailor, which actually really took a long time to find, and I took it to the lady and she looked at it and she's like, yep, I can fix the zipper. And I was like, score, that's excellent. I don't have to throw it away because most likely what's going to happen is it will just end up in landfill because the material isn't recyclable. And I don't know how to turn it into anything like upcycle it. Some things weren't able to be salvaged. And so I had to come to terms with throwing them in the bin. And this was another challenge in itself, letting go of a guilt of throwing away. I had to accept that in this day and age, we haven't yet created systems or policies in place that hold companies accountable for the end of life stage of their products. It is what it is and we are slowly moving towards that, but it's just going to take time to perfect and integrate into society as we still live in a throwaway culture and that takes time to change. So I shifted my focus from what I couldn't control to what I could. I began researching how to recycle the items that could be recycled and looked for places that could repair clothing and similar items like that. Anything that couldn't be salvaged, I gave myself permission to throw away. When finding recycling programs for certain materials, I looked online and typed in search engines, how to recycle either backpacks, shoes, clothing and things like that. From there, I looked for facilities in my local area that I could send my broken, old or used items to for recycling. If you're talented in the art of sewing, you can fix broken clothing yourself. But if you're like me and haven't quite perfected the art of textile repairs, looking for a local tailor is really helpful and it often only costs between ten to thirty dollars per item to be repaired, depending on the material or item used. Some of the items I've had repaired so far have included my camera stand bag as the zipper broke on that, a purple play suit as a couple of the straps have broken, a swimming top, which also had a strap broken and my handbag as the thin material inside of it had ripped. The best way to reduce how much waste you send to landfill is by only buying what you need. And when buying anything new or even secondhand, look for quality items. The better the quality, the longer it will last. While buying higher quality items and clothing is often more expensive in the short term, these items are made to last. So over the long run, they are more cost effective as they require less upkeep and repairs the maintenance. It is often better to fix what you have rather than going straight to replacing damaged items with the next best thing. Repairing not only does your water favor, but creates more space in your home and prevents unnecessary waste going to landfill. Let's go back to valuing and appreciating the resources we have now and move towards a more circular economy. I hope you enjoy today's video. Thank you so much for watching. I wish you a wonderful day and I'll see you soon again.