How my journey to a more sustainable lifestyle led me to one of the best vada pavs I had

While the inspiration for making some changes to my life was that they were good for the environment, I realised over time there were other benefits - including stumbling on one of the best vada pav!

I have been reading about climate change for some time, and honestly this year has been depressing - with record breaking temperatures, series of heat waves and what seems like a never ending spate of wildfires, flash floods and hurricanes all at once.

So sometime earlier this year, I felt the irrational and urgent need to just do something. And while I am well aware, that the most impactful actions need to come from governments and corporations, and under no illusion that my choosing to take an EV cab is anywhere close to the impact of a large FMCG company removing plastic packaging from even their smallest product line, I thought there is no harm in doing ones bit. It only helps.

So I started making small changes in my own life and over the last 6 months, I have realised that the most of those changes have actually made me happy (beyond helping the environment) and don't feel like a struggle or a compromise at all. So what did I do?

• Reduce waste - You are probably surprised to see this as point #1. You were probably expecting to see something like ‘I will drive only EVs’ or ‘I will eliminate plastic from my life’. Not talked about as much, waste is one of the biggest contributors to emissions and pollution (air, water). Especially, in India - waste is often not managed properly, segregation is not adhered to and a lot of waste ends up in landfills where it is burned generating carbon emissions and other harmful gases. So reducing the waste you generate is incredibly helpful for the environment.

  We realised that a bulk of our waste was actually packaging from all the many packages we were getting from Amazon and Swiggy/ Zomato/ Dunzo/ BB Now/ Zepto (Yeah, we use them all lest someone feels bad).

  

  Dry waste is collected twice a week in our society and so that means waste of about 3-4 days gets accumulated. Very often we would have 4-5 bags full of cartons, plastic boxes and disposables.

  So we basically said no more ordering in and avoid 10 minute grocery deliveries. So if we didn't want to cook and wanted to eat out, we made a rule that we had to go to the restaurant. And we would avoid instant deliveries which meant we either bunched our orders for grocery ordering or better just walked to the nearby store to get it. This resulted in a few good things:

  • Our eating out reduced considerably. We cooked a lot more. A lot of times, cooking felt easier than the effort of getting dressed and driving/ walking to the restaurant. Over time, we discovered a lot of easy to make recipes and have started to really enjoy cooking. I lost about 2-3 kgs in a period of 2-3 months, a large part of which I attribute to the less eating out.

  • Since we had to bunch our grocery orders, we planned our groceries better and didn't have to think every day about what we'd make. This also helped in the eating more at home as we ended up having a meal plan and only executing (v/s also ideating) on a weekday was way easier.

  • And we got in some steps! From walking to restaurants when we did want to eat out or buying last minute groceries. I have averaged 7k steps a day for the last 6 months, which is a good 40% higher than my 2022 avg. of 5k steps a day.

    

• Reduce consumption - You know what's better than reducing waste? Reduce consumption in general. Because everything we buy has taken resources to manufacture (even the stuff they sell you as 'sustainable' or '100% natural'!). For example, it takes 2700 liters of water just to make a simple white shirt! So the best way to be sustainable, is to buy less.

  

  What we ask ourselves before clicking on ‘Buy now’ on Amazon

  We realised we don't need a majority of things we buy and most purchases are discretionary and unnecessary. Starting with clothes, we put a random rule of buying clothes only twice a year - for birthdays and Diwali (cause Diwali means new clothes and I am not ready to take up that fight). What did that mean? No more randomly spending time on Amazon or D2C websites that pop up on Instagram scrolling through for things I didn't need, and no more getting excited at a new offer on Cred and buying the 6th cables organizer ‘cause it was on sale. What did it do? Saved a lot of time and some money. All in all, don't miss the shopping at all.

• Be conscious of ones travel footprint - So we know travelling/ commuting is bad. Every time we travel be it by train, road or air we are contributing to carbon emissions and for individuals (especially ones like me who once took 2 flights a week and also likes travelling outside work), this is one of our biggest direct impacts. So what did I do? I didn't stop travelling or say I will never take a flight. I don't think that would be practical for me at this point. But I said I will seriously evaluate ways to cut down travel and when I do travel, evaluate better alternatives (train> air, EV> petrol car, public transport > car)

  • So we went to Pune from Mumbai earlier this year. And the default would have been a cab, but this time we took a train. And it was great! No uncertainty of how long you'd be stuck in the Mumabi - Pune traffic jam, we reached in precisely 3 hours, had a comfortable journey and you know the best part - we got to eat a piping hot vada pav at Karjat station, right at our seats! One of the best vada pavs I have eaten! This couldn't get better!

    

    The vada pav at Karjat station :D

  • Started looking for public transport alternatives wherever not extremely inconvenient. Discovered there is an AC bus that starts from Mumbai airport and drops me just 5 minutes from home. It took about 20% time more BUT it costs 20% of the cab fare. Good trade off when I am not in an absolute hurry to reach home.

  All in all, making some of these changes over the last 6 months made me realise, the changes were not that difficult and most didn't feel like compromises at all. I don't miss most of the things I gave up - like shopping for clothes on a whim and almost all of them have resulted in healthier habits - walking more, eating better, shopping less and travelling more mindfully. So what started as changes because I thought they were good for the environment have stuck as habits because they are good for me.

If you liked this post and would like to read more of this, please hit subscribe

If you think somebody else may find this interesting, you can share using the button below