Hey there! It's Liz. I am the kind of person who really, really wants to make a difference in the world. I’ve always passionately pursued the highest standards for myself. Things matter to me, even if they are small.
But sometimes I admit that I question, “Why does it really matter? What difference can one person make?”
As a customer at Mill Creek, chances are that you care deeply about the things we care about. Obtaining and using high quality products. Supporting small businesses. Intentionally tending the earth as well as we can. But when we purposefully pursue values that challenge the status quo, it’s natural to wonder if what we do is actually worth it. The “status quo” is just that because it’s bigger + louder + flashier. It touts values of efficiency + speed so effectively that we question if other values even matter.
I’m here to tell you that they do. Each of us makes a mark in the world, and we get to choose what that mark looks like. Small steps of growth, little gestures of kindness, + all the simple ways we carve our own path in spite of the voices clamoring that loud + cheap + fast is better.
When I began packing my children’s cold lunches for school, I used [a lot of] plastic sandwich bags. I started noticing how many I was going through, and couldn’t stop thinking about how they’d get tossed after one use and almost never decompose. The waste really bothered me. I started saving glass jars from other products (like Lake + Oak loose leaf tea from Mill Creek), found some half-pint jars in my basement, and capped them with reused mayo and peanut butter jar lids. Carrot sticks, chips, apple slices, even ranch dip, now go into those jars to be reused over and over. I haven’t bought plastic sandwich bags since last September.
It's small. It feels barely significant. But I know that it adds up. And I’m not only making a difference for myself, but I’m teaching my children that they can make alternative choices to the norm. This matters in more areas than in plastic bag usage.
When something is “sustainable,” it can hold itself up. It lasts longer than a fleeting moment. It can be reused, repurposed, and leaves good behind it. Societies have lived sustainably for most of history, and only in our post-Industrial Revolution world have we developed this “once and done” lifestyle.
Sustainability means getting back to our roots – not creating some new way of living. It means saying “yes” to calming the pace and choosing things that last, in order to reduce the resources we spend on our planet and show it kindness. Sustainability can reduce our stress load, our financial output, and the waste that so easily accumulates in our homes.
And it starts with small choices, because sustainable living should be sustainable for us as well as the planet. One of our goals in curating home goods + refillery products at Mill Creek is providing products for you that make choosing sustainable practices that much simpler.
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