Wear No Evil, and Living the Good Life

"Know first who you are; then adorn yourself accordingly."  Epictetus

 I recently found two great books in the library that provided food for thought.

The first - Wear No Evil by Greta Eagan has a guide that will be really helpful when I finish my 12 months without buying any clothes, which ends in September.

She goes through the various ways that clothing can be more environmentally friendly, such as natural fibres, recycled materials, second hand, zero waste, locally made, natural dyes, socially supportive, low water footprint, organic, vegan, slow fashion, fair trade, convertible (ie can be worn in more than one way)  then has a system where, with style as a given, try to get as many of the other desirable qualities as possible after deciding which ones are most important to you, with a minimum of one plus style.
The whole book is worth reading.

The next good book was Linda Cockburn's Living the Good Life, 2006, about their 6 months of not buying anything (almost) with a view to sustainability. She writes with a good sense of humour about managing to achieve this (almost fully) on a suburban section in Australia.

She notes about Banrock Station - whose wines find their way into our trolley...

 "Drink their wine. At Banrock Station they use environmental management systems, and support 900 hectares of wetlands and 600 hectares of mallee woodland in the sensitive Murray-Darling Basin. They have donated $2 million since 1998 to Landcare Australia and many other projects around the world. Some of these projects have helped save the regent parrot, freckled duck and green and golden bell frog."
Seems like a pretty good reason to choose their wine.

Linda Cockburn has a blog -Living the Good Life