Ideas Are Ridiculous Until They Work

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For any creator who has a social-conscious, the times that we are living present an interesting conundrum. Why create something, be it physical or digital, and bring new things into the world when the problem with the environment is that the planet is already overflowed with things? My friend Aksha and I were discussing this a few days ago and we both concluded that for creatives who care about the planet the problem is at the core of our practice. How to contribute to one without affecting the other? How to successfully be a business, an artist and a human being without ruining the world?

The first time that I had a conversation about these questions was with my friend Almudena Romero, a visual artist working with a wide range of photographic processes to reflect on issues relating to identity, representation and ideology. In her work, she uses plants to reflect on the idea of using photography to leave a legacy in the current context of permanent crisis (environmental, social, economic, political and now sanitary too). Her plant-based photographs grow, develop and disappear in a constantly evolving state that questions the spaces and forms where photography exists.

I asked Almudena for advice on which archival medium to use for one of my projects, and she made me reflect on what my legacy really is. In an oversaturated planet, do I want my legacy to be an archival long-lasting collectable artwork that adds up to the pile of objects that already pollute the planet or do I want to be remembered for my contributions to the world as an artist? The answer to that question could easily lie on her ephemeral art pieces.

I presented this problem to Zula Rabikowska in a recent conversation. Zula is a documentary photographer exploring national identity, displacement and belonging. Since the pandemic started, she has been experimenting with developing film photography by only using household products from her kitchen, such as coffee, turning her darkroom into an organic and environmentally friendly practice. Zula suggested reading about Ira Lombardia, a photographer who decided not to take images for three years until she could find an answer to the same conundrum.

My mere existence and my practice have negative impacts on the world. If I use analogue photography, even if I work in a sustainable darkroom, the image is captured on a plastic film strip. If I used digital photography, the image is saved as a file that lives on thousands of server farms that are consuming massive amounts of resources around the planet. If I write on my blog, I force you as a reader to access it in one of your devices that are probably produced by a brand with a planned-obsolescence strategy and that use up all the technological resources that are one of the main parts of the problem.

I am aware that by writing this I'm not presenting an answer but rather highlighting a problem. Maybe there is no answer, but it would be interesting to hear from others their thoughts around this issue. How can I be a visual artist and pay my bills while at the same time improving the world and not contributing to damaging the environment?

The solution to the conundrum might be something that in the present we might consider ridiculous. Such as the concept of de-growth proposed by the likes of Jason Hickel. But ideas are only ridiculous until they work. Think of all the things that in the past were considered laughable and today are an everyday occurrence.

So, in the spirit of brainstorming laughable ideas: is there a way to create visual art that doesn't have a physical form or support? Something that is ephemeral, that doesn't last beyond the instant when it is experienced by the viewer and that doesn't contribute to bringing more stuff into the world. Any ideas? Or have you got any ridiculous ideas of your own? I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Bettering The World: Is It Someone Else's Job?

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This morning, as I was leaving home for work, I noticed that the hallways, lifts and reception area were covered in Christmas tree needles. Someone had obviously disposed of their holidays' decorations. It was as if whoever made the mess was expecting for someone else to take care of the clean-up. It's always someone else's job, isn't it? And the problem with this attitude and this way of looking at life is that it influences every other aspect of our lives. Why bother speaking out against injustices if that's the job of advocates? Why bother with the environment if that's the job of activists? Why bother with wearing a mask during the pandemic if someone else will wear theirs and protect me? In times when inactions make our problems worse faster than our actions can fix them, why do we choose apathy?

When I was growing up, whenever my father saw that I didn't feel like doing a task he would tell me: "combat laziness with action". With these four words, my father turned my brother and me into high performing people. And this, combined with a sense of consideration towards others, would have made me immediately clean up after myself if I had been the one bringing my decorations down this morning.

What could be the root of this apathy? Apathy is a feeling of having no feelings towards something. It sounds contradictory, but it is the emotion that lacks all emotion. It can be defined as a behaviour that shows no interest in something important, but it is also a lack of energy for everyday things. Being indifferent to everything that is going on around you can be linked to social determinants or in young people it can be part of the normal transition from adolescence to adulthood. In other cases, it can also be an early sign of a serious condition like dementia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, abuse of painkillers and cannabis, or a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders.

However, apathy can also be a symptom of an overload of information. When we are constantly told that there are so many things wrong in the world and that it is our duty to act on them our compassion can go numb. This can leave us in a state of empathy paralysis called compassion fatigue. This collective feeling of burnout and of lack of empathy has become very common in the times we are living.

Can we start caring again? If you are experiencing apathy due to burnout or if you think it can be linked to a more serious condition, seek help. Talk to someone you trust or seek professional advice.

Could this be the reason why my neighbours didn't clean up after themselves? Perhaps is not apathy and they are just selfish. O maybe they are lazy. Whatever it is, it's the same behaviour that I see when it comes to the problems that the world is facing right now.

Sustainability sounds like a lot of work. Righting all the wrongs can sometimes feel like someone else's job. If you are indifferent to the problems that you see around you the UN has prepared the Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World. They propose some simple things that we can adopt into our routines that, if we all do it, will make a big difference.

Cleaning up the mess we make is not someone else's job. It's our job. If humanity has made of this planet a mess, then humanity must clean up after itself. Maybe I personally didn't run a sweatshop, or enslaved anyone, or produced the plastic that floats in the ocean. But if I don't take action I become an accomplice. I turn into an accessory of all the crimes committed against nature and against humanity. In this case, the bystander is just as guilty as the perpetrator.

Photo credit: behind the scenes by Andrzej Gruszka.

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Making This A Better World: A Work In Progress

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These days, there is a collective need to be good for the world. Society wants us to be greener, to be ethical and to have a purpose. Many businesses, especially bigger brands, have successfully aligned their mission with this new collective social conscious. They are working hard towards using 100% green materials, producing with 100% sustainable suppliers, or becoming 100% ethical. But for smaller businesses, particularly creative entrepreneurs, the idea of having to adapt their business to become 100% good for the world can be daunting. Where does one start?

Achieving 100% of anything might not be realistic. Being 100% of something implies that we are done, that we have reached the end of our efforts, and that there is nothing else left to do. But, the reality is that just our mere existence as a business and as a human being has an impact on the planet. To be 100% green and have zero impact in the world we would have to stop existing altogether.

A better approach to sustainability and ethical practices would be to become a work in progress. When you are a work in progress, it means that you are constantly assessing your business and your processes to improve them. It means that you know that your efforts to be better for the planet and for society are never over. And, if you look at it this way, it becomes easier to start slowly and apply changes as you go where you see that they are needed.

To start running a more sustainable and ethical practice, you could start by identifying where improvements can be made. Then, you make a plan of how you are going to apply those changes.

For instance, our photography businesses run on electronic equipment. This equipment has a limited lifespan. Even if we tried to get our money’s worth, we would still have to replace our cameras, computers and phones every 5 years because, otherwise, they become obsolete. Our equipment also uses batteries and, nowadays, most of these batteries have a lifespan of 3 years.

A simple step towards becoming greener could be buying products that will last longer. Equipment that will not force you to replace it too often. If you have to change it, try to repurpose the old one. Use it as a backup, sell it on the second-hand market, or find ways to reuse its individual parts.

Buy from suppliers and manufacturers that are environmentally conscious, those who use less packaging material, and those who have strict environmental policies in place. Try implementing other actions like remembering to turn off electrical equipment when not in use, or buying rechargeable batteries whenever possible.

When it comes to ethical practices, asking yourself a few questions might help. Are your suppliers running businesses with ethical policies in place? Are you paying your collaborators fairly? Are you championing diversity and inclusion in your projects? Do your clients align with your ethos? Is there something else that you could do to have a positive impact on your community?

Contact your current suppliers and ask them about their ethical and equality policies. Find out if you are paying your collaborators a fair living wage. Make a list of those clients who no longer align with your ethos and think of how you can get more like-minded clients and reduce your dependency from the ones who are not. Pay attention to pressing issues in your area and think of ways in which your business can contribute to improving your community.

The unexamined practice is not worth running. We should make the effort to be in a state of constant work in progress, of constant self-improvement. As businesses, our goal is to make a profit. But, in order to make a profit, we need clients who are part of healthy economies and stable communities. If we want to guarantee those conditions, we must make it part of our core mission to benefit and improve the world.

Photo credit: portrait by Ivan Weiss.

This Image Gives Me Hope

My dad sent me this photo this past weekend. He volunteered alongside thousands of other people to collect rubbish in more than 50 different places alongside the Panamanian coastline coinciding with the International Coastal Clean-up Day. The Coastal Clean-up has been carried out yearly over the past three decades and, according to La Prensa, one of Panama’s leading newspapers, during last year’s collection over 1 million plastic bottles were collected by more than 5000 volunteers. Among the rubbish collected this year, there were also tyres, mattresses and large appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines.

The group of volunteers to which my dad was assigned worked in one of the many mangrove forests that can be found in Panama City. Mangroves are essential in the fight against climate change because they trap and bury carbon dioxide in the soil below. They are also important as a breeding area for marine species and for the conservation of bird populations. Panama has 11 of the 65 species of mangroves identified in the world, which makes preserving them essential for the preservation of the planet.

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I am so proud of my dad and of all my fellow-Panamanians who took time from the weekends to contribute to saving the planet. Not all hope is lost.

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When It Comes To The Environment, Less Is More

A few weeks ago, I attended an anti-capitalism summit hosted by The Trampery and one of the conclusions from the event that stayed with me for weeks was that, when we speak about counteracting climate change, the reductions that we need to make go against the concept of capitalism and growth. To slow-down the damage that we are doing to the planet, we must also slow-down our purchase and consumption behaviour. Less is more, no truer words were ever spoken.

Buy less, reuse more and learn to give a new purpose to items that until now were considered waste. All these necessary habit changes in our lives are not good news for businesses that rely on us continually stocking on their products, but if they don’t take the planet seriously, we are going to have to teach them a lesson. I’ve been writing a lot about this over the last year and a half:

• Are you running a sustainable business?

• Is there such thing as a sustainable photographer?

• When the mercury rises

One thing that I haven’t done is to write about the changes that I’ve been implementing in my life to reduce my waste. Some of these changes were no-brainers and easy to implement, while others took a lot of deliberation and compromise. Not only with myself, but also with those who live with me. It’s not an easy feat.

I have divided them in three sections: already put in practice, in the process of and on the drawing board.

Already put in practice

I am trying to reduce as much as possible single-use plastic. This has proven to be a massive endeavour as almost everything you buy these days has plastic. From clothes to food, you always end up with unnecessary plastic waste:

• I love cooking, and I not only cook very often, but I also like preparing elaborate meals to share with others. This translates into having a lot of leftovers that I need to store in the fridge or freeze for future consumption. One of the most convenient ways to do so is to store the leftovers in zip-lock bags. And that means that, at the end of the year, I have gone through hundreds of these types of bags, mainly because you can only wash them and reuse them a limited amount of times. This was the first change that I implemented. I bought several silicone zip-lock bags that are washable and durable and have completely eliminated single-use zip-lock bags from my kitchen.

• Tap water in London is terrible. It is safe to drink, but it’s so hard and tastes so awful that it even affects the taste of what you cook. Since we moved to London, we got into the habit of buying bottled water that we use for drinking, cooking, coffee, tea, etc. We only use tap water for washing. This translates into dozens of bottles of plastic wasted every week. It got to a point where I felt like the sole responsible for climate change in the world. I replaced bottled water with a Britta jug in which I filter tap water. The taste is not as good as bottled water, but at least all the minerals that come with the tap water get filtered out, and I’m not producing so much plastic waste.

• Also, in the kitchen, plastic wrap is something that is commonly used to cover and protect things that you store in the fridge. My friend Chloe told me about these fantastic bee-waxed organic cotton cloths that are washable and shapeable and that easily replace plastic wrap. I’ve been using them for weeks, and I haven’t looked back at plastic wrap again.

• I hadn’t bought new clothes in almost a year. I know that this goes against the industry that I work in, but I just didn’t want to give my money to brands that were not taking into account the environment when making their garments. I’ve done extensive research on the matter and a very little percentage of the brands that call themselves sustainable actually are. To be fully sustainable, a brand must have procedures in place for the whole life cycle of the garment, even after the garment can’t be worn anymore and it’s disposed of. Very few brands do this, and the whole concept is very confusing for consumers:

  • First of all, it’s worth mentioning that Ethical and Sustainable are two different concepts. You can be one without the other, and you can most definitely be both, but the terms are not interchangeable. An ethical brand sources materials from suppliers that pay their workers a fair wage, that treat their employees equally disregarding gender, religion, sexuality, age, etc., brands that guarantee humane working conditions in their sites.

  • A sustainable brand worries about its environmental footprint. It sources materials from sustainable suppliers, and it tries to produce their garments using sustainable techniques with the least amount of transport possible between the different stages of the production cycle. A brand that, when it sells you an item it tells you what to do with the garment once you decide not to wear it anymore and that would take back those garments and tell you how they will repurpose them.

  • These two concepts sound like they should be at the core of every single fashion business ethos, but you’d be surprised at how very few brands out there actually take them both into account. As a photographer, I use a lot of plain black t-shirts for work, and up until last year, I was buying them from a very well-known Japanese fast-fashion brand. But, last year I decided that I was going to stop buying from fast fashion brands because they are part of many of the problems that we face in our societies these days (environment, local economies, working conditions).

  • That’s when I started researching ethical and sustainable brands and found the people at Rapanui Clothing, a brand from the Isle of Wight in the UK. They produce circular economy t-shirts with organic cotton using renewable energy and are transparent about the whole production cycle of their garments. Rapanui makes their t-shirts from ethical, sustainable organic cotton and all the stages of the production take place under the same roof so that the environment is not impacted by transporting materials between factories. Once the t-shirts are finished, they are sent to the UK via ship, which has a lesser impact than planes. When you buy from them, all their packaging is made out of paper, including the tape, and once you are done wearing their garments, they buy them back from you with store credit and repurpose the materials to make other items.

In the process of putting in practice

At home, the kitchen seems to be the biggest entry point of single-use plastic, and I’m guessing it is a similar reality in other people’s homes:

• I am now researching food suppliers that don’t use plastic for packaging or use as little plastic as possible. It’s difficult with hectic lifestyles in big cities to find online supermarkets that have reduced their plastic usage. Amazon and Morrisons have joined efforts to deliver groceries, and they only use paper for their packaging, but still, most of the items inside the paper bags come wrapped in layers and layers of plastic.

• I’m at the stage of identifying one by one the brands that are the alternative to the ones that I commonly buy from but that don’t use plastic or that much plastic. This is proving to be a very difficult endeavour because of how cheap and convenient plastic packaging is.

• In general, I am also trying to reduce buying single-use items or items that have a very short lifespan. I’m trying to go back to how our grandparents thought when they bought anything. Everything was meant to last, good quality meant something that could be used throughout your whole life and then passed down to the following generations. Sometimes that means spending a bit more, but in the long run, you spend less because you end up replacing your items less. The good old quality over quantity.

On the drawing board

When you start doing the exercise of studying all your spending habits to see where you can reduce your waste, the most inoffensive of things turn out to be the most polluting:

• Travelling is one of them. I have always been an advocate for exploring the world. It helps us learn about foreign cultures and expands our horizons, but our vacations are killing the planet. The proliferation of low-cost airlines and cheap holiday packages have benefited both suppliers and consumers, but it has been the doom for the Earth. I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and it is a tricky one, especially for those of us who live far from our families. But, we need to start travelling abroad less, travelling locally more and using the train rather than the plane when going on holidays.

• This way of thinking will also benefit local economies, so it’s a win-win. The money earned here will be spent here, the anti-globalization movement. It sounds difficult to implement in our own lives, but ask yourself: how well do you know the city/country/continent that you live in? Why go explore overseas when you don’t even know how your backyard looks like? It’s true that most of the times it’s cheaper to travel two continents away than going to the town next to ours. But, like with everything related to reversing climate change, you have to look at it from the point of view that your money is being invested in saving the planet.

What measures have you started implementing in your life to reduce your waste and become more sustainable?

Photo credit: behind the scenes taken by Andrzej Gruszka.

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When The Mercury Rises

I’m writing this post in the middle of a heatwave. Tomorrow, the mercury will rise to an unprecedented 38º C in London, which means that it will be hottest here than in my tropical native country of Panama. Funny enough, summer-loving people in London are celebrating this weather without thinking for a second that this heat is a sign that our planet is not doing well. Admittedly, I am a winter person, and I don’t like the heat, but if I go to a Caribbean beach in Panama and all of a sudden it starts snowing I would be far from happy. We are warming up the planet to extinction, but we are going down with a celebration.

Around this time last year, I wrote a post on sustainability and the myths of Recycling and how we need to reduce our waste as much as possible. Today, I write about why we should be cautious when the brands that we buy from tell us that they are sustainable and green. Over the last year, many brands have jumped on the wagon of sustainability, especially fast fashion brands, but I wonder if we are starting to use this term as a selling point rather than as a real concern for the planet.

I’m not underestimating the efforts and the investments that brands are making to become more sustainable. But, some of the things that these brands are advertising as their efforts to becoming green are just a fraction of what they need to be doing. To be truly sustainable, a brand must acknowledge that the life-cycle of a garment is longer than they had anticipated and should also include the life after the item has been worn and replaced.

This new way of thinking about the life-cycle of clothes involves both brands and consumers. We are all in this together and if we don’t want to kill our planet, we must act now.

What actions can we take right now to become more sustainable?

As Brands:

• Use sustainable materials/suppliers/processes: this is what the majority of brands calling themselves sustainable are doing right now, and in principle, it is something good. But it is just the first step on the roadmap to sustainability. The work doesn’t end there; there is more to be done.

• Source locally: it is kind of counterproductive to source sustainable materials in remote places, ship them all the way to the factories and then ship the finished garments to distribution centres where they will be shipped again to the points of sale. It really doesn’t matter how sustainable a brand’s materials are if the carbon footprint of their supply chain is destroying the Earth.

• Generate less waste: this is the tricky bit. Fashion brands need to sell to stay in business and to sell more, you need to produce more, but there must be a limit to the amount and frequency of the items produced. A brand may be the greenest of them all in sourcing sustainable fabrics or having a sustainable supply chain, but if they are releasing hundreds of new designs each month to force their customers to keep on renewing their wardrobe, all their sustainability efforts will go to waste. Literally. The real challenge of turning a fashion brand into a sustainable brand is how to make customers buy new clothes while at the same time stopping them from sending the old ones to landfills or incinerators. This is where the concept of circular economy comes in, but is it really possible to make fashion circular?

• Keep it affordable: Price is the icing on the cake. Sustainable materials and research are still not cheap and to be able to lower their cost we would need to produce and sell so much that we would be contributing to the problem of waste while trying to amend it. At the same time, the sad reality is that if sustainable clothing is more expensive than non-sustainable one, people will keep on buying the latter.

As consumers:

• Buy less: it all comes down to generating less waste, and to generate less waste, we must renew our wardrobes less often. This is the last thing that brands want to hear, but in all honesty, we don’t need to buy new clothes every season. Today we have five times more clothes on average than our previous generations, maybe because they didn’t have the money or the offer, or perhaps because they made their clothes themselves and these lasted longer. My mom once told me that she only had two dresses that my grandmother had made her, and as a child, she would have to go out on Sundays looking the same every week. And so did everyone else! Obviously, I’m not pretending that we go back to making our own clothes (which wouldn’t be too bad) or to owning just two pieces of clothes. The ideal would be to buy less but buy smarter, buying from brands that are truly sustainable and circular and that produce quality clothes that last longer and promote less waste.

• Buy Second-hand/Vintage: Buying smarter also involves giving a new life to someone else’s old clothes. Pre-loved clothes are not only a sustainable way to renew our wardrobe, but it also gives you the advantage of not looking exactly the same as everyone else who buys from current seasons.

• Don’t Become a serial returner: sizing is a serious issue when buying online, and sometimes we have to purchase and return at least once to get the right sizing. Some consumers buy/wear/return consistently, or buy many different sizes of the same item in the hopes that at least one would fit instead of properly researching the measurements of their body according to the tables that online retailers provide. Serial returners have a massive impact on the environment.

• Buy from brands that are circular: again, buy less but buy smarter. Buy from brands that allow you to take your old clothes back to the shop in exchange for store credit. But, before doing that, ask them what they will do with your old clothes.

• Repurpose your old clothes: don’t throw away your old clothes. Hand them down, take them to charity shops, return them to the shops where you bought them from if they offer store credit, donate them to the homeless but don’t throw them in the bin.

• Don’t judge people for what they wear: the pressure to look always stylish and trendy is one of the main reasons that force us to buy so many clothes that we don’t need. This is particularly true when you work in the fashion industry because peers and superiors are constantly judging you from what you wear. This forces workers in the industry to contribute to this cycle of massive spending.

The time for complaining about the heat is long gone. It is time that we do something about it. We must seriously keep this conversation alive and look for ways to becoming more sustainable and saving our planet. Do you have any other ideas of how to become greener as consumers and as brands?

Photo credit: behind the scenes by Andrzej Gruszka.

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Is There Such Thing As A Sustainable Photographer?

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When the use of digital photography became widely spread, many praised this new form of taking photos as environmentally friendly. At last, gone were the days when the planet was harmed by the film photo processing chemicals, they said. The truth is that digital photography is not as clean as we might think, and I am willing to say that sometimes it's even worse. With all the talk in recent years on sustainability in the fashion industry, I asked myself the question: could there be such a thing as a sustainable fashion photographer?

Last week, I wrote about assessing the environmental impact of our businesses and putting in place best practices to reduce the amount of waste that we generate. Today, after assessing my own practice, I have come up with ways in which my photography business can be more sustainable.

The aim is not to be 100% eco-friendly, because that concept might not even exist at all. Our own existence has a direct impact on the environment, and practices considered good for the planet, like recycling, have impacts of their own. The aim is to reduce our impact as much as we can. And, as photographers, there is so much that we can do to reduce our waste, not only in our practices, but in our personal lives as well.

To start my environmental-impact self-assessment, I asked myself: what is my business? I take photos. What are the tools of my trade? A digital camera and a computer. What is the impact that my equipment has on the planet? Contrary to what one might think, digital photography is not a low environmental-impact medium. All the technology that we use on a daily basis has an enormous impact on the environment:

• Electronic waste: our photography businesses run on electronics. All this equipment has a very limited lifespan. Even if we tried to really get our money's worth, we would still have to replace our cameras, computers and phones every 5 years because they become obsolete (read about how manufacturers stimulate consumption by using planned obsolescence). In contrast, my 35mm film camera is from 1981 and I still use it regularly and for commercial purposes. None of my digital cameras will ever last that long and still be worth using.

• Packaging: every time we buy new equipment, it comes protected by layers of packaging, most of it non-biodegradable and some of it, albeit recyclable, will end up in a landfill as we are unable to recycle all the waste that we produce.

• Batteries: our cameras, computers, lights, phones, tablets and wireless equipment in general use batteries. Nowadays, most of these batteries have a lifespan of 3 years and need to be properly disposed of.

• Data Storage: with digital photography we don't use film-processing chemicals anymore. Instead, we rely on a gigantic network of electronic devices to store our photos and documents. What we call the cloud (or internet in general) is a massive amount of data centres scattered across the planet that process and house everything that we do in the digital world. These data centres use an unbelievable amount of resources. They use electricity and fuel for generators, they need batteries for uninterruptible power supply, their equipment generates a lot of heat so cooling mechanisms need to be put in place (water, air conditioning, coolant), and they are in constant need of expansion so a lot of land is required.

These were just a few of the things that I could think of in which the core of my business has a direct negative impact on the planet. The reasonable thing to ask next was, what can I do as a photographer, and a business-owner in general, if I want to run an environmentally friendly business?

• Buy from suppliers and manufacturers that are environmentally conscious, those which use less packaging material, and those which have strict environmental policies in place.

• Turn off electrical equipment when not in use.

• Use rechargeable batteries.

• When buying new equipment, buy products that will last longer and that will not force me to replace them too often.

• If I need to change my equipment, try to repurpose the old equipment by using it as a backup, by selling it on the second-hand market or by finding ways to reuse their individual parts or as a whole.

The concept of 100% green photography might be an oxymoron. To be a 100% eco-friendly I would not only have to stop taking photos, I would have to stop living completely. But, by putting some of the aforementioned practices in place and by trying to reduce my waste and to reuse as much as possible, I can make sure that my business is more environmentally friendly.

Photo credits: image by Andrzej Gruszka.

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Are You Running A Sustainable Business?

A few weeks ago, while planning the catering for a shoot that I was producing, I decided to go with a vegan catering because one of the crew members was vegan. On the day of the shoot, when all the food arrived it came protected in layers after layers of plastic packaging. What is the point in going vegan for environmental reasons, if you will then generate so much plastic waste that it defeats your purpose? What you do with your hands, you destroy with your feet, my nan used to say.

The majority of people would argue that all that plastic waste is recyclable, so we would still be on the right track to saving the planet. But, the reality is that not only not all of our rubbish is recyclable nor reusable and will probably end up in a landfill, but from the part of that rubbish that is recyclable less than 45% will be recycled or reused in the end. What's worse, the amount of waste generated by households that can actually harm the environment is very small in comparison to the waste that industries generate. So, even if we recycle all the waste that consumers produce we still wouldn't be saving the planet. According to official figures in the UK, 15% of the waste generated comes from households, while 70% comes from commercial, industrial, construction, demolition and excavation activities.

Recycling is not the solution that we were promised, it's just a small part of it. It's easy to make consumers feel guilty about all the waste that we are generating and have us obediently separate all of our rubbish at home. This way, governments feel like they have done their part on the matter and consumers are happy because we are left feeling like we are doing something good for the planet. Meanwhile, producers keep on packaging their products in plastic because it's cheap and it's all about margins and profit, and the rubbish that is not recycled nor reused keeps piling up in a landfill in a town near you or it gets sent to other countries. Well, that is up until not so long ago, because we are using such bad quality materials in our production chains that developing countries don't want our rubbish anymore.

Specialists in waste management talk about the four R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover. Any waste that is not subject to these 4 principles ends up in landfills or incinerated without energy recovery. Recycling comes in third place of these principles because we don't have the capacity to recycle all the waste that we produce, and the multi-million pound recycling industry itself has an impact of its own (the economic impact, the pollution that comes from collection, transportation and operation of recycling equipment, and the production of greenhouse gases, to name a few). Priority is given to Reducing our waste and trying to Reuse as much as possible.

What can we do if we want to run an environmentally friendly business? Just last week, I spoke about this matter with fashion journalist Olivia Pinnock, who has written extensively about sustainability in the fashion industry. We both agreed that we can't possibly do everything that there is to be done to be 100% sustainable because the nature of our businesses will eventually have an impact on the environment. Instead, what we can do is assess our personal and professional environmental impact and make changes in the areas where we feel that we can contribute to generating less waste.

To reduce the amount of waste that we produce, we should start by paying attention to how much and how often we buy and whom we buy from, and source suppliers that are environmentally conscious. Suppliers that are actually doing something to reduce their environmental footprint and not just trying to comply with the minimum guidelines required by our governments. Suppliers that use biodegradable packaging instead of all that plastic. Suppliers that make products that can be reused or repurposed, in line with the Circular Economy principles.

Also, we should Reuse as much as possible, and give a second life to what we don't use anymore by repurposing it, selling it on the second-hand market or passing it on to those who might have a use for it. And, above all, we must use the power of voting to elect politicians that are more strict with the sectors that are the biggest producers of waste. Stop punishing consumers for something that we haven't done wrong and forget the notion that Recycling is the answer to our waste problem. This is a problem that has to be tackled at the source.

Photo credits: image by Andrzej Gruszka.

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The Show Must Go On

I was recently told that I don't look like a fashion photographer. At first, the statement didn't sit well with me. Were they saying this because I just put on what feels comfortable and not anything "trendy"? Was it because I care and show interest about many topics rather than just talking about designers and catwalks all day? Or was it because of any of the other stereotypes that people from outside the industry have of those who work in fashion? I couldn't tell. But then, after a while, it hit me. This person wasn't trying to insult me. Their words were actually meant as a compliment.

Honestly, I don't blame this person for having that opinion of me. More often than not this industry feels disconnected from reality. If you care just a bit about what is going on in the world you automatically don't fit with the image that the industry has made for itself.

Take for instance the New York Fashion Week. Millions of people were being displaced or left without homes due to the several hurricanes that hit the Caribbean and the south of the United States in early September. At the same time, the industry was prancing the catwalks in New York. If you were reading the news those days, you would see photos of models on runways alongside photos of people fleeing their towns in search of refuge. Very few brands and designers took actions to raise awareness for the victims of the natural phenomena that were causing mayhem a few states down south.

Was this what Jim Carrey was trying to tell us? We will never know. What we know is that the show always goes on. It must go on. This industry employs millions of people around the globe and it contributes immensely to many economies. For that, it deserves credit. But its reach also comes with the responsibility to respect and value their audience and their target. Showing a little sensibility for the issues that matter to the rest of the world won't hurt anyone. In the end, if we want the engagement of our customers, we must show that we care for them too.

In the effort of trying to sell a fairy tale fantasy and an unattainable lifestyle reserved to a very few, the message that we are sending is that we just care about the money and attention of the consumers, not about their well-being. Luckily, this image of superficiality is just a very superficial layer. Below, there are many who work in the industry who don't fit the stereotypes. A lot of them are very active on the issues that affect humanity and the environment.  Not all of them are vocal about it or have the appropriate channels to voice their efforts. But these people exist, they are very real, and in my experience, they outnumber those who contribute to the shallow image of Fashion.

So, if the image of someone who works in this industry is the image of someone who is superficial, I am glad that I don't look like that. Because the last thing that I want is to look like someone how doesn't care about humanity and who feels that they are above the rest of the world.

Photo by Luca Dominique Marchesi.

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