Roots of a Culture of Sustainability

Sustainability was a normal way of living until recently

Straw for goat bedding on family farm. Photo: Walden Effect

Sustainability as part of culture is not new. Up to the 1950s, Canadian children regularly passed on clothes and toys to brothers, sisters and cousins.

Today small family farms continue to recycle most by-products of their work, e.g. straw from grain becomes bedding for animals etc.

In areas of the world where water is scarce, people use the same water to wash vegetables, then hands and finally laundry or other uses. Even where water is plentiful, many people are making moral choices to conserve water with low-flush toilets, rainwater collection etc.