Ep. 3: From Trash to Treasure — Finding Joy in Upcycling with @SustainablyAmber

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (00:00.542)
Some people see garbage and others see possibility. This episode is all about turning trash into treasure and why reusing is much cooler than you think. Welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, a podcast for the eco curious who want to live a greener life and are looking for a place to start. I’m your host, Sarah Robertson Barnes, a soccer mom with a station wagon and a passion for sustainable living. Each week I’ll bring you practical tips and honest conversations to help you waste less,

save money and make small doable shifts that actually fit your real life. Because sustainable living doesn’t have to be perfect to matter. And you don’t have to do it all to make a difference. Hi friends and welcome back to Sustainable in the Suburbs, the podcast where we start where we are, use what we have and live a little greener, one small shift at a time. Today’s episode is for folks who see something on the curb and think, what a shame, that’s still perfectly good. Somebody could use that. Maybe you are that person.

I definitely am. Le Curb is my favorite store. Or maybe you love hearing new ideas on how to turn trash into treasure. Maybe you wish you were that person. Someone who can look at an old lampshade or a busted garden hose and not see trash, but potential instead. My guest today is Amber, who you may know as at Sustainably Amber on Instagram. She’s a creative force who makes magic out of what most people would toss without a second thought.

She’s gone viral for projects like turning a discarded lampshade into a gorgeous outdoor food net. She’s the kind of person who can take thrifted finds or literal roadside junk and give it an entirely new and beautiful life. But this episode isn’t just about crafting or even about sustainability. It’s about joy. It’s about creativity, resourcefulness, and remembering that making things with your hands out of what you already have is a

deeply satisfying and frankly, countercultural form of climate action. So if you’re feeling stuck, but you love being creative, this one’s for you. Let’s talk about trash, treasure and finding joy in the process.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (02:09.048)
Amber, I’m so happy to have you on the show today. Thank you for having me. Yeah. As I was just telling you off, Mike, I made a list of all the folks that I wanted to talk to when I started this podcast and you were like top of the list. And we’ll get into why, but basically I’ve been admiring how creative you are and your genius up cycles for a while now. So I’m really excited that we’re going to chat about it today. Yes. Thank you for having me. I feel honored.

one of your first guests and I’m excited to talk about all the up cycles and sustainable things with you. Yeah, so for listeners who might not know you yet, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the things that you share on at Sustainably Amber? Sure. So yeah, like my username says, Sustainably Amber. And I picked that name sustainably because I do so many different sustainable things, whether it might be reusing,

upcycling, gardening, composting, thrifting, caring for the environment. Many of those things encompass sustainability for me. I mainly like to focus on upcycling. So you’ll see me through all platforms, mainly sharing about upcycling, but there’s so many different forms of sustainability out there that can be encompassed in that. Before we move on, we got to tell the people.

What is upcycling? What does that mean? So many people ask that. What is upcycling? It’s basically taking your trash and rethinking what it can be. So for instance, let’s say you have an old plastic berry container just sitting in your recycling bin. Well, we know a lot of things don’t get recycled out there, but you can actually take that and make it into something else. So for instance, those plastic

clamshell berry containers. They already have holes in them, so you could probably throw some dirt in there, start some seeds. Now it’s a seed container. So that’s what upcycling is, rethinking what something can be. It’s only single use if you use it once. Exactly. I love that quote by you. I use it all the time when I think of you. I don’t even know how that popped into my head one day. I think someone was talking about how Ziploc bags are only single use. And I was just like, what do you mean?

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (04:29.871)
Are people not washing these out and reusing them again until they literally fall apart, which is not revolutionary at all. have been doing that for however long. Why are we buying things just to throw them away? What else could this be? And of course the opposite of upcycling is downcycling. So something like plastic, for example, if it gets quote recycled, it’s probably downcycled, meaning you get one more use out of it until it goes to landfill.

something gets plastic gets recycled into AstroTurf and then it can’t be recycled further. So that’s sort of where the upcycling downcycling comes from. exactly. What first inspired you to start posting your projects on Instagram and on your blog? Sure. So like many people during the pandemic 2020, we were all stuck at home. And that’s when I started sharing about up cycles and things because we were stuck at home, the world.

was in a wild place and I just wanted to throw my creativity to someplace. So that’s when I started sharing on Instagram and online about upcycling. But even before I started sharing there, I’ve been an upcycler my entire life, basically. I grew up in a rural town in Pennsylvania and surrounded by country, which is absolutely beautiful. And my parents

especially my mom is basically a hippie, liberal hippie. So she even went to the original Woodstock in the 60s. So growing up with her, she did all the reusing and the upcycling, mostly a lot to save money because things were tight then, but also as a form of activism, I too, I don’t think she necessarily thought about it like that back then. But she definitely inspired me to

do what I’m doing now, creating, reusing, all of the things. My dad also inspired me as well from a young age. He loves to build things, make things by hand, especially woodwork. And it’s not so weird to like, I’m in my 40s and I’m talking still about my parents, but it’s true. The older you get, the more you realize what an impact they had on my life at such a young age. I’m like,

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (06:55.239)
So appreciative of that because it is the person who I am now today. Your parents sound super cool. They are. of all, I picture your dad as maybe being one of those guys that has like all the jars of screws like screwed into the… Yeah, he does. Screwed into the ceiling. Yeah. I aspire to be that cool. But I’m so glad that you said that about how your parents still influence how you look at the world today.

I think that’s so true of all of us and it’s such an amazing opportunity to be teaching our kids about sustainable living habits because it really is the scaffolding for what they’re going to take out into the world when they’re adults, whether it’s keeping something in use and under the landfill or how they shop or how they think about the community that they live in. So I’m so glad that you said that as someone with smaller kids. like, okay. I have a weird mom, but.

They will appreciate it later. They will trust me. I’m a prime example. I’m going to tell them that you said that because right now I’m cringe. So it sounds like you’ve always had this eye for creative reuse. It’s not something that sort of happened because you saw something cool on Pinterest one day, which is also awesome. But I love that it seems to just be a part of your daily life and it’s evolved over time.

What’s your favorite thing? Like, what do you love the most about repurposing, giving something that second life? Yeah, I really just love the creativity about it. I really, why I share online is I want to inspire people to reuse instead of buying. There’s so much junk out there with Amazon and Tmoo and all the things people are buying for like an instant gratification for buying something that makes them happy. But it’s literally just

just going to end up in the garbage or in the thrift store in a few years. So I want to show people and inspire people that you can take trash and use your creativity and make it into something. there’s so much, there’s also like a super fun aspect to know like, okay, I made this. You appreciate it so much more. And I even come from, my background is in teaching. used to be an elementary teacher.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (09:12.631)
So I think that also comes into factor of why I want to share these things. Being a teacher, I still also want to inspire people on the internet to just like I would in the classroom. So yeah. Yeah, I to teach high school. I’m right there with you. Like I still want to talk to folks about all of this, even if it looks different than it did in the classroom. It’s just, it’s a natural part of who we are and how we communicate with people. didn’t know that about you, but yeah, makes perfect sense.

I’m not currently teaching. I’m taking a little break from teaching, but yeah. So you’re in Texas now. I’m in Texas now. And if you don’t follow Amber, which you’re going to after this episode comes out, but definitely check out her highlight on visiting every single state park in Texas. That was very cool. I love that idea of exploring where you live and seeing everything from a different perspective. Like you’re looking at your state from every possible angle.

That’s exactly what you’re talking about with trash, like looking at it as a completely new thing. What else could this be? Looking at it from a different perspective? Yeah, definitely. How does living where you are now influence what you can find and access and how your creativity shows up now being in really different place from where you grew up? Yeah, that’s a really good question. So yeah, like you said, I live in Texas, specifically San Antonio.

It’s a large city. We’re actually the seventh largest city in the US, which a lot of people wouldn’t think. We’ve got almost, I think, a million and a half people living here. And then in the metro population, it’s like even double, I think, like 2.5 million. So it’s a large city. And when you think Texas, for somebody who’s maybe never been here or visited, you think, like tumbleweeds, like…

you know, red state. But there are a lot of other sustainable things here too, especially living in a large city. It’s not necessarily my forever home here. It’s not a super walkable city. We’re just like so massive with the amount of people and the land here. It’s just, it’s so big. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Texas before. No, but living here in the suburbs of Toronto, it’s just sprawl on sprawl on sprawl.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (11:34.447)
It’s all very low density, built for cars, single family dwellings. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, similar to here as well. So that was one of the main reasons why you mentioned before about busy and all the state parks of Texas. I wanted to explore more of the state and seeing how massive the state is. I you can go from one side to the other. It will take like…

15 hours. It’s just so massively large. But in San Antonio, there are some ways to be sustainable. Being in a larger city, we have massive amounts of thrift stores here. It’s wild to see. A lot of them are even like an old warehouses like a Lowe’s hardware store. And you know how big those things are. It’s just, it’s so overwhelming to go in there and see how

many items are in there. It’s awesome that people are donating their items to the thrift store, but it’s also wild to see how over consumption, how many clothes are in there. So yes, a lot of thrift stores here. We’re also getting a lot of creative reuse stores here. So a lot of some of my upcycle projects, there was one item where I wanted to do with a wine cork. And, you know, there’s only so many

bottles of wine you can go through. not a wino at all. I might have like a glass a month or something. So I was able to visit my creative reuse store and I got an entire bag of corks for a project, which was awesome. So stores like that, I think really help a creative reuse like myself. And we’re also getting a lot of more refill stores here in my town in San Antonio. So it is helping to be

bit more sustainable. I think when people think of Texas, I hope they don’t think necessarily think tumbleweeds and cowboys. There are certain cities that can lean into being having more sustainable options. So yeah, when the infrastructure is there, it’s so much easier to do the things. Exactly. Yeah. Just in case folks don’t know what is a creative reuse store? Yeah. So creative reuse store is basically

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (14:00.929)
I like to think of it as like a craft thrift store. So like I mentioned about the corks, so somebody can, somebody that does like to drink wine has maybe collected an entire box full of corks. They’ll have that there. They’ll have stickers, paper, a lot of things for teachers there as well. Cause teachers are, know, as you know, being a teacher, limited on what they can spend for their classroom. So.

There’s a lot of just like donated items in there that you can reuse, creative reuse at a very minimal price.

As a crafter, I know that we end up with stashes of things. And sometimes you really get into the crafting. I have a yarn stash, which you can pry out of my cold dead hands. But I also know that I have a lot of other random things from like, I’m going to learn how to paint or whatever. And no, I did not. And so I still have those things and they’re just shoved in a closet and I don’t know what to do with them. So I’m going to have to look into if there’s a creative reuse in my area. I don’t think that there is.

But I know that our public library does that sometimes. So that’s another great resource that folks are like, well, I don’t have a thrift store. There’s little pockets of things like that. So I’m jealous of your thrift store situation. Well, the library is awesome too. We have a lot of really nice public libraries living in a larger city and even little things like that. They even have a free seed library at my local one that I visit. I love it so much. I donate my garden seeds there and check and see what

but new seeds they’ve added. It’s really fun. My dream is to have access to your seed library, but we’ll talk about that later. Do you have any thrifting tips for newbies, like folks who maybe haven’t really gotten into thrifting yet? you have any tips of just in general, like what do you do when you get to a thrift store? How do you take it all in? Yeah, some of them can be so massive. I think going in with an idea of maybe what you want helps.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (16:09.015)
So if I’m looking for something for a certain project, like I was looking for a yellow sweatshirt to make an upcycle for a friend. So if I know I have that in mind, I’ll just look for a certain color to go. And I also personally find, I know not everybody can do this, but going on a non-busy day to a thrift store is probably your best bet, especially if you don’t like a lot of crowds going on like.

you know, 10 a.m. on a Tuesday or something where it’s not super busy, you’ll probably find more items and won’t be bombarded by all the people. So that would be probably my tip. Go in with an idea in your head of something that you’re looking for. Yeah, I keep a list on my phone actually of, I just have a thrift list right next to my grocery list in my little list app of things that I’m looking for. Like I need a black sweatshirt or I’m looking for striped button down.

that kind of thing. Cause if I’m just going in sort of willy-nilly, then I quote, don’t find anything because I’m not looking for anything. So being really intentional about what you’re looking for, think is important. I remember the yellow sweatshirt up cycle and learning to sew. Got bumped up my list when I saw you do that. Yeah. I see you do like really incredible things with textiles and household items and garden hoses.

corks and everything in between. there certain materials that you love working with? Really anything I love to work with. So many people ask me like, how do you come up with your ideas? And it’s probably just based on my everyday life. So for instance, you mentioned about the garden hoses. When we moved into this home, the previous homeowner had left about five or six broken hoses. And I was like, what do I do with this?

I was like, I’m not gonna throw it in the garbage. And I knew, okay, I can make something. So I made a cool mat that’s useful that you can wipe off your feet with and a basket to carry my garden harvest. things like that, but really just coming up with things in my everyday life. For instance, as you know, you follow me on Instagram, but I love gardening.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (18:32.375)
Recently, my tomatoes have exploded here. It’s pretty hot here in Texas. And my arms were getting completely beat up from all the brush and the vines and whatnot. So I thought, I think I’ve seen at my gardening store, they have these like cool gardening gloves that you can just like slip over your hands, take off really easily. And I thought, I can make that. I’m not going to spend 30 bucks for that.

Like opera length gardening gloves. Exactly. Yeah. So I just whipped out an old pair of long sleeves that I never use. And within five minutes I had some gardening gloves. So that’s, that served my purpose. Um, I didn’t need to go out to the store to buy it and there you go. talked about the same amount of time as putting something in your Amazon cart. Exactly. Yeah. And it got there faster. Exactly. And you came out, appreciate it more too. I’m not jealous of your tomato situation at all.

Have you ever had something like a material that you tried working with that just was not going to happen? That’s a good question.

I can’t think of anything offhand. probably have some things have maybe been a bit harder to work with. Like I know I’ve made like with some like Saran wrap type of plasticky material made like a stained glass out of it. And it was a bit harder to like smooth it out and whatnot. But I like, I tried to make it work for the, for the best part. But sometimes some materials are a bit harder to work with.

Um, it doesn’t necessarily need to look perfect every time, be Instagram worthy, you know, as long as you enjoy making it. Yeah, we do. We do this in a messy way. It doesn’t have to look good. can just, it just has to work right. Yeah. Sometimes it just needs to serve its purpose. Yeah. Okay. I love how you were saying that like, I was trying to make it work. was smoothing it out. I was doing that rather than just what’s something that I can buy that will solve this problem immediately, but working to solve the problem that you have.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (20:38.543)
and being resourceful and being inventive. And then it becomes that reward driven cycle that you mentioned earlier, like I made this. This is amazing. I’m going to protect this. I’m going to cherish this. I’m going to value the material and the time and the labor that went into it. Yes, definitely. And even I think giving gifts of some of my upcycled materials too. I think that’s like the ultimate love language for me. Like if you

If I know somebody, you know, in my real life and I’ve given an upcycle to, of course, my parents, I’ve given many of them because they’re my inspiration. But I think that a gift that you make somebody is so much more appreciated too. Like anybody can go out, put something, go buy something, put it in their Amazon cart and give it to somebody. when you make something with your own two hands and by using repurposed materials, I think it’s appreciated so much more. It’s a love language. Yeah.

Yeah, it really is in that instance, the thought that counts because it is a labor of love and that’s ultimately what the gift is. It’s like, thought of you and I made this for you and I’m thinking about the robe that you made for your mom is gorgeous, beautiful. And the fact that you made that with your own two hands makes it priceless. exactly. And I got that material from the creative reuse store too.

outcomes full circle. Have you ever had a project that just did not work that you just had to abandon? Yes, definitely. I mentioned before about this, the yellow sweatshirt for my friend. actually, I, maybe she might hear this podcast. don’t know what she’s going to know. I don’t think that, I don’t know, she listens to podcasts, but I actually have not done that yet.

I bought, I got the yellow sweatshirt, but I’m kind of stuck on, because it’s like a patchwork type of sweatshirt. And I only have one yellow sweatshirt that I found that I thrifted and she wants a specific brand. It’s the Carhartt brand. So I haven’t done that yet. I’m a bit afraid to like get in there and chop it up because if I mess it up, what happens? I don’t know. But sometimes you just need to need to get in there. So I need to.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (23:00.391)
inspire myself a bit more to finish that project, but I am afraid I might mess it up. Because you don’t want to waste it. Exactly. Right. No, I get it. I get it. My, my fail example was this was, this was partly inspired by you and partly inspired by my bird’s obsession. But, I tried to make those bird feeder glasses. Do you know what I mean? Where it’s like you put on a pair of glasses and then there’s a plate sort of that sits on your nose and then you just sit there very quietly and the chickadees all come to you in a snow white moment.

And I could not figure out, I tried to do it on my own glasses, first of all. I typically wear glasses. And so that was a mistake. I think I need to hit up the thrift store, find an old pair of sunglasses and do that instead. But I had like tin foil wrapped around it. It was cutting my face. It was falling off. Oh no. I was like, this is going to be such good content. Yeah. Sometimes we learn from.

those mistakes too though, right? That’s how we progress. Yes. This was, this was a valuable lesson for me. like, okay, so you actually need to think about this a little bit more than I’m going to do this right now and then run outside and film it. So that’s part of it, right? Is the pause and the slowing down and the reflection and the planning and is this going to work or not? So for sure. Yes. I’m not an engineer clearly.

So I think that the one of your most viral videos is the lampshade bug net situation. don’t know what you call that. Is it like a food cover? Yeah, like a food net or food cover. Yeah, either way. something that you put on top of your food while it’s outside, like on top of your potato salad at a party so that bugs don’t get in it, right? So you made it out of a lampshade. So can you tell us more about that project? Yeah, sure. that came…

That idea came up as part of my everyday life I had mentioned before. I was having a small dinner party and I thought, we want to eat outside and how could I cover the food? And that’s how the idea came up because I had saw a sturdy, crusty old lampshade in the thrift store. So that’s how that project came to factor.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (25:21.759)
And I just share my stuff online hoping that something might resonate with people. And I guess that project resonated with, I think, almost 20 million people saw that video. And I think most people liked it. And quite a few people have tagged me throughout the years that they’ve made it as well. So I guess that’s good. It’s fun to see that. Like we mentioned before.

I want to inspire people. So I guess I did inspire some people doing that project. And I did a part two to that project this year, because a lot of comments were saying they were asking how I stored it. And it’s like, just put it on my, put it wherever. But I did understand, OK, maybe some people were living a smaller space. They don’t have room to store it. So I made a collapsible version this year with a

with the same lampshade that I found quite a while ago and I had been saving it to do this like follow up with it. And it turned out so cool. I love it. I take it with me everywhere. I even just took it with me camping a few weeks ago. It folds up super small. I love a multipurpose reuse. Yes. Yes. That’s brilliant. Yes. So I love that you inspire people to make ages that exact same thing, but I know that I just walked

past lampshades in the thrift shop and it wouldn’t even occur to me to be like, what else can I make out of this? So even if it’s not necessarily the lampshade thing, it’s definitely inspiring folks to say, well, what else could this be? There are always going to be comments about like, why would you do that? Why would you just pull something out of the trash? Just buy something. So I guess part A would be like, how do you, how do you deal with those comments? And the second part would be like, what?

What do you learn from those comments? If there’s anything to be learned? Some of them are just like, yeah, they’re so delusional. But I think some of them give us an interesting window into like what blocks people might have about sustainable living in general. yeah, just like, how do you deal with them and what can you learn from them? mostly I just ignore them. won’t like in my head, I’ll say a comment because I want to be nice, you know, like, but like,

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (27:45.531)
I somebody recently on one of my videos wrote like, waste of time. And in my head I was like, yeah, like your comment. But I’m not going to type that. Just say it in my head and then I just ignore it. If it gets to the point where it’s like super rude, I’ll delete it. Like, I don’t want to, like this is a safe space for, you know, people. And I know people go in and read the comments. But that one video that hit 20 million views, yeah, I had to delete quite a few of them.

There must be some type of psychology where people see like, there’s a large view of this video. I just don’t quite understand why people go in and write whatever. Cause I personally couldn’t ever do that. So I’m going on a tangent here. I don’t know. No, not at all. You gotta just ignore it. gotta ignore stuff like that. And I guess they’re boosting engagement to a point.

That’s kind of what I think to some point like, thanks for the engagement. More views, I guess, more people to hopefully inspire, but not you. Most of them are strangely men too. I don’t know what factor or correlation that is that they want to like, they see a woman being successful and want to like push them down. It makes no sense to me at all.

Yeah, that’s interesting when that happens because I don’t know what your metrics look like, but most of my audience is women. Like 95, 96%. And I know that that’s like a larger observation and like the sustainable living and climate action movement as well. At least people who are posting it online tend to be, you know, women or women identifying folks. And it’s like, why are you so mad?

Just, you could just scroll by. don’t, yeah, again, I don’t know the psychology of it. Is it jealousy? Is it a block? Is it what? But like, do you not like saving money? Exactly. Which I think is a huge entry point for everybody into sustainable living. no matter what your stripes are, like why are we buying things and then throwing them away? Yeah, your guess is as good as mine. But yeah, I hope that, you know, with when videos do go viral, at least, you know, you do have a few people that you’re inspiring and they see that.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (30:00.915)
they see the joy and the creativity in it and think, wow, like that’s cool, I can do that. So that’s my ultimate goal. And I think like most of my videos, I hope that I’m showing that, that, hey, you can do this too. It’s easy enough. And just ignore the trolls that come along. The joy part of it is something that I’ve really been focusing on a lot lately.

In an earlier episode, I talked about the climate Venn diagram. I don’t know if you know that from Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson. I think it was in All We Can Save. So it’s three circles and the three circles are, it’s like, well, how do I know? What should I do? What do I do about this problem that I care about? And of course the problem in this context is climate change. So what do I do? Well, what brings you joy? What do you genuinely love doing? What do you love spending time on? What makes you feel good?

Number two is, well, what are your skills? So your skills are, well, I can sew and I can glue and I can have a vision and I can build things and whatever it is. And then what is the work that needs doing? So it’s keeping perfectly good things out of the landfill and in use. then so where those three circles overlap, that’s the work. I love that. That’s awesome. Yeah, that makes so much sense. Because coming…

When you come from a place of joy, it makes you want to continue doing the work. And when you come from a place of like fear or guilt or shame, we’re trying to avoid a problem rather than find a solution. So I love how much you’re talking about joy and you make reuse look so fun. And I think that folks get a lot out of that and think exactly, you just want to inspire folks to make things for themselves. And you’re absolutely doing that with.

you’re showing. exactly. And I love the thought about the joy. Sometimes I need to remind myself that, especially when those meme trolls come out and comment, I need to remember, okay, why did I do this in the first place? It’s because I love doing this. I rarely make any money off of this. It’s really just a hobby. So I need to remind myself, okay, I’m doing this because it’s fun for me and I’m hoping to inspire other people as well.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (32:16.743)
So yes, I will remind myself that every time somebody comments something mean like waste of time. Right. still saw it. It’s still, it’s still percolating around there in their brain. Right. So the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. So you never know. Yeah. And so, I mean, obviously we’re on the same page here. both really think that creative reuse is part of climate action, but like, how, why do you think that is? How does that quote count as climate action?

Yeah, definitely. think it’s even like a small factor, like small things are also important too. You’re keeping something out of the trash. There’s so many different levels of that. know, like upcycling allows me to express my creativity without spending money, but also helping the earth too. And I think those small actions are super, super important.

Some people might not see that as action, but I personally do. It’s definitely a form of activism. Even as small as it may be, it’s like a ripple effect. One person might see it and then your video might have 20 million views. Well, those 20 million people, that’s all that they might also be inspired to do something simple like that and keep something out of the landfill. So I try to tend to focus on those small aspects.

of activism, ultimately they are activism. Art is activism and crafting is art and yeah, it all matters. Like actions can be big or small, but we need them all. It all matters. Correct. Yeah. I think too, something that I get out of your work and listening, listening, looking at materials differently, is just that it’s looking at materials differently. Like there’s just so much stuff.

out there that we never really need to buy anything new. Everything that we could ever need already exists, whether it’s in the form that you wanted or not. And so I think it really teaches us to value materials, whether it’s a busted old garden hose or a berry clam shell or what have you, just like this was extracted from the earth and then it was manufactured and then it was shipped. And then we’re just going to

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (34:38.217)
put it in the trash where it’s never going to break down or we’re going to quote recycle it, which takes a tremendous amount of energy. So I think that when we really sit with it for a minute and even, even if you can’t make something else out of it, I can’t make something else out of like a used soy sauce packet, for example. But you know, I think about it like, wow, what a shame that I can’t make anything from this. But when it comes in the little lidded container, now I can put seeds in that.

there you go. Right? So you think you just, start to look at everything through a different lens. And once you see that you can’t unsee it. For sure. Yeah. Everything can have a purpose. Yeah. For sure. That’s funny. I have maybe like a quick little story about when I was in middle school, I wanted this gap sweatshirt, right? It was like all the rage and I begged and begged my mom like, I want to fit in. want this gap sweatshirt.

We were tight on money and she was like, no, I’m not going to buy you this Gaps sweatshirt. Like this is something that you’re just going to like outgrow in a few years. I’m not going to waste my money for you getting this like quote unquote designer designer, but brand name. Like my mom, like we thrift shopped thrift shopped like my entire childhood. And when I was younger, I was a bit embarrassed about it. Like, Oh, I get my clothes at the thrift store. I’m like nobody ever asked, but like

I secretly felt like I was being judged by people. So I wanted that Gap sweatshirt to feel like cool, you know, ooh, it says Gap on it. So eventually she did buy it, but she made me work for it, which is a lesson I still remember to this day. I don’t remember the chores I did around the house, but she basically made me pay for the sweatshirt. So I got it and I actually still have it to this day and I still wear it. Luckily.

That was in the 90s and things were like super baggy back then. And it still fits me to this day. But I think also think that story is an important reminder to like take care of the stuff you have. Even if it’s like some fast fashion type of thing. You can buy it once, but maybe you can rethink other things to buy down the road. But if you take care of your stuff, it will last. And I still call her like every day.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (37:03.231)
when I, every time I wear that sweatshirt, like guess what I’m wearing? And she already knows like it’s the Gap sweatshirt. So yeah, take care of the stuff that you have. And shortly after she had bought me that, I really like leaned, leaned into the whole thrifting thing. But I’d never like asked for any like designer or like name brand things after that. I was like, yeah, this isn’t worth it. But that story like super resonated with me as a, as a kid that I still bring with that.

into my adult life. So that’s incredible. I, yeah, it’s the lesson. It’s the lesson behind it of like these things don’t just appear from the store. And when you work for something, when you like quote earn it, then you cherish it, you protect it, you make it last. All of that. Of course, nowadays there are so many other platforms that you can find whatever it is that you want secondhand. And I’m really grateful for that as well. Our kids.

Same, we, we’ve sort of shopped the whole time. I did that when I was in university, just for budgetary reasons, because I had $0 and zero cents. but it’s something that we’ve brought forward into raising our kids so that when they want something now, um, they’re in their teens now, which is a whole other thing. But when they were smaller and they wanted toys or whatever it was, they would say like, dad, can we look for this Lego set on Kijiji? Which is like, um, an app that we have here in Canada. It’s like Facebook marketplace kind of.

Like, can we look for this on Kijiji or can we look for this on eBay? It would never occur to them to say like, can you order this from Amazon? That’s awesome. I Because it just wasn’t an option. And this is sort of how I did like a Jedi mind trick on my husband to get him into more sustainable living is he’s like a wizard at Kijiji and at Facebook Marketplace now. Like whatever it is, he can find it. It’s actually incredible. Like I don’t have the patience.

or the skill for it, but every brick of Lego in our house is secondhand. Our son just recently had a birthday and wanted this like basketball jersey. I don’t know about sports ball, so Brad found it secondhand. And I went and picked it up off some person’s porch and the kid was thrilled with it. So there are so many more opportunities for us now to get the Gap Sweater.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (39:25.629)
But it takes longer and that’s the point. Yeah. That’s awesome that your husband knows how to do all that. That’s like a superpower, you know? That’s awesome. Yeah, I should have him on. I’m like, tell us your ways. Because I can’t go on Facebook. I can’t tolerate this. But he just found us chairs for our kitchen that we’ve had. I’ve had on my thrift list at physical stores for the last five years and just haven’t found anything. And one day he’s like, how about these? OK. Great.

And right now he’s finishing our basement and every tool like he went, he’s out picking up a cement mixer paddle right now from some person rather than just running off to Home Depot and grabbing it. Cause we don’t all need to own a drill. For sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. And it’s funny that like even that gap sweatshirt is like considered vintage now at this point. Like it’s probably like somebody will probably pay a pretty penny for it, but I’m not giving it up.

It’s going to be with me. It’s going to be like a heirloom. don’t have any kids, like my niece and nephew, like here’s your heirloom. probably made out of much better materials than that same sweatshirt would be today. And so it’ll last longer. I’m still rocking the same field bag from when I was in university in like 1998. I have my little field notes bag and I still take that with me when I do my bird monitoring 27 years later.

Love it. it was extremely well made and I bought it for that reason. It was just supposed to get me through those four years of Field Notes. I’m still out here taking Field Notes with the same clipboard and the same bag. So last things last. Yeah, take care of it. It will last. I love that. What do you think our communities would look like? Like how would our communities shift if more people started to embrace reuse and resourcefulness? Like not just in what we consume, but

and how we share materials and skills and ideas. Yeah, I think that it would be a much more personal place probably. Get to know your neighbor better. If you need an item, just go over to ask them. It would be, I think it would be a kinder world, honestly. Even my neighbors next to us were friendly and I’ll say hello, but I don’t really know them on a personal level. I would love to be able to go over and ask them.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (41:51.517)
Hey, can I borrow something or use something? But sometimes some people just don’t give off that vibe. But I would hope that that could be a future for all of us. I think it would just be a kinder place, be able to share things. You know, like the old school kind of borrow a cup of sugar type of thing. But even just having, you know, those, I’ve also thought about.

putting in front of my house, like a little seed library or free little book library. I absolutely love those types of things. Like they just bring a community together to just be more kinder, think. Yeah. think deep down, all of us really want that. we just, nobody wants to make the first move. Nobody wants to knock on the door. And I get that. I’m same. I’m, I’m an introvert. like it staying in my home, but I also.

Even if it’s just something as I see the same people out on the trails every morning when I’m doing my walk and just, hello. You know, that sometimes that’s just enough. when I don’t see someone for a little while, I worry about them. I don’t know that person’s name. I don’t know where they live in the neighborhood. then I see them again. I’m like, it’s that guy with the know? Yeah.

And recently I dropped some seedlings off. had extra tomato seedlings. And so I left them on the neighbor’s porch with a little note, cause I can see out my window, like we’re right on top of each other. can see them building raised beds. I was like, cool, be cool, be cool. And so I was just like, hi, I have these extra tomato seedlings and you can have them. And then I looked out my window and I can see that she’s planted them and put the little forks that I write.

You know, I saved my plastic cutlery and those are in the ground too, so that she knows what they are. And I’m just like, that’s amazing. We did it. So I love that. Yeah. Definitely put out a little free library. think that that’s, yeah, that would be fun. Right up your alley. You’re going to make it from something that you found in the trash. It’s going to be, it’s going to be great. All right. So speaking of gardening, we have to get into it here. Sure.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (43:57.024)
Again, my inspiration on the gardening, particularly when you were like, my tomatoes. I’m just like, all right, I’ll wait till August. It’s fine. These are Canada problems. But this vision of like a more connected and resourceful community is so powerful. And I think that gardening really taps into that same spirit, whether it were giving away seeds or you have a little food is free table out on your front lawn or what have you. Like it’s just so, it’s slow and it’s hands on and it’s really.

really roots you, I guess pun intended, like into your local environment. So I know that you’re also an avid gardener. Would you say that that’s something that you think about as part of your sustainability journey as well? Yes. definitely. Yeah. I think it’s also like a, you know, those small forms of activism, like growing your own food. Like it’s sort of like a, lack of a better word, an F you to the whole system. Like I don’t need to rely on this big box.

store to go and get my tomatoes. I’m harvesting like three pounds of tomatoes like every couple of days. Like I don’t need, you know, it’s almost a form, it is a form of self-sufficiency and it feels super rewarding to be able to do that. And I know you mentioned like, you’re jealous I’m harvesting tomatoes right now, but you’re not jealous that it’s like a hundred degrees here for like the past month already. And we’re just like preheating. So

Basically my tomatoes season is almost finished here. Texas gardening is like a whole weird thing. It’s just so darn hot here. Yeah. That’s something I would never think about is we have such a short growing season. so I don’t, yeah, like that’s part of the reason I love following so many different people from all over the world is like, you guys don’t have winter. So, okay. What does that look like? What does your growing zone look like? And how is that different? And what does abundance look like? And, you know, even

because we have such a short growing season and it can be difficult. Like it’s been cold and rainy here. We’re having the coldest spring in 50 years. And so we’re worried about that production. But when you’re actually growing it yourself and like struggling to keep it alive or pests from taking it over or whatever, I think again, it goes back to valuing the material itself as you’re like, wow, growing food is very difficult. And it takes a lot of resources and time and water and labor.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (46:24.654)
You know, and so this is something I’m always trying to teach my kids is like food doesn’t come from the grocery store. Someone has to grow that and pick that and all of that. So it helps me reframe how I thought about food waste, for example. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Even when I go to the grocery store and I’ll see like, they have these beautiful heirloom tomatoes here. And they’re like, they’re honestly so cheap at the grocery store. I get, know that they’re selling them, you know, in bulk.

Like if some people or my family always tell me like, you should sell like some of your up cycles and your food that you grow. And honestly, I never would because like you put so much time and effort into that. I would want to like charge such a high price, but I would never ever charge people a high price for that. But you know, this is the amount of time that you’re putting into that doesn’t what’s the word like, it doesn’t really like.

Okay, wait, maybe this doesn’t make sense. Like the amount of time that you’re putting into growing this food, just doesn’t make sense to like charge like so little for it, right? let’s say the store is charging like so little for it. It’s so wild. Like here in Texas, we have an awesome grocery store though. It’s called H-E-B.

They get all their produce from local Texas farmers, which I absolutely love that they’re supporting local farmers that way because you see a lot of chain grocery stores aren’t necessarily doing that. Of course, there are some things that come from overseas like bananas and things like that. But for the most part, like it is local produce. I feel better about buying those things at our HEB than compared to like whatever other larger grocery store. There might be like a Wegmans or

I don’t know what they have in Canada. Yeah, we have a grocery monopoly situation here. Canada is like three grocery chains in a trench coat. Independent stores are very rare, like few and far between, especially when you live in the suburbs. So where I live, it’s just super stores, Sobeys and think Metro is the third one, or some sort of subsidiary offshoot of those three major corporations.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (48:48.48)
our food is not cheap. it’s, doesn’t cost what it should in terms of, well, cause people aren’t being paid fairly. mean, that’s a big factor. Let’s call a spade a spade. The folks who work the fields are not being paid appropriately. the flip side of that is that at least here we’re getting price gouged. We just are. And again, we have a short growing season here in Canada that factors into it too. yeah, the

That tomato that I grow in my own garden is worth $10,000 to me. Exactly. Yes. Same here. That’s why I was like, I could never sell stuff because I would rather give it away for free. And I don’t, I don’t even know how to make sense of that. It just makes me feel better to give it away than it would to charge what it quote actually costs. So I want to give it away with love. couldn’t say. I love that. I mean, I’m a knitter too, right? So it’s like, well,

Same thing as like, why don’t you sell your knitting? I’m like, because this, this too, click this hat would cost $700 based on my skill labor. And so the more that I started making myself garments, that was my, that’s just the way that it really solidified to me that just people aren’t being paid fairly. And that is a huge piece of this puzzle. And disengaging from that is one, is one part of it, but also.

talking about it and shifting away from these models is the other part. I’m sure. Yeah. So I have a confession. Okay. Do remember I came to you for advice on growing luffas? Yes. They died because I did not listen to you. I think you told me to wait until it was like reliability, 12 degrees Celsius at night. And I was like, I’m just going to plant them. Okay. So they died.

But for folks who are listening, can you first talk about what a alufa is? Because I think that we have this idea that they’re those like plastic sponge balls in our shower and no, they are not. So can you tell me what they are and give us some tips that will grow them that I will listen to next year for sure. Okay. So a lot of people think also think lufas are grown in the sea, but they’re not. That’s a sea sponge. So alufa is like

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (51:01.098)
is a gourd actually from the gourd family and it’s basically grows like a cucumber on a vine. It’s not in the, it might actually be in the cucumber family, but it is a gourd. So it grows like a big cucumber on the vine. You need lots of space for it to grow. And basically when it dries up, the skin gets all brown. And when you peel it, the fibrous part of the luffa is actually formed. So

Yes, not like the plasticky sponge thing that you see in the grocery store, but it looks like a big cucumber all completely dried out and it’s great for exfoliating. I also make soaps with it too. It’s probably the number one most rewarding thing I’ve ever grown. And I’ve been doing it for about like three years successfully now. And I’ll probably do it for the foreseeable future. Super, super cool to grow.

It’s like a natural sponge, but not a sea sponge because the sea sponge is an animal and this is a plant. Can you use it for like washing dishes and stuff too? Yeah. Washing dishes, washing your skin, preferably two separate ones for that. But yeah, and it’s fully compostable when you’re finished with it, which is super awesome. No microplastics. Correct. And it will produce so many seeds. I have probably literally thousands of seeds.

that and that’s why I give them out for free. Just put them into all the little seed libraries. But some successful ways to grow them are they grow really well here in Texas. They like a warm temperature, but that’s necessarily completely needed. I even have a friend in Utah that grows them successfully. I want to like, I know maybe like Canada and Utah like.

winters are maybe like a bit similar. Like it’s cold, right? It’s cold. And then our summers are, so right now it’ll be 30 degrees Celsius. I don’t know. So like a hundred with a million percent humidity now until the end of September. maybe I’ll just find some more seedlings and try again. I got too excited. They love the humidity. That’s okay. You can try As I was texting you from the gardening store, I’m like, I got seedlings.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (53:20.32)
I know I was so excited to see that. But yeah, you should definitely try again because my first year when I tried them, I was also not successful. So I think like you learn from your mistakes, right? But if you’re in a colder climate, starting them indoors, if you start them from seed is probably the most important factor you can do. And then harden them off, which is probably maybe what you didn’t do. So hardening off is basically like, okay, I’m going to put the plant in a shady area for

two hours in the day, okay, then I’m going to bring it back inside. And then you’re slowly building it up. So it’s used to the wind and the cold nights and the warm days, things like that. I definitely was like, well, the frost has passed. So here we go. And, and it’s not like this is my first time gardening. I’ve been doing it for 20 years now. And I still, get, I get so excited that it’s not cold out anymore. And I put everything in the ground. And it’s interesting because what I’ve lost in the cold snap was all the members of the

the gourd family, lost my loofahs, I lost my cucumbers, I lost my sugar baby melons, and I lost my vining zucchini. So sad. Yeah. And it’s like, know better, but sometimes you just get excited, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I grew so many tomato plants this year, um, you know, our growing season is pretty early. So I started them in like January indoors and I, I think I must’ve planted like 20 tomato plants. Like what?

What was I thinking? 20 tomato plants. That’s why I’m harvesting like pounds of it every day out there because past Amber decided to do 20 tomato plants. And funny enough, I’ll probably do the same thing next year too. You just get excited, you know, in the moment thinking what could be. gardening is just, there’s no, I think, right ways to do it. You learn from your experiences. Just throw something in the dirt and you figure it out. It’s a fun learning process.

We also had a tomato overwhelm situation one year, and that’s what led my husband to going online to the secondhand, the Kichiji app and finding our tomato processing setup. So if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see I have a highlight called tomato town, which is where we can probably a hundred liter glass jars of tomato sauce every year. And that was born out of completely overdoing it with tomatoes and thinking like, well, my gosh, what are we going to do with all of these?

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (55:47.656)
He found the machine that processes them and we got a burner and a big pot and now we’re canners. And we just give that away to the neighbors. The neighbors wander into the backyard. is it time again? And, you know, Gary from up the street will come down and he leaves with an armful of tomato sauce. And then they bring the jars back to us when they’re empty. That’s our relationship with Gary. That’s pretty much it. That’s great. Yeah.

We’re forming a type of community through tomatoes. Yeah. And now I know like I can go knock on Gary’s door if I need something, you know, like it’s just, it’s, it’s just an interesting, his curiosity brought us into our yard and that’s enough. Yeah. We have enough to share if, we’re willing to do so.

Okay, so before we wrap up, I end every show with a little segment that I call one small shift. This show is all about making sustainability feel doable. And as we’ve been talking about in our conversation today, sometimes it’s just the tiniest little changes that can create the biggest ripple effects. what’s one small shift that you would suggest for folks who want to get started or go a little deeper? Just what’s one little baby step that someone could just do today, whether it’s a little upcycle or?

a habit, something like that. Yeah. I think, look in your trash, look in your trash or your recycle and see what’s maybe something that you can reuse that you were just going to throw away anyway. I think that’s one way to start. Like I mentioned about the plastic berry container earlier, like you could easily go into your recycle and see, yeah, I could start some seeds in that today and just throw some soil and some seeds in there. But

There might be something else in your trash or recycle that you could reuse too. So get creative and think what’s in there, how you can reuse it. think that’s one easy step for anybody to do. Yeah. My favorite is the toilet paper roll. What could you do with this toilet paper roll? And my favorite thing to do with toilet paper rolls is use them to wrangle all my cords. Love it. then just shove the toilet paper roll on top of it and throw it in the drawer. Like these things can be surprisingly useful.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (58:04.59)
for sure. that’s great. I it. So thank you so much for being here Amber. This has been an awesome conversation. I’m so glad that we got to talk and I learned so much from you. So I thank you so much for your time today. you for having me. Where can folks find you? I’m at Sustainably Amber on all platforms. You name it, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, have a blog, sustainablyamber.com and I’m dabbling in

potentially some YouTubes this year. Getting on the YouTube. Yeah, I’m trying to. My kids love it when I say the YouTube. So, had to get there and there. Thank you so much. I appreciate you so much and all the work that you do. Thank you, Sarah. You as well. I think that a lot of people are going to walk away from this episode feeling not just inspired, but really excited to try something new, whether it’s reusing something they already have.

poking through a curbside pile with some fresh eyes or paying just a little more attention to what else something could be. If you love this conversation, I’d love for you to stick around. I share a weekly sustainable living newsletter. You can sign up anytime at my website, sustainable in the suburbs.com or just check out the link in the show notes. You can also find me on Instagram at Sarah Robertson Barnes. And I always love hearing what’s resonating with you or what you’re reusing in your own life.

Until next time, start where you are, use what you have, and live a little greener. Thanks for tuning in to Sustainable in the Suburbs. Every small step adds up, and I’m so glad we’re doing this together. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. You can find me at sustainableinthesuburbs.com or at Sarah Robertson Barnes on all the things. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have, and live a little greener.