Every few years, a new article surfaces about a twenty-something marketing executive from Preston or Newtown who can fit her entire year’s worth of rubbish into a Mason jar. I wish I was her. How carefree she is, how good she looks in her 100 per cent cotton denim acquired via a clothes-swap program, how pleased she must be with herself.

In an ideal world, I’d exclusively buy seasonal produce from tanned, smiling farmers who drive their peaches and carrots into town in hybrid vehicles. I’d breeze around on my bike, silk dress blowing behind me — something from my 10-item capsule wardrobe, every piece of which is so timeless and well-constructed I’ll be wearing it into retirement. I’d drink organic vegan wine and eat cheese made of cashews. My electricity bill would be nil. Zara would collapse without my patronage.

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But if you can’t get solar panels for your tiny apartment; if clothes made with Uyghur labour are the only ones you can afford; if you only remember you’ve left your reusable straw at home after you’ve ordered your cold brew; if you simply can’t keep up with the truth behind delicately phrased greenwashing slogans and you commit faux pas after faux pas until you’re sure that you, personally, are to blame for those skinny polar bears creeping into residential Canada to scavenge for food, and it’s two in the morning and you’re putting beeswax baking paper and chewable toothpaste on AfterPay to assuage your paralysing eco-guilt — relax, and remember that it’s pointless.

Two-thirds of carbon emissions come from 90 companies. Our wallets and purposefully scaffolded inconveniences limit what action we can actually take. Years worth of our recycling efforts are being dumped into landfill because RedCycle went kaput. We can go to marches, make punny signs, heart-react to everything Greta Thunberg posts, suffer through almond milk lattes, search op shops high and low for workwear, but it doesn’t matter. Unless the CEOs of major corporations suddenly grow a conscience (haha!), without serious government intervention and aggressive environmental policy reform, my compostable coffee pods and bamboo toothbrushes do little except make me feel a bit better.

But when I’m feeling powerless, I recall the eternal wisdom of TikTok therapists and I look for things I can control. I’ll scrub the ancient milk out of my KeepCup, I’ll rinse out my yoghurt cups before putting them in the recycling … but you can pry my protein bars out of my cold, dead (probably remarkably well-preserved, thanks to the mummifying effect of my polyester wardrobe) hands. Permit me this one joy.

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