Outside my Purchasing Boundary
The idea occurred to me on a Sunday evening, standing above an offal pit.
It was my first time trying to live on a lifestyle block, managing land and gardening. I had never handled sheep before. Thankfully, they take care of themselves, mostly. When I took over managing the property, all seven sheep were pregnant. All of them gave birth to twins. One of the mothers became sick, and before I knew it, a twin had died. A few days later, I found the other one still in the grass. That night, the ewe laid down to rest. I woke Sunday morning to a 80 kilo body to tend to.
Her babies were still quite small, so small graves were easy to make. The mother weighed more than I did. The body sagged into the earth, impossible to budge without straining my back.
I rang my landlord, Dave, praying that he may want the meat for dog food. He declined, worried whatever cause the sheep to pass would make his dog ill. Luckily, he pitied me, and agreed to help move the body.
Grabbing onto the legs we lugged the sheep across the pasture, taking breaks every few yards. Finally we reached a covered cement hole that’s bottom opened up into the earth. This is an offal pit, a place to put dead offerings.
At this point, Dave dusted off his hands, declared I could do the rest, and left. He had other things to do on a Sunday afternoon.
Alone, I perched myself on the offal pit’s edge, looked down at the square cement hole and realized that the sheep is simply not going to fit. Not whole at least.
Gloves on, kitchen knife in hand, I cut the skin on her belly, slicing from pelvic bone to below the sternum, silently thanking my father for taking me hunting. I spilled her guts into the hole, and proceeded to wedge her body in after.
It was at that point, I thought, “There must to be an easier way than this.”
My motivation to live on a life style block was to become self reliant, to be able to live off what I could grow myself. I thought it would save me money, give me control over the quality of food I ate, and make me feel like I was doing my part to combat climate change. My evenings and weekends were now consumed attempting to manage acres of land. I didn’t realize how much knowledge that was lost when my family, generations ago, moved off the farm and into a townhouse, nor how much time and energy that lifestyle required. To put it simply, I was dumb and lazy.
Instead of picking up a book or accepting the work, I came up with the 30 kilometer rule. If I could source what I ate within a 30 kilometer radius of where I lived, develop a purchasing boundary, I would be supporting my community, eating healthier, and minimizing my carbon footprint.
Now every Saturday morning, I wake early to go shop at the local farmer’s market. I find the usual fruit, vegetables, and garden plants, as you would expect from the market, but my grocery list is more expansive that that. At my local market, I am pleasantly surprised to find beef, bacon, cheese, yogurt, honey, flowers, macadamia nuts, cinnamon roles and coffee. Now, the majority of my groceries come from the market.
I was proud of myself for this effort, quite smug really.
Then my work friend called me out for eating a can of peaches grown in Australia.
I had been called out. I still bought the odd thing from the grocery store - pasta, beans, and canned peaches. Anything from the grocery store, I bought blindly, never glancing to see where it was made. I was hungry, it was there, I bought it. Simple and straight foward, there was no thought process in my actions. I would be blowing smoke up my ass to say I accomplished my 30 kilometer mission.
The canned peaches made me realize a couple things:
1) There are some exceptions to the 30 kilometer rule.
2) What else am I overlooking in my life that I can apply this to?
I started looking at all my purhcases. Where was my ice cream made? My toothpaste? My dish soap? My clothes? My tampons?
What about my shampoo and lotion? Who understands the back of those bottles? I used to glance at the labels and trust that companies must have regulations that ensure a healthy product. Yet, many conditioners contain plastic that coats your hair to make it softer. A study from the Plastic Soup Foundation found that 9 out of 10 cosmetic products contain microplastics (1). How many years have I been coating myself, showering with a bottle of polyethene, letting plastic soak into my pours? I felt filthy.
My solution - make my own. I enrolled into community education classes and learned how to make my own soap and lotion. Every batch is still an experiment, but it’s always easier than I expected. After diligently following my recipe and 3 hours of work later, I have nearly a year’s supply of soap. It’s more gentle on my skin, made with simple ingredients that I can pronounce, and free of plastic. Now whenever I shower, I’m proud of the work put into my soap.
Making toiletries and shopping local are the ways I’ve changed my consumption, but what about what’s left over - my waste. How far does that go? From my curbside, my waste travels 8 kilometers to my local landfill, and will stay there until it fully breaks down, months, years, or centuries from now, depending on the material. My recycling has a longer journey. After being sorted, cleaned, and compressed locally, each material has an individual journey. My cardboard and glass is carted nearly 200 kilometers to be processed. My plastic travels nearly 700 kilometers to be melted down, if not shipped internationally (2).
An unmentioned player in the my purchasing boundary is money. How far does my dollar go? Does it go back to a billionaire somewhere in Asia, or someone in my community? What work am I supporting with my purchase? Businesses owned by someone in the community are three times more likely to keep the money local (3), compared to big corporations, like Woolworths or Kmart who see money drained out of our community, out of our region, out of our country.
This 30 kilometer challenge for myself initially had environmental motives, and while it certainly still does, it made me realize that what I purchase has power. Every purchase I make is a choice of how I spend my resources. My decisions, where I shop, what I spend money on, what I spend time and energy on, is the most powerful action I can take to influence the market. The consumer has power; the supplier follows the demand. If communities started demanding that we resourced locally, suppliers would lean into that. We would see an uprising of local suppliers, and build a thriving community beneath our feet.
I’ll be the first to admit that I do not follow the 30 kilomenter rule strictly, it’s pretty damn impossible to. I still love the ease and connivence of a can of peaches from Hawke’s bay (I switched from Austailia), but it’s made me think about the impact of my actions, my investments, my waste, and my power.
What would living within 30 kilometers of yourself look like?
The Independent. (2022, April 7). Microplastics found in nearly all cosmetic products from leading brands, report finds. Retrieved March 18, 2025, from https://www.the-independent.com/climate-change/sustainable-living/microplastics-cosmetic-products-b2052841.html
Plastics New Zealand. (n.d.). Service suppliers – Members directory. Retrieved March 18, 2025, from https://www.plastics.org.nz/doing-business-in-nz/members-directory/service-suppliers
Urban Institute. (n.d.). Local and solidarity economies are helping some regions balance economic competitiveness. Urban Wire. Retrieved March 18, 2025, from https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/local-and-solidarity-economies-are-helping-some-regions-balance-economic-competitiveness
