Africa and Toronto are worlds apart. What we saw, what we experienced, it changed us. Not just in the moment, not just while we were there, it changed us forever.
When we got home… we realized something else, now we had to do something about it.
Knowing is one thing. But standing up and changing your life because of what you know? That’s the hard part.
I want to share a moment that has stayed with me ever since.
We got home, slept off the jet lag, and like anyone would… we went to get groceries. We walked into Costco.
We were completely overwhelmed. The abundance. The scale of it, a warehouse overflowing with food, so much of it destined to be thrown away. And all I could think about was what we had just seen. The slivers of food people were living off of.
Families getting by on next to nothing. People who would be lucky to have a piece of bread and a tea to get them through the day. And here we were. It didn’t feel right anymore. It didn’t feel okay.
And then there was the packaging. Layers and layers of it. Wrapped around everything. The same kind of plastic I had just seen in ditches, along roadsides, and in landfills in Nairobi. We left. Quickly. For the first time ever, I had what I now know to be: an anxiety attack. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t focus and I felt helpless. Almost ashamed of what we had once been a part of. And in that moment, we knew, we had to change our consumer habits. And that it was not going to be easy.
I threw myself into research. Late nights, endless questions. What products made sense to ship? What didn’t rely on water? What was actually made with the environment in mind?
My background in TV production kicked in, ask the right questions, follow the story, get to the truth. So I did. We started small. Shampoo and conditioner bars, shave bars, toothpaste tablets, laundry detergent strips, cleaning tablets, reusable pads, facial rounds, unpaper towels and dish blocks. This was back in 2017, let me tell you these products have come a long way since then. But at the time? It felt like we were figuring it out as we went.
And slowly… it started to feel good.
I was creating change in my own home. In my own habits. I was taking back my choices. I wasn’t going to be part of a system that sends our waste somewhere else and calls it “away.” I thought, I’ve got this. But then I went back to work, and I realized… this wasn’t just about my home.
On set, there were thousands of single-use water bottles, most with one sip taken out of them, then lost in props, lighting gear… and eventually, a landfill. Five hundred years. For a sip of water. That was my breaking point.
So I did something about it. I went to production and pushed for change, refillable water jugs, pumps, and a new expectation: bring your own bottle. We created a little system. A contest. Every refill gave you a chance to win something from the food department (it was a cooking show) And you know what? It worked, people changed, they brought their own water bottles, the had conversations around the water cooler! I heard them talking about how it took so long for single-use water bottles to be banned from sets.
That was the first time I felt it. What it means to be part of something bigger movement, a shift, a collective decision to do better. And it started with something small.
I’ll leave it there for now.
Our journey continues as you well know but if there’s one thing I hope you take from this, it’s this: Every step matters. Small, medium, big, they all count. You never know where that first step might lead. Today on Earth Day, how about you take a step somewhere you haven’t before. You never know, it might just change your entire life (It certainly did ours.)