Through July I’ve been creating more awareness around our plastic consumption and realise there are a number of things I haven’t covered because we are doing them already. Therefore they didn’t feature in my personal quest to reduce my plastic and increase my awareness of where plastic alternatives could be sourced.
There are a number of things you can do to lower your plastic consumption, particularly single use plastic. I’ve included some of the more obvious ones at the end.
1. Toilet paper, huh its paper, but it comes wrapped in plastic. For the double win, Who Gives A Crap paper is entirely recycled and comes in paper and cardboard. You can order online or check out their stockists. We buy in bulk from Bennett’s Office Supplies in Katoomba because we already travel there regularly.
2. Paper towels are another paper wrapped in plastic. There is literally one job in my house where only paper towel will do - cleaning the cat litter tray and we just use toilet paper instead. Everything else is cleaned with a sponge or old rag (aka cut up old clothes).
3. Laundry soap - we went Earth Choice for a while but our local shops stopped stocking the largest size. Recently we’ve switched to soap berries (soap nuts), vinegar, essential oils and sometimes a scoop of napisan for the really grubby loads. There’s a bit more effort in boiling the kettle to make soap water but way less plastic and less water pollution too. They have heaps of uses too
4. Shampoo, soap and hair conditioners all in bars either from Lush who’ve been doing it for years and always have lovely staff if you have questions or from a local soap maker.
5. Tea being English I like a good cuppa. We used big brand tea bags for a long time but in emptying the worm farm the bags and the avocado waste were still in tact months later! We switched to loose leaf tea from Nerada in a cardboard box and just brew in a pot with an inbuilt stainer or use individual tea brewers.
6. A soda stream machine has recently been added to the household. Switching to soda helped me drink less wine so I chalk this up to health more than the plastic deduction of soda bottles.
7. Bin bags/liners - we started with getting a worm farm but found we still had ‘wet’ waste in the rubbish bin. So we bought a container just for wet waste that was a counter top washable and went straight from kitchen to the kerbside bin. Now the rubbish bin just had dry waste there was no need for a bin liner. That wet waste now goes into a bokashi bucket but it worked for ages.
8. Rice comes in calico bags. Admittedly this wasn’t intentionally making our rice plastic free. We were training for the Overland Track and needed to practice carrying heavy backpacks so we bought some 5kg bags of rice on special. Now the training is over we just transfer from the big bag into a container when needed.
9. Cotton buds from Woolworths are made from sugar cane. There are also the reusable cotton buds that you wash, made from...plastic.
10. Deodorant is surprisingly easy to make yourself. Apple cider vinegar, vodka and essential oils. Pop into a plastic spray bottle and you’re sorted. You could also try a deodorant crystal which last AGES. I like to double up on seriously hot days.
The obvious reusable cups, stainless water bottles, BYO cutlery, refusing plastic bags, buying soft drinks in cans rather than bottles, shopping at a farmers' market or local grocer and don’t use fresh produce plastic bags (you don’t NEED a non-plastic version, use paper bags for small things or just go without, who cares there are four loose potatoes in your trolley!)
It’s funny that many of these plastic free solutions actually utilise plastic. Plastic bottles, containers, bulk vinegar in plastic, glass bottles with plastic lids. Going 100% plastic FREE would make things so much more inaccessible so I’ll settle for less plastic, less single use plastic, less soft plastic, more made from scratch, more uses, more refusing refuse. And continue to seek alternatives even when my initial thoughts are that it would be almost impossible.
Soap berries from trees in the Lychee family
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