Now it gets hard
Somehow in our house plastic free July has focused on the kitchen. Moving into the bathroom and laundry it suddenly became quite hard, and to be honest a little bit daunting to contemplate 'plastic free'.
We tend to buy a lot of our bathroom and laundry products in bulk so this July we haven't had to confront replacing any consumables in either of these rooms. But what happens when we run out of laundry soap? Shampoo and toothpaste? Not to mention dental floss, make-up and deodorant. We did a quick audit and almost all of our cleaning, laundry and hygiene products come in plastic containers. A notable exception is our laundry powder. It comes in a recycled cardboard box, with no other packaging and no plastic scoop in each box. We also use facecloths, and we've ditched disposable make-up wipes and cotton balls, in favour of reusable fabric options.
We know that if you look online you can easily find recipes for several products that can be made at home and replace the one you buy. But we're yet to test them and to be honest not sure if we have the inclination for many of them. Also while we are fans of myplasticfreelife.com there are some quite pedantic blogs when in comes to personal care for example "Searching for a Plastic-Free, Zero-Waste Dental Floss". We're just not ready for this level of thought and dedication (yet).
We tend to buy a lot of our bathroom and laundry products in bulk so this July we haven't had to confront replacing any consumables in either of these rooms. But what happens when we run out of laundry soap? Shampoo and toothpaste? Not to mention dental floss, make-up and deodorant. We did a quick audit and almost all of our cleaning, laundry and hygiene products come in plastic containers. A notable exception is our laundry powder. It comes in a recycled cardboard box, with no other packaging and no plastic scoop in each box. We also use facecloths, and we've ditched disposable make-up wipes and cotton balls, in favour of reusable fabric options.
We know that if you look online you can easily find recipes for several products that can be made at home and replace the one you buy. But we're yet to test them and to be honest not sure if we have the inclination for many of them. Also while we are fans of myplasticfreelife.com there are some quite pedantic blogs when in comes to personal care for example "Searching for a Plastic-Free, Zero-Waste Dental Floss". We're just not ready for this level of thought and dedication (yet).
Some of our family's suggestions and ideas we'd love to share:
- Revisit the hierarchy of refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle.
- Refuse: do you really need every single one of your cleaning and personal care products? Could you buy one produce to replace two or three different products?
- Reduce: could you buy in bulk - and reduce the packaging, or change brands to a similar produce with less packing. Alternatively could you use less of a particular product?
- Reuse: reuse some of the containers - if you choose to make your own
- Recycle: Put a recycling bin in your bathroom and laundry, seriously this simple action has made a big difference in our house. There was a real temptation to place empty containers in the rubbish bin that sits in the bathroom - rather than walk to the kitchen recycling bin!
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