Reducing Single Use Plastic
One of the most impactful “behind the scenes” changes we’ve made in our home this year as a result of no-shop has been our perspective on single-use practice. I’d say sustainable clothing is one of the areas of no shop that got a bit neglected as time went on as I’ve been so focused on editing, editing, editing and not as conscious about what I’ve said yes to in terms of clothing partnerships (not all were sustainable brands) . That said, a good majority of anything I HAVE bought has been second hand (Poshmark) and I tend to focus on sustainable clothing a lot more next year when I’m “shopping” (more on that later) again. Anyway, the more I realized how must waste we were creating in terms of wardrobe, the more I started to notice it in other places. We (we = C) take out the trash what feels like three times a day, and once Nell started school again and we were packing her lunch every day it only got worse! Our progression here has not been as immediate as the “purge” nature of paring down my wardrobe, but it’s been a very deliberate, consistent shift. I realized the other day that we’ve come a LONG way in just 10 months and I thought I’d share some of our changes.
Kitchen/lunches:
Straws - we are a BIG straw household. We use them all the time and so does Nell! We now exclusively use silicone and stainless steel straws. Someone told me this awful story about a lady in the UK who died when she tripped and her steel straw punctured her brain or something sooo I’d say we’ve been using the silicone more than the steel lately; but I think it’s nice to have both (especially steel for things that leave a taste “stain” like coffee)! We made a place for them in our silverware tray and it’s become second nature for us to use them. We have collected most of our from HomeGoods and a local cooking shop but they are widely available on Amazon. We also have extra-wide ones for smoothies. I took a handful of silicone ones and cut them down to fit Nell’s cups and margarita classes (important).
Water bottles - This sounds totally backward but I finally took the plunge and cleaned out our WAY overstuffed YETI/water bottle cabinet (when C was out of town…he’s emotionally addicted to his YETI’s). I got rid of old lids, bottles with missing lids, tossed any bottles or cups that weren’t marked BPA free, recycled what I could and then sold half of the good stuff that was left as a bulk lot on Facebook Marketplace. Why I am sharing this? Because now that we have less, we actually use the ones we have! I think half the reason I’d reach for a seltzer or a bottle of water was because I didn’t feel like digging through the mess to find a bottle or cup with a lid! I’d say our bottled water intake is down 100% at home (we don’t buy any) and over 90% overall. Plus, I read in Business Week last month that bottled water has 22 times more microplastic particles than tap water (looks like that article was syndicated from this one). Yikes.
This water bottle (pictured above) is my favorite because it’s glass but lightweight, and it fits in a standard cup holder (and the Vista stroller cup holder). My runner up is the liter-sized Bkr… it’s super heavy (hence why it’s in second place) but I like it’s a liter. I can easily meet my goal of drinking three of these a day and it’s easy to keep track. I keep this one at work so that I don’t have to lug it around anywhere and because…well, work is where I spend most of my water-drinking hours ha.
Lunch bags - I couldn’t believe how many plastic bags I used the first few times I packed Nell’s lunch. In her new classroom, her lunch has to be in a lunchbox with an ice pack (not in the fridge like the infant room), so I simply couldn’t fit AND keep cold the 8 containers I’d have to use for a full lunch. Within the first week of school I ordered reusable sandwich and snack bags and we haven’t looked back. We have these, which I don’t really recommend as they never really feel “clean” and I don’t like that you can’t see what’s in them (which has lead to some gross discoveries after they’ve floated around a single full of dishes for a few hours!) but I like that Nell can open the velcro closure. We like these the best so far but I’ve also heard great things about Stasher. I just ordered a few of their snacks bags and already like that they look easier to wash and dry! Since our swap in September I’ve only had to use plastic bags twice for Nell - both times when we forgot her backpack somewhere and didn’t realize until the morning. I plan to just keep the few bags we have and not over invest… I find again that the less you have, the better you are about washing and reusing regularly. Excess seems to make me lazy, and when I wait and have eight bags to wash vs. two from her lunch that day, I’m much more likely to want to reach for plastic.
We are obviously big W&P Design fans so we also picked up this lunch set for ourselves (pictured above) when Bespoke Post offered to send us a few things to support our reusability efforts. Plastic utensils in general have become a big pet peeve of mine (blows my mind how often we used to buy them, all in the name of… laziness) so I am excited to have this utensil set to tote around with me and bring to work. C likes the plastic but I’m hoping to grab the ceramic option as I don’t love the idea of microwaving plastic.
Sponges - Both C and I get pretty grossed out by dirty sponges and to change ours pretty frequently. I realized that our sponges looked eerily like dyed plastic and found out that I was right after some internet sleuthing (this is an old article but nonetheless a good one). Thinking of all our sponges floating around our oceans made me anxious to find a better solution. Thankfully I stumbled upon these natural sponges derived from vegetable cellulose at Trader Joe’s and they. are. AWESOME! Shame on me for not finding them sooner for a few reasons: 1) they come flat-packed and you put them in water to make them “grow” just like those little animals you’d get as a kid. These are just as fun. 2) It looks like they are sliced from a “log” or something, so the holes run through the sponge vs. all around on a traditional sponge. For some reason this keeps the sponge from getting nasty SO much better. 3) They are extra fun to hold! I have no idea why. Extra squishy and less gross? 4) They are cheap! Ours came in a pack of 12 and we JUST “inflated” our second after I lost the first to the garbage disposal.
Dish soap: - I wish someone would open a “refill store” when they’d buy all-natural products in bulk and you could just bring your empty containers to refill as needed. We go through sooo much plastic packaging between hand soap, dish soap, body wash… but we’ve cut down a lot! I saved a nice heavy glass-pump hand soap container from Home Goods and have just been refilling it with Puracy dishsoap as needed. It looks pretty on the counter, too! I finally saw Target now carries “bags” of clean dishsoap so I will be getting those from now on and just refilling it as needed. We are still finishing up hand soap in several bathrooms and the kitchen, but once they are gone I will swap to glass bottles and make my own foaming soap moving forward. ((update: I just saw that Follain offers a refillable “everything soap
!” in a pretty glass bottle in multiple sizes. Definitely plan to try this next)).
Cleaning products - I have to come clean (no pun intended), I’m a ride or die Thieves fan. I bought a bottle of the concentrate back in the spring and it’s not even halfway gone. I just fill an amber spray bottle with water and a capful of the stuff and it literally cleans EVERYTHING (glass, counters, etc). I still have my guilty pleasure (Clorox) on standby for things like chicken goo and raw egg but swapping to a “clean” cleaner definitely made me realize that the opportunities that require the heavy duty stuff are few and far between. I don’t love that you have to order + ship Thieves but so far it’s only been once per year and I haven’t found anything comparable mainstream. I’ve been targeted by 1000000 other clean home product brands on instagram but honestly it’s so overwhelming that I haven’t tried any yet. I also have plenty of Thieves left so there really hasn’t been a need to, but when I run out I may ask you all if you’ve tried any other brands!
Laundry - Nothing crazy here but we’re holding steady with buying the largest size of my favorite Biokleen detergent possible. It’s seriously the best, we started using it when we had Nell and we’ve never looked back. It’s also hyper-concentrated so that one big jug lasts us for months., although I am just now seeing you can buy it packaged entirely in recycled cardboard! We will order that next. We also buy Oxyclean in a big box at Costco instead of the smaller plastic tub at Target.
Bathroom/Personal Care: The biggest swap here has been totally ditching disposable razors and body wash. It may sound crazy but I realized there are a million great bar soaps which has eliminated both the plastic bottle and the plastic loofah I used to run through a few times a year. In terms of razors I just bought a men’s Harry’s razor and use cartridges just like C, easy. I have also been testing natural deodorant (I looove Schmidt’s Charcoal and Magnesium) but realized that STILL means yet another limited-use plastic container. I just ordered the Eucalyptus deodorant from Humankind; they ship you a single plastic container and you just get refills when you need them. I will keep you posted but I hope I like it!
I’m not a huge makeup user, my biggest offense is mascara in a plastic tube but I haven’t seen any alternatives. I’ve really cut back on what I use on my skin but most of my favorites are packaged in glass. The one thing I’ve totally nixed is SAMPLES. I really hadn’t thought about how horrible sampling in beauty must be for the environment but if you think of even ONE gift bag from Blue Mercury, that is 10+ plastic containers that will literally never decompose. Rather than try to solve for this I simply realized I just don’t need a ton of crap for my face and trust clean beauty gurus like Betul and Jess to make recommendations for the things I do need.
Supplements: my god I had NO idea how much plastic I wasted a month until I went on a Whole Foods run to replace a full month’s worth of supplements at once. SIX plastic bottles that only last me for 30 days. By far the most important supplement to keep my inflammation in check is my probiotic so I was PUMPED to find out about Seed! If you haven’t heard about them yet, their product does not need to be refrigerated, supposedly is proven to make it’s way all the way to your gut, AND it ships once in a glass container (protected by cardboard made from mushrooms - seriously!) and then they send you your monthly refill in a paper envelope. The packing material is made of corn and you actually dissolve it right in your sink. Insane. You can read more about their approach to sustainability here. I haven’t worked with Seed nor do they know who I am, I just really love what they are doing and I hope more companies take on this approach. In the meantime I’ve considered a few options like Binto and Ritual that have modernized the “multivitamin” and would definitely cut down on packaging but most of what I take is more naturopathic (tumeric, CoQ10) and isn’t found in these brands. I’m going to try Ritual next month anyway and see how I do.
How we can still improve: We’ve come a long way but we also have a ways to go. Nell is officially addicted to anything in a pouch and seeing all of those little caps in our trash makes me cringe. Last month I started buying yogurt in bulk to at least cut down on pouches at home and I’m hoping to start sending it to school that way as well if I can get ahead of prep. I am also a total victim of the Starbucks mobile order when I’m in a hurry and unfortunately can’t use a reusable cup when I do that. I am positive there are a million other things we can/should/will do better in the future but for now we’re making small changes as we find them.
I would love any/all suggestions or tips you may have from your own journey as well!
