Plastic free alternatives in the bathroom So let’s face it. Plastic is everywhere. It is impossible to go through your day without plastics being a part of your life in some way. From your car to your toilet seat, most of the plastic we encounter we don’t give much thought. Plastic has made so much in our lives easier, no doubt about it, but it is becoming an ever increasing problem. I’m all about finding plastic free alternatives and right now I’m focusing on the bathroom. So let’s start with what I think is the easiest, and least expensive, plastic free change I’ve made. Remember when liquid soap wasn’t a thing? All we had was bar soap? Maybe you aren’t old enough, but for me that is all we had growing up. So my…
Not all bags are created equal. Every time we visit a store we are making an impact on the environment in a myriad of ways. Currently the most talked about way is through how we choose to take our purchases home. In my last post we talked about how inexpensive plastic is to manufacture, so it makes sense that plastic bags became so popular and widespread. Now they are facing much controversy, New York just became the second state after California to pass a statewide ban, all of Hawaii’s counties have banned plastic bags resulting in a statewide ban, hundreds of US cities have implemented bans as well. What is surprising is that when considering the manufacturing process plastic bags actually have the smallest ecological footprint. Paper bags use 4 times as much water to manufacture, cotton is also a crop that requires a lot of water as…
My wild Saturday night consisted of grocery shopping, who knew it would end up resembling a horror movie? I head to my local organic, emphasis on healthy food, supermarket. I am tackling my commitment to eating less red meat and I’m buying ground turkey and even tofu! Fruits, veggies, my choices are looking AMAZING! As I’m putting my items up on the conveyor belt I start to comment on the plastic packaging. By the time I get to the end I realize that EVERYTHING I bought came in a plastic package. Everything Now most of it is recyclable, and recycle I will, but I have a couple issues with recycling… First, contamination is a huge problem, it’s a complicated system to make sure you are putting the right products into your recycling bin. How many people do you think truly do the research…
I admit it, I have a problem. I drink a lot of soda, far too much, and fountain drinks are my weakness. I have managed to cut back, but not eliminate my soda intake. I have been very successful at avoiding polystyrene cups and by staying away from the drive through I am able to use reusable cups. Not plastic free, but I have definitely reduced my plastic use considerably! Next on my list is drinking straws. With 500 million straws being used every day in the US, I decided to join the 2018 plastic straw ban bandwagon. Plastic straws are among the top 10 plastics found in our oceans. They are a single use non recyclable plastic. We use them for only minutes and then toss them. There has been a lot of talk about straws, including how banning plastic straws is just a band aid. My thoughts? “…
“Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.” ― Sylvia A. Earle, The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One Right now, according to Smithsonian Ocean, it is estimated that there are 5.25 TRILLION plastic particles or 244,000 metric tons of plastic in the world’s oceans. That is a lot of plastic! Some of you may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? I live a thousand miles from the ocean – it isn’t my problem.” But it is, it is all of our problems. Approximately 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic are…
