More Ways to Reduce Plastic

Believe it or not, we are in the last four months of 2015 and my resolution to reduce my plastic usage is still going strong.  Well, stronger than if it had been another diet resolution, anyway. There have been a couple of times that I forgot my reusable shopping bags (whoops) and I'm still trying to find my way around the gargantuan plastic bags from Costco. However, there are some tips and even brands that I have come to use and depend upon on a daily basis. They are listed below in the three main categories of my life: Cleaning, Food and Beauty. (For how to reduce plastic in the kitchen with kids, read here.)


Cleaning

Making your own cleaning products is of course a great way to reduce plastic bottle usage. The link here will get you started on a whole bunch of effective and easy to make cleaners. After we moved, I found that my homemade laundry and dishwasher detergent was not compatible with hard water but I was lucky enough to come across these two brands that have zero plastic in their packaging.

If You Care Automatic Dishwasher Tablets work even in my hard water. Placing a 4 oz glass filled with vinegar in the top rack before starting the dishwasher will help the dishes rinse clean as well. The box is also 100% post consumer recycled paperboard that is processed with no chlorine. The tablets are wrapped in a polyvinyl alcohol that is biodegradable. You can find it here.

Eco Nuts Organic Laundry Soap are just berries from the Sapindus Mukorossi (soap berry) tree in Asia that acts as a natural detergent. They are nut allergy safe and also act as a fabric softener. To clean clothes, just throw 4-5 soap berries into the included mini linen bag and then into the washer. They can be left in even during the rinse cycle. The same soap berries can be used up to ten times or until they start to disintegrate. They can be found here.


Food

If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you know there are quite a few recipes to make food stuffs from scratch that can be found here. In lieu of making items from scratch, you can vote with your dollars by choosing to purchase items like condiments in glass jars over their plastic counterparts. Everything from olive oil, applesauce, local honey, mustard and mayo can be bought in glass jars. If you have the option, always choose glass. (Here's why you especially don't want your food stuff being stored in plastic.)

While this lovely local popcorn is initially housed in a plastic bag, it does get transferred to a glass jar once I get it home. By buying this popcorn local, I am assured that it hasn't been sitting on a store shelf in plastic for months at a time and that it wasn't wrapped in yards of plastic on a crate going across the country. It also cuts back on the individual plastic wrapping of microwave popcorn as well.

I realize that I blog about Yogi Tea. All. The. Time. But, oh, it is sooo good. Not to mention that the entire package and its contents are either recyclable or compostable. Like I mentioned in another post, the insides of the box also make unique and pretty names tags for gifts.


Personal Care

Just like the cleaners and food recipes above, these DIY beauty recipes will have you kicking the plastic bottle habit and looking fabulous!

Ladies, when that time of the month comes, not only do we have to deal with lovely mood swings, cramps and hormonal breakouts but we also leave the garbage dumps filled with plastic wrappers, inserts and other accouterments of that fun week. A few years ago, I switched to a Diva Cup and haven't looked back. The Diva Cup is a silicone cup that is inserted just like a tampon but only has to be changed twice a day no matter what your flow is at the time. There was a learning curve the first month but now I can never go back to tampons... and those organic tampons were expensive anyway. The Diva Cup costs $30 but it has more than paid for itself in the three years that I have had it. You can find it here.

Natracare is a natural line of women sanitary products that are organic, chlorine, fragrance and plastic-free (even the packaging). Even the paper strip on the back of the pads can be recycled or composted. You can find them here.

Even brushing teeth can produce plastic waste in the form of flossing. Countless plastic floss containers get thrown out everyday all across America. Most of them are not even recyclable. Eco-Dent packaging is recyclable and biodegradable. The floss itself is infused with essential oils to help keep the gums clean and healthy. You can find it here.

I grew up using bars of soap for hand washing and in the shower. It wasn't until about twenty years ago that liquid soap took off with all their alluring smells and plastic bottle waste. Today's bar soap can smell just as alluring as the bottled stuff without all of the plastic. My favorite is from Farmer's Market. The bar has a rich lather and rinses clean and leaves behind a yummy subtle natural fragrance. You can find them here.


Even if you don't have the time to make everything from scratch, there are many great products out there that will help lessen your eco-footprint. The power of choice is in your hands when it comes to buying products not packaged in plastic. Once you start becoming more aware of your choices, you'll find it is actually easier than you thought to reduce your plastic use.

Reducing Plastic Waste

It's the new year and possibly a new you if you've gotten on the resolutions band-wagon. I decided to forego my usual goals, that focused on body and mind, and instead go a different route- drastically reducing my plastic waste. Completely eradicating plastic would be nearly impossible, however, reducing my usage is practical in many different ways.

Why am I putting plastic on my hit-list when it can just be recycled anyway? It turns out not all plastic gets recycled as evidenced in the photo above. Also, as recycling is a business, if there is no buyer for a certain plastic number (the number in the arrowed triangle stamped on plastic) then it gets incinerated, thereby releasing a potent toxic mixture of chemicals into our air.

It is also important to know how plastic breaks down. We... well, most of us (I hope) have heard of the word biodegradable. A word that may not be so familiar is photodegradable- which is the process plastic goes through to break down into smaller molecules. These molecules, which are toxic on their own, are like a vacuum for other organic pollutants like BPA and PCB's. It takes centuries for plastic to completely decompose, which means we are literally leaving poisonous time bombs for future generations. Think about all the unnecessary one-use plastic items that get thrown out everyday: plastic cutlery, plastic cups, plastic plates, sandwich bags, etc. It takes thousands of years for them to break down! An interesting and rather sad statistic is that Americans consume more than 25% of the world's resources and produces 30% of the trash and environmental pollutants. We manage all this and still make up only 4.5% of the world's population. (Yikes.)

Two of Americans worst (and in my opinion, unnecessary) offenders are plastic bags and water bottles. One-hundred billion plastic bags are used every year in the U.S. alone and under 1% are actually recycled. World-wide water bottle consumption is at fifty billion every year, however, thirty billion of that is consumed in the U.S. The national recycle rate for plastic bottles isn't any better at only 23%. That means 38 billion water bottles end up in the landfill or ocean. Every. Stinkin'. Year. Another sad statistic: 86% of all ocean debris is plastic.

Even after this bird decomposes, the plastic remains to poison a new generation of sea life.

In the course of researching for this post I came across this little tid-bit that really put drinking out of plastic bottles into perspective: it takes three times the volume of water to manufacture one bottle of water than it does to fill it. Due to the dangerous chemicals used in plastic production (are we really still eating off of this stuff?!) the water used during manufacturing is largely unusable.

You can go into any store now and see "BPA free" on a whole range of packaging from water bottles to baby toys and even small kitchen appliances. BPA isn't the only hormone disruptor in plastic and is really just the tip of the iceberg for dangerous chemicals that can leach into our bodies. PVC and phthlates are another huge issue. Phtlates have been linked to breast cancer, reproductive toxicity and even altered genital-development in baby boys, just to name a few. Unless the product states that it is PVC and phthlate-free, along with BPA, it will contain the former two chemicals if there is plastic involved. Plastics are so ubiquitous in our society that 93% of people have detectable amounts of BPA in their urine and 8 out of 10 babies and nearly all adults have measurable amounts of phtlates in our bodies. So- I'm thinking it's time to cut back on plastic use...way, way back.

Here are some tips and/or practices to help reduce plastic in your life:

• Invest in glass straws that you can find here. We use a lot of straws in my household and this just makes sense. My kids use them, too.
• Either invest or scope out the thrift stores for Pyrex, Anchor or other glass containers to store leftovers in. An economic option are mason jars that come in all sorts of sizes.
• Drink out of stainless steel or glass water bottles. My glass water bottle with a silicone sleeve cost $25 at Whole Foods. I just saw the same thing from another company for $10 at Meijer. (Doh!)
• Check out your local thrift store for old glass jelly jars. They are the perfect size cups for little kids and we haven't had one break yet. (They cost 49 cents each.)
• Use foil instead of plastic wrap when a glass container is not feasible. (The foil is recyclable.)
• Use bar soap for washing hands and in the shower. No plastic bottles and it will save you a ton of money! I'm currently in love with this soap. Make sure to use a non-plastic soap holder.
• Use a shampoo soap bar. If you have hard water like me then this might not be for you.
• Use soap nuts for your laundry detergent. Great for the environment and economical, too! They even worked on my toddler's soiled diapers.
• Make your own cleaning supplies to drastically cut down on plastic bottles.
• Carry your reusable bags on you at all times while out shopping. I keep mine in my purse. There are all kinds of reusable totes- even ones that can fold up quite small like this one.
• Use cloth napkins to cut pack on the plastic wrap over paper napkins and their own subsequent waste issues.
• Same with using rags over paper towels.
• If having something shipped, request non-plastic packing material.
• When shopping, if there is an option, choose the item that doesn't use plastic in it's packaging, i.e. tea bags wrapped in paper over plastic.
• Really love something that is covered in plastic? Call the company and let them know- politely- that you are looking for a healthier option. 

Trust me, companies want to hear from their customers. They are in business to make money and want to hear how you would be willing to part with more of it. Use your voice to make change- it is stronger than you think!

Personally, I still have a long road a head of me when it comes to lowering my plastic usage but, like all new changes, I'm taking it one day at a time and feeling happy for accomplishments made so far. Throughout the year, I will post other ways to reduce plastic as I find new alternatives. Hopefully this is a journey we can take together!



Sources:

www.environmentalhealthnews.org

www.buzzle.com/articles/environmental-pollution-the-harmful-effects-of-plastic-bags.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-schriever/post_5218_b_3613577.html

http://www.earth911.com/living-well-being/a-sit-down-with-beth-terry-author-of-my-plastic-free-life/