Common Sense Tips For Plastic-Free Living
At Honest Cleaning and Services, we spend time preparing our cleaning solutions, sourcing vegan products to use, and devising Team protocols so that our client’s homes are fresh and plastic-free when we leave.
In the goal of creating a zero-waste household, the toughest stage for our clients is going to be the reduction and elimination of plastic waste. In our consumer culture and buying convenience, many are not familiar with bar shampoo and conditioner, plastic-free laundry soap, and zero-waste dispensaries.
We encourage everyone to begin their transition to removing plastic from your grocery and shopping lists, and although it will be extra work, to create a better life for our children and be part of the solution of healing the planet, feels amazing!
Plastic Free Grocery Shopping
Traditional shopping guarantees that you come home with lots of plastic. Our whole shopping system is set-up this way, and if you show up ready to fight against plastic, your experience at the grocer will be easy and very soon, it will become second nature.
Take with you reusable bags – recycled totes, drawstring cotton and/or mesh bags, and if you are visiting a zero-waste store, have your glass jars (various sizes), food storage containers, and round metal canisters ready for filling.
Look for your closest bulk store or grocer with a good-sized bulk section for everything you can imagine being available. The usual selection should include pasta, dried beans, nuts, seeds, baking supplies, dried fruit, spices, granola and cereal, nut butters, coconut oil, rice, pulses, legumes, and even candy plastic-free.
Get loaves of bread and bagels at a local bakery into a cloth drawstring bag. When you return home, transfer them to an air-tight container for storing.
If your life is too hectic now to enjoy grocery shopping, sign up for a food box service to get plastic-free vegetables and other kitchen items delivered to your door in a reusable bin.
Bathroom Products
The next source of plastic waste to be concerned about is the bathroom. Self-care and personal hygiene habits can be hard to adjust, but they bring significant health advantages. Many of the products found in our bathrooms contain unsafe chemicals linked to health issues like cancer, hormone disruption, and some respiratory problems.
With all increasing handwashing exponentially, it is advisable to buy unpackaged natural bar soap. From Whole Foods to your local health store, ‘naked’ soap is easily found. All scent-free natural soap is not specific for hands and is useable on your whole body and can replace body wash in the shower.
Solid shampoo and conditioning bars are new to the marketplace, are quite pricy, but they last much longer than a bottle of shampoo and are plastic-free.
Moisturizers can be sourced at retailers like Lush and Body Shop, or opt for fair-trade coconut oil for make-up removing, chapped skin, and after shaving.
