Hello fellow Earthlings! We've all heard the advice about more long-term plastic substitutions, like, use a bamboo toothbrush and a reuseable water bottle and straws. But what about the consumables we buy all the time, like food and cleaning products? Here's a small list of things I buy to reduce plastic manufacturing and waste in my life. I hope it gives you some ideas! :)
This may sound odd to some, because generally speaking, fish comes packaged the same; if it's frozen it's in plastic and if it's canned it's in a can (and if it's fresh then do they give it to you in paper? I live over a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, LOL), so what's the difference? The difference is that over 75% of the plastic in the "great Pacific garbage patch" is fishing industry waste, such as nets. So in order to boycott harmful fishing practices, and support more sustainable ones (assuming you eat fish, or your family eats fish, of course vegetarianism or veganism boycotts it all!), you want to look for pole and line caught fish. In the US, I see the brands Wild Planet or Sustainable Seas, and the one I have now, Simple Truth, is actually a Kroger store brand, so I assume they are working with one of those two national brands. I don't know if there is this equivalent for all types of fish; I imagine not as a lot of commonly eaten fish are much smaller than tuna and so no company is probably out there canning and selling it in smaller quantities, but if you can, look for it. In tuna the cost will be about double that of the cheaper brands, but I think it's worth it to do less harm. I don't eat fish very often anyway, it's more of a treat for me, so it's not like I'm spending that all the time. But it's possible if you're nearer to the ocean than a Proclaimers song, you can get pole and line caught of many types of fish from local fishermen/fish markets.
Admittedly I don't buy this kind very often because while I don't eat fish very often I do eat possibly absurd amounts of yogurt and it only comes in little single serve sizes, but if you're more of an occasional yogurt eater, Oui brand yogurt comes in glass jars with an aluminum foil lid. On their website they even sell a 4-pack of lids that will fit the jars so you can reuse them if you want as little tupperware jars (tho the lids are plastic I think, I don't have any). It's possible in other places that there are more yogurt-in-glass options, as years ago I could find actual pints and quarts in glass jars in the health food store, but I don't see those any longer. And then there's always the possibility of making your own yogurt, but I haven't ventured into that realm yet. ;)
Simple as, using a bar soap that often comes in a cardboard box or paper (but even if it's wrapped in plastic, that's still less plastic than a bottle), cuts down on all those plastic bottles and pumps that come with liquid soap. Plus a bar usually lasts longer than a bottle of liquid. If you tried bar soap in the past and thought it got too mushy, get a soap dish like my wooden ones that have wide open slats so that it isn't sitting in wet underneath it; that's what causes the mushyness. If it's allowed to dry out, it doesn't turn to soup. ;)
Bonus points, honey that comes in jars is often local. That farm listed on my jar is the town where our state's renaissance faire is located. Most national brands (assuming it's real honey at all, which it often isn't ) are from far away. Here, most of the stuff on the shelves of the large grocery stores is from California (also about a Proclaimers' song away from where I live, ha ha).
Of course there are reuseable sanitary products, and I do use those too, but not 100% of the time (and let's face it, some people wouldn't use them ever even if given them for free, because they get squicked out by the idea). Disposable ones are generally going to have some plastic in them, but you can at least find ones that are not packaged in absurd amounts of extra plastic. These liners that I have are not individually wrapped and come in a cardboard box. "But Phoenix," I hear you say, "then I would have to use toilet paper to wrap them in before putting in the trash if they didn't have wrappers" and I beg to differ. ;) I put any odd little packaging that would otherwise have to go in the trash anyway, in the bathroom to reuse for that purpose. Wrappers for foods like crackers, pop tarts, candy? Receipts from the store (because you know those heat-printed recipts aren't recyclable (and often coated in toxic chemicals, right?)? Perfect little wrappers for such things, so they get another use before going in the trash and I've not consumed even more plastic wrapping in the first place. I'm a person that tries to avoid packaging and I don't shop often so it's not like I'm drowning in receipts, and it's still always enough to take care of it.
Of course there is generally a little plastic window, but it's still so much less than a whole bag of plastic. I find it kind of odd that both the highest- and lowest-priced pasta is usually in plastic bags almost exclusively, and the boxed kinds live in the middle.
Yeah that's the end of a loaf in my fridge, lol, I need to make more. But a surefire way to avoid all those plastic bread bags is to bake your own. You can usually get flour in paper bags (or even cloth, there is a brand at Kroger that does that still!), sugar in paper bags, baking soda in cardboard boxes, salt in cardboard cartons, etc. And those bulk baking goods in their packaging, no matter what it is, will make a lot more loaves than each loaf individually wrapped in plastic.
If you have a dishwasher, you can still get powder soap for them in a cardboard box pretty easily at most stores (tip: they're usually hiding it on the bottom shelf because they want you to buy the more expensive, more wasteful liquids in plastic bottles, but it's there). And for spray cleaners like my multipurpose cleaner (which I wrote a review for a while back), you can get it from Blueland where they send you tablets in industrial-compostable (not backyard compost) wrappers and you just refill your bottle with warm water and a tablet (I think Grove products are somewhat similar in that they give you little jars of concentrate that you mix with water? But I haven't tried those, I just noticed them in Target).
Laundry soap that is powder in a cardboard box, which used to be the norm, has become exceptionally difficult to find anymore. When I couldn't find it in stores, I started ordering it from Amazon, and then even they got rid of the one kind that was decently priced and now only offer a couple of absurdly priced ones. I did another search recently and it appears Whole Foods still sells a powdered, scent-free option in a cardboard box? So I will try looking for that next time. I don't normally shop there but I'd make the trip for the rare occasion I need more detergent. I've had to use a couple of plastic bottles of liquid and it irks me that stores just won't even give me the option anymore. And don't get me started on those pods that have each individual dose wrapped in plastic!
So there are some ideas of alternatives you might want to try to reduce your plastic consumption and waste in the world. Do you have some other suggestions? Please let me know in the comments! :)
