Real rubber ducks and other bathroom essentials



Hello

It’s been two weeks since I started my journey on escaping from plastic and I have been much encouraged by your positive response so far.

Over 100 people have joined the Facebook group, adding helpful tips and suggestions. Thank you all, especially the Bagley sisters who seem to be running a family competition.

We have been rummaging about in our bathrooms this week, seeing if we can reduce plastic one room at a time. We have done pretty well between us and I am almost 100% plastic free in my bathroom but some items and practices are to be trialed so I cannot say I have got there yet. I have listed all the alternatives on my new Bathroom page on this blog. Please take alook.

I’ve gone goggle-eyed searching for wooden toilet brushes, tracked down toothpaste in a jar and even found real rubber ducks. 

But I failed to find a zero plastic option for toilet cleaner. Tess suggested that a local wholefood shop would refill Ecover products if you took a bottle along. Optimistically I grabbed the only empty bottle I had in the house and toddled off to Norwich in anticipation. Unfortunately Health and Safety rules dictate that they will only refill into Ecover plastic bottles that have already contained that product and not my empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire. The spoil sports. I went home via Lush where the shop assistant clocked the bottle of gin in my basket but I figured explaining why I had it wasn’t going to help me much.

Undeterred I ordered a 5 litre container of Ecover toilet cleaner (you can recycle it afterwards) and decanted it. Anyone foolish enough to think I’ve left a bottle of gin in the bathroom obviously has never met me.


Plastic is a hot topic right now with items appearing in the news on a regular basis. The most encouraging was a report that ex Asda boss Andy Clarke suggested that supermarkets could stop using plastic packaging altogether. He wasn’t just suggesting one aisle but the whole shop. That’s the spirit. Full story here.

Just to remind you. I am not advocating alternatives to plastic for medical or electrical uses at this stage. Many uses of plastic in these fields are arguably essential.  We can return to this later perhaps when industry has moved on a pace and has viable alternatives.


Secondly, many of us have perfectly useful functioning hard plastic items in our homes. It would be wasteful to chuck them out and their only destination is landfill anyway at the moment, as the UK does not recycle this type of plastic. So I guess the most eco thing to do with these items when they reach the end of their useful life,is to store them in a shed or loft until recycling improves in some way. If you know different, I’d love to hear from you.

Obviously the key thing is not to buy new plastic.

Meanwhile please do view our Bathroom list. If you know of another or better supplier please do let me know and I’ll check it out. Remember to check how they send it to you if you buy online or you may end up in bubble wrap like me.

If you don’t already follow the Facebook page please do as this is where most of the discussion goes on. 

Or you can wait until I write another summary blog in a week or so.

Let’s keep talking bathrooms for another week as I am sure I have missed something out. Then we will move onto another room or category.



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