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.
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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