Plastic bottles are driving me to distraction.
In our family of seven we get through far too many items of plastic – shampoo bottles, conditioner bottles, spray bottles, food trays – the list is endless and depressing. I cast my eyes upon the recycling basket with a sense of woe. It endlessly refills and is not empty for long after I’ve skipped it out into the recycling bin. I’ve watched the Attenborough documentaries, I’ve seen news reports about the energy required to produce plastic goods, the scientific advice around how long they take to decompose, and it paints an increasingly bleak picture. We’re suffocating the earth with our plastic habit. This is about more than just my sanity viz clutter, it is about giving our children a fighting chance.
As they say, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, so I’m starting small on my attempts to change. I know that I have the ability to do this – apart from a small slip involving a particularly pretty yellow blouse (in my defence I was having a particularly bad few weeks around my post-twins shape) – I remain committed after two years to avoiding fast fashion by being a devout recycler and sourcing second hand clothes exclusively in charity and thrift stores.
In my new campaign to improve my habits, my small start is around my biggest bugbears – the number of bottles we take into the shower and deodorant.
Shower gel is an irritant to my sensibilities. It hardly seems to last, it is too easy to use more than is necessary (usually with a considerable globule plopping straight down the drain) and we always seem to have about eight different flavours on the go at once. I decide this needs to be replaced by soap. Happily, I received a Christmas gift of a selection of Bomb Cosmetics, from an incredibly lovely friend (hence free to me!), including a Festive Ginger Soap Cake.
In considering the shampoo and conditioner conundrum, which means elimination of two plastic bottles, I considered an array of solid shampoo bars, ultimately opting for a Funky Soap Butter Bar Shampoo. Helpfully this bar includes advice on natural alternatives to conditioner and recommends using one part of apple cider vinegar to two parts of water.
Finally my plastic free solution to deodorant comes in the way of an ammonium alum crystal – from Puro Mineral bought as a set of three via Amazon. To use you moisten the crystal and rub it on the underarms.
So, with myself and the other half as willing guinea pigs, I have started my experimental war on plastic.
Report on how we go to follow…
* For note the items I have chosen have NOT been provided by the makers or any other company. Unless otherwise stated I buy the items myself so that there is no obligation to be positive about any products.
Just Real Ruby 