Your next steps with(out) plastic

Have you been thinking about how to reduce your plastic consumption for a while now, but aren’t sure where to go from here? Me too.

I am daunted by the prospect of reducing the plastics in my grocery bag, or when I think about the hours of shopping that might be involved in sourcing wholesale stock or cooking replacement food items instead.

Great news – I have done the hard work for you.

What’s more, I already have a reusable water-bottle and use keep cups for coffee (although I’m prone to losing them–you too?–which means the environmental benefit is questionable), reusable shopping bags and a bamboo toothbrush. But these are the easiest things to replace, so where to from here?

The great news is that I have already done the hard work for you. I have already shopped around. I’ve chosen some of the best value items available. I provide the costs of each and links to online stores where you can buy them. Together, these purchases represent a substantial shift in plastic consumption for less than $200.

Your choices might look different, depending on how your life operates, but these are the five frontiers I’ve chosen to further reduce plastic use in my world. I hope my journey can help yours.

❤

Reusable produce bags

This is a set of 6 cotton mesh bags, including three different sizes.

Lots of other size combinations and sets are available from sites like Biome and Flaura & Fauna, but this pack is easily among the cheapest options and the range of sizes means no decisions needed on purchase!

$17.95 AUD

Clothes pegs

Loads of size and strength combinations are available for clothes pegs. Here are links to my top choices.

A pack of 36 standard size single pegs.

$29.95 AUD

A 19-peg sock and undies hanger.

$23.95 AUD

Glass tupperware

This is the most expensive buy on my list, but is a huge set of glass tupperware – 24 pieces.

Enough to serve food storage needs and transport for lunches for my four-person share house.

$91.40 AUD

Pot scrubbers and loofahs

$5.95 each

A pot scrubber.

$10.50 AUD

Dish scrubbing loofahs.

$5.95 AUD each

These loofahs last longer than traditional sponges from the supermarket and dry faster in between washes, which means no more slimy or mouldy sponges.

Soap rest

$5.95 each

Hand soap goes quickly in my house, and I’ve always thought it cleaner and more convenient to have pump dispensers of liquid soap than slippery, wet bars hanging around.

But these coconut fibre soap rests remove that issue. They catch run off and absorb moisture from the bar.

$4.95 AUD

Note: I advocate buying palm-oil free soap bars. The label might say ‘sustainable palm oil’, but there is good reason to think that message only runs as deep as the label. You can read more here.

For a better idea of why we ought to think about our use of plastic in the first place, take a look at my post Deeper Water.