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The Best Eco Friendly Alternatives to Regular Products
Our personal responsibility for our planet has never been more obvious or urgent. We can and all want to do our bit to help our planet. The best solution is for all of us to start replacing our everyday household items with eco friendly products.
Our home has taken up this challenge. We have addressed the little things we can do to change our habits and save the planet. Our view has been, that if everyone could swap, just one or two regular household products for eco friendly products it would make a huge difference.
We have explored how to swap out the little pollutants that would reduce environmental impact such using an alternative to cling film or finding eco friendly earbuds to reduce our contribution to landfill. Other little changes have been swapping our washing up liquid to an eco friendly product and using an eco friendly stain remover to reduce chemicals in our washing or household cleaning. It is our hope that this will go a long way towards reducing pollution in our oceans and waterways.
Realistically, the world will take some time to get away from plastic completely. However, we can drastically reduce single use plastics and disposables such as bottles, nespresso pods and food coverings in favour of their more eco friendly counterparts. Silicone products are a great reusable alternative to plastic and can be used over and over again.
Keep reading below a few handy household items we think are a great list of eco friendly products you can use today vs your regular products.
1. Alternatives to Cling Film
Cling film is made up of many different resins and chemicals this makes it extremely hard to recycle.
Ending up in landfill, this plastic food wrap takes years to break down. Silicone stretch lids and beeswax wraps are a versatile option for covering food and containers.
2. Reusable or Biodegradeable Ear Buds
Well in excess of 1 billion plastic stemmed earbuds are used in the UK each year. Over half are flushed down the toilet causing no end of blockages. Eventually these plastic earbuds end up in landfill, taking 100’s of years to degrade.
Biodegradable earbuds are made from organic cotton and have bamboo stems. Bamboo is a sustainable source. It is fast growing and needs no chemicals or pesticides to grow.
Bamboo has the added benefit of producing 35% more oxygen than the average tree! The reusable cotton buds are composed of washable cotton and silicon. Ideal for removing or applying make-up.
3. Eco Friendly Stain Remover and Washing Powder
Sodium percarbonate sounds like a technical product but simply uses oxygen to lift the dirt or stains from clothes. It is an effective killer of bacteria so can be used as a surface cleaner and sanitiser. Sodium percarbonate is such a good all round product, that we have written a separate post dedicated to sodium percarbonate. You can read it Here.
4. Reusable Make-up Remover Pads
Millions of disposable make-up remover pads are used each day, many of which end up flushed down the toilet or sent to landfill.
Washable makeup remover pads are a great alternative. The packs of pads are supplied with a muslin laundry bag so wont get lost in your wash. These cosmetic pads are made from organic cotton and do not contain plastic.
5. Freezer Bag Alternatives
Buying food in bulk and storing it in the freezer is cost effective and reduces food retail packaging too.
Silicon food bags are a great way to store food in the freezer or fridge without using single plastic freezer bags. These bags are thick, flexible and leak proof and can be washed in hot soapy water or popped in the dishwasher. The bags won’t stain or retain odours.
6. Portable Bidets
If you have a large family household, toilet paper can be an expensive item on the shopping list. On average, we consume 110 rolls of loo paper per head, per year in the UK. That is an awful lot of paper!
Portable bidets are battery-operated devices that have a small reservoir which you can fill with warm water. The pump then produces a soft but powerful stream of water that washes your behind! A clean fresh feel every time.
