Eco-friendly swops
There are plenty of simple eco-friendly swops we can all do to help the environment. This year, I’ve been slowly but surely changing my regular products for a more eco-friendly version. I’m not claiming that all these options are the most environmentally friendly, but my mind-set has definitely changed. I feel this is the most important thing. I’m looking at things differently and making better choices.
7 swops for the bathroom:
- Bamboo toothbrushes – (the bristles are still plastic)
- Dentabs – chewable tablets instead of toothpaste in tubes
- TOTM sanitary products – organic cotton pads which arrive in sugar-cane derived ‘plastic’ in the post when you need them!
- Silk dental floss – from theplasticfreeshop.co.uk
- Soap, shampoo, and conditioner bars – not plastic bottles
- Make your own body scrub – raw coarse sugar and coconut oil
- Who gives a crap toilet paper, kitchen towels and tissues – these are made from recycled paper and help build toilets in the developing world.
- Using coconut oil to remove my makeup and old flannels cut into squares.
7 swops for the rest of the house:
- Using Ecover, Method or other eco-friendly products to clean the laundry/ dishes. Splosh.com do refillable household products, and provide a closed loop recycling plan for the pouches.
- Not buying food containing palm oil. Palm oil is a cheap ingredient used in so many foodstuffs. However, it is grown on deforested parts of the rainforest and threatens orangutans and many other species of wildlife.
- Choosing foodstuffs in glass/ metal/ cardboard packaging. Loose vegetables and fruits are better. Our cat food comes in tins vs plastic pouches.
- Buy less meat per week to reduce our demand for it. Cattle produce large amounts of methane, as we do! This is detrimental to the atmosphere.
- Use air-travel less. We’ve not travelled by plane this year, choosing to drive, or take the train.
- Charity shops/Ebay/ local FB groups are great for pre-loved clothes, furniture, toys etc etc. Often people are glad to be rid of something, and you get a bargain in the process! We’ve had a lot of Lego this way.
- Gifts this year are experiences or gift vouchers. Rather than buying more physical items, giving someone the gift of a memory is so much more powerful. Cinema vouchers, beauty treatments or even the gift of your time to wash their car are all great ideas. Brown paper sealed with paper tape, and personalised with paint or pens can feel very special.
We don’t need a few people to do eco-friendly living perfectly – we need everyone to do it imperfectly. Ultimately this creates the change in mind-set to change things on a big scale. Just like ‘The Blue Planet’ – plastic straw effect.
Homeopathy is an eco-friendly medicine!
Energy can’t be created or destroyed. One Arnica plant could make all the homeopathic Arnica remedies in the world for quite some time, due to the serial dilution preparation method. So what swops have you done? What swops would you like to do? Have I given you some ideas? Let me know!
