It’s easy to overlook the amount of waste a single household can generate simply by running through day-to-day operations. From food products to cosmetics, the amount of overpackaged and disposable items that eventually end up in a landfill is a bit stunning when you really stop and think about it.
The reality is that most folks are working or running kids to and fro and just generally trying to navigate life, and sometimes making compromises is part of that survival mode. I certainly won’t judge you for using paper plates because you’ve got kids and multiple jobs to juggle, and sometimes a thing like not having to deal with dishes can quite literally save your mental health.
I’m hardly living a sustainable life myself. But I have found a few ways to lessen some of the damage — a kind of pragmatic eco-mitigation, if you will. They’re not going to save the planet, but they are easy ways you can be ever-so-slightly less part of the problem.
Plant-based laundry sheets are a revelation
“We’re out of laundry detergent again,” I told my husband, my voice underlined with a tone of exasperation as I threw yet another large blue plastic bottle in the recycling knowing full well not all of the plastic in it can be recycled.
“So you want me to pick up another one?” he responded helpfully.
“Not really,” I sighed, thinking of the empty laundry jugs upon jugs upon jugs we have already generated this year alone. Years ago, when we found ourselves unexpectedly having to launder cloth diapers due to our youngest being allergic to everything, we went through a period where we were making our own powdered laundry detergent out of borax, baking soda, and shredded bar soap.
One thing I learned during this period is that there are lots of people in the world who just love borax laundry soap, and I am decidedly not one of those people. I found after enough dozens of washes, laundry would start to lose its softness. While I realize some of that softness probably comes from chemicals I probably shouldn’t want in my laundry soap, I have always been someone who is very sensitive to textures, and borax just wasn’t doing it for me. And to be perfectly frank, that’s a heckuva lot of soap grinding for a family of five.
After mentally devolving into the Julia Roberts math meme while visualizing a Rube-Goldberg of a plan to purchase the materials to make liquid soap in bulk and share the bounty with my parasocials, all in the interest of reducing our plastic waste, I voiced my convoluted plan to a friend. Nodding in understanding as she quickly typed something into her phone, she explained she had been through the same thing at one point.
“There you go,” she told me. “I’ve sent you something even better.”
Two days later, Amazon dropped a smallish cardboard box of 240 laundry sheets at my house — simply throw a single sheet in with your laundry and it’s as good as a cup of liquid detergent. Our family of five generates a lot of laundry, and this box lasted us for the better part of two months. And the best part? Buying a new one only cost about $18 on Amazon, costing us less than half of what we would spend in that time frame on liquid soap.
Here’s how that shakes out in terms of eco-mitigation:
- Less weight for shipping means fewer emissions spent getting it to you
- Cleaner ingredients are better for the planet and your family
- No microplastics in many of these products
They’re also super easy to use and a lot less messy than traditional liquid laundry soap.
Cloth napkins look cute and save waste
I’m a huge fan of vintage linens. When I visit a thrift store, I’m generally making a beeline for the vintage aprons, hot pads, and tea towels at some point. And it’s in this corner that you can find some absolutely fantastic cloth napkins for as little as .49 in some cases.
Our family has been using cloth napkins for more than two decades instead of paper towels. Of course, you could always pick up some new ones in a handful of vibes and Martha Stewart your dinnertimes. They’re also easy to make using fabric repurposed from old clothing and bed linens — technically, you don’t even have to sew them.
Reusable grocery bags are an easy habit to pick up
If you’ve ever shopped at Aldi, you know this European grocery chain leaves bagging the groceries up to shoppers. As someone who lives down the street from an Aldi and shops there for around half our household groceries, I’ve long since become used to carrying my own shopping bags with me — and I’ve actually come to prefer using my own bags to bringing home yet another handful of plastic shopping bags every time I shop.
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Not only does this reduce your household waste, but it also ensures your groceries are packed the way you like, which means I don’t have to deal with 15 bags for 15 items as tends to happen after a trip to Walmart. They’re also handy if you’re the type of person who likes to stop by the occasional yard sale while you’re out and about.
Do you have any simple tips for reducing household waste? Let me know in the comments, and have an outstanding week in your little nebula!
