To ask for your tips on minimising plastic use/going cruelty free.

[CaptainCabinets]

Evening all. As the title suggests, I’m looking for ways to cut down on plastic waste as I use a lot of it at work (nurse, unavoidable) and want to offset that at home. Also, I want to switch my cleaning products and toiletries to cruelty-free.

I’m vegetarian, buy loose groceries and take bags for life out shopping. If I do have to buy things in plastic packaging, I recycle it. However, I look around my house and just see plastic everywhere and it’s not sitting right with me.

Plastic toiletries, plastic cosmetics packaging. Plastic, plastic, plastic. So I guess what I’m asking is:

1. Which toiletries/cosmetics/cleaning products can I buy that don’t come in plastic packaging?

2. Which brands of the above are cruelty free?

Thanks in advance!

Best bet that I can think of is to go to Lush for your wash stuff. They do a shampoo bar, conditioner bar etc. And they're cruelty free and come in paper bags or individual metal tins.

Lots of own brands are buav approved. Superdrug, Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s. There are definitely more, which makes cleaning products easy enough. I use splosh products - buav approved and they come in a letterbox sized box in a returnable pouch. Most you dilute with water in the reusable bottles they send.

I have tried to cut out plastic around the house and use coconut scourers and washable cloths for washing up instead of the plastic sponges. I find them better at the job as well.

Swapping shower gel for soap, swapping shampoo and conditioner for solid bars all use less plastic.

You can make your own shower scrubs if you like a scrub, using salt and oils and put that in glass jars.

As to cleaning products, half white vinegar, half cooled boiled water and some essential oils (tea tree & lemon for example) in a glass spray bottle is a good cleaner for most things ans you can buy vinegar in glass bottles to start you off anyway.

Have a Google of naturally greener cleaner and naturally mama Jo or look on Pinterest for eco cleaning tips which are mostly just vinegar based.

Nuud deodorant comes in biodegradable bamboo packaging!

I buy splosh cleaning products. You buy a starter pack then refill the bottles from a pouch. The pouches are 98% recyclable and you send them back to the company to recycle. I like all of the products apart from the toilet cleaner. The washing up liquid I think as good as fairy.

Sorry cross post.

Lush shampoo bars are the best I've found. And natracare sanitary products are plastic free. Milkmen deliver milk in glass bottles but it's more expensive.

Fantastic ideas here, thank you!

All Barry M makeup is cruelty free and that's where I get mine from. Also, the VeganKind supermarket online sell almost anything you could possibly want, including food, cleaning products, makeup etc. www.thevegankindsupermarket.com/

Buy washing powder rather than liquid, as it comes in card boxes rather than plastic bottles.

In addition to all the other suggestions, if there is anything you have to get in plastic, if you buy the biggest pack/bottle you can find, that’s less plastic than several smaller bottles for the same amount of product (and may well work out cheaper overall as well).

Mine have been:

Taking mesh bags to the market to buy fruit and veg (or if you’re crafty you could make some out of old material)
Collapsible coffee cup in handbag
A camping cutlery set and metal straws in handbag
Taking boxes to the butcher for meat (albeit not one for you if you’re veggie)
Buying sandwich meat and cheese from a Polish supermarket taking own tub
Old Tupperwares to take sandwiches to work
Tins of Bombay potatoes/Dahl etc rather than ready meals (usually with the canned hotdogs and similar)
Cooking a big batch of rice and freezing it in portions rather than buying pouches
Soap and shampoo/conditioner bars
Eco bricking

Oh and washing powder rather than liquid

Loose tea rather than bags- there’s a stall in our market where you can take your own containers.

Loose sweets from the sweet stall in the market

Have your shampoo and conditioner bottles refilled if there’s anywhere near you that does it.

When doing a supermarket shop, buy glass bottles/jars instead of plastic (eg mayo, honey etc). Not always possible, but I do, when I can.

I bought a beeswax wrap for packed lunches. Will be trialing it tomorrow.

I can't eliminate plastic entirely, but I have cut back in the number of different types of cleaning products I use. For example, I buy a multi purpose cleaner, which does most jobs.

I keep a small fold up bag in my handbag for any ad hoc purchases.

Is all this cardboard and paper recycled? Where does all the bamboo stuff we use now come from? What about deforestation?

Shouldn't we be thinking about our choices in more nuanced ways than "X is always bad, anything else is better"?

There was an interesting programme on radio 4 I listened to the other week about these kinds of changes and a project in Ireland, I think. Helpfully, I can't remember the name of the programme or project, but if you stumble on it in podcasts/catch up it might offer some ideas!

I seem to remember them also talking about food waste/waste in general and "not being outsmarted by your bin" as well as refillable toiletries.

Lush toiletries. You can wash and return the little black pots and lush recycle them.

We use beeswax wraps instead of cling film / tin foil (still use cling film and tin foil sometimes but hardly ever since the switch). Amazon £10.

We are a mainly vegetarian household (DS isn't)

I buy powders (usually Waitrose) though they don;'t do the bigger boxes that I can get in Tesco (own brand)

We tend to buy a couple of bigger shampoo / conditioners that I know we use .
For my DS , Bulldog and ABC Tea Tree showergel.

Soaps do last longer ( but our hard water destroys soap) I like L'Occitane
I don't get on with the solid bars but I've only tried a couple so might need another go *when I'm through with the shampoo I have)

Muslin cloths not cotton wool

oneforthepain
Is all this cardboard and paper recycled? Where does all the bamboo stuff we use now come from? What about deforestation?

Yes, this. We have excellent recycling facilities where I live, so I have no problem using plastic containers that can be recycled.
The shops that used to refill them have all closed.

If you arent familiar with brands and dont understand the labels, then the easiest thing is to stick to Ecover products. They are 100% biodegradeable (as is all the packaging) and available in supermarkets. Their washing up liquid can be used to clean the bathroom, and their washing powder is better for the environment than detergent.

Learn how to use old fashioned cleaners such as citric acid crystals and bicarbonate of soda safely and at the right concentration.

As for cleaning cloths, cellulose sponges are biodegradeable.

As everyone else has said, but also silicon sheets to put over food when microwaving in place of cling film, beeswax wraps for everything, toothpaste tabs from Lush along with your shampoo, conditioner and shower bars, silicon teabags for your loose tea if not using a pot, compostable coffee pods from the Eden project (online or from Waitrose)

I was under the impression that laundry powder boxes aren't recyclable due to plastic coating in them?
We use Smol laundry pods anyway and they use less chemicals and the packaging is recyclable.

Changes made in this home include:

Shopping at the local plastic free supermarket.
Bars of soap rather than shower gel.
Soap powder in a cardboard box rather than pods in a plastic box.
Never buying bottles of water (get a refillable bottle)
A steam mop for the floors, so more Flash (or your choice of cleaner)
Hessian shopping bags.
No wipes.
Wash and sort recycling properly.
Always buy in glass if that is an option.
I replaced my clothes pegs with wooden ones.
I wash and reuse the plastic tubs from the Chinese takeaway, as they are just the right size for stacking in the pantry, refilled with pearl barley etc.

I use Method cleaning products, they are plastic but the product is good and they claim to be cruelty free etc. (Grapefruit spray is 10/10)

I know I can never live plastic free, but I try to reduce as much as is possible.

The washing powder from lidl comes in a box that states it's recyclable, I don't think its plastic coated as I left one in a damp porch once and the box was damp and the powder had clumped up in hard lumps.

I thought Method and Ecover weren't cruelty free anymore.

A lot of supermarket own brand cleaning/laundry products are leaping bunny products. Same for their shampoos etc (Coop is particularly good). I use a lot of Tesco cleaning products.

I haven't got the answer re plastic. I think the "forward thinking"/greener companies need to step up more on the plastic front.

www.facebook.com/OliviaThomasHandmade/ for vegan bath products, website doesn't seem to work any more but the FB page is being updated.

One of the biggest changes we have made is eating less .. I think our portion sizes were too big anyway so reducing them is good from a health perspective too.
I use half the amount of recommended powder in the washing machine.

Short showers - 2 minutes max