The best thing to do to live waste-free is to use up what you already have and replace items with sustainable alternatives only when you need to. Photo / 123rf
The best thing to do to live waste-free is to use up what you already have and replace items with sustainable alternatives only when you need to. Photo / 123rf
OPINION
I haven’t had a rubbish bin in my bathroom for years! I keep one in the toilet so guests who use disposable period products can dispose of them, but I don’t use the bin personally.
I’ll start by listing the waste-free products in my shower, but while you read this please don’t start making a shopping list. The best thing to do is to use up what you already have and replace items with sustainable alternatives only when you need to.
My shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and face wash exist in bar form. The bars (I buy mine from Ethique) arrive in home compostable cardboard that I rip up and put in my compost. They’re concentrated, so I simply wet them a little and the product easily rubs off onto my body.
I scrub my body with a hemp sack that I can pop soap into or a simple face cloth. After a shower, I apply deodorant that comes in the same style: a bar in a home compostable paper tube!
You can use shampoo, conditioner, body wash and face wash in bar form. Photo / 123rf
In my bathroom cabinet, you’ll find five low-waste dental items. A bamboo toothbrush, a metal tongue scraper, toothpaste in a glass jar, dental floss in a refillable glass vial, and mouthwash in a glass bottle. When it’s time to change my toothbrush I dispose of the plastic bristles in my rubbish bin and use the wooden stick to label things in my veggie garden.
If I don’t need any labels, I put them straight into my compost bin. The dental floss goes in there too. I send the glass bottles that house my mouthwash and toothpaste back to the Solid HQ in Porirua to be sterilised and reused again.
I often wonder if I’ve had the same glass jar in my bathroom cabinet before! In case you’re wondering, my dentist has approved my sustainable dental routine and I have been using the products for over five years without issues.
Low-waste items can be a bamboo toothbrush, toothpaste in a glass jar, dental floss in a refillable glass vial, and a wooden hair brush. Photo / 123rf
My Aleph Beauty makeup products work the same way as the toothpaste. I use up the product that arrives in glass containers, wash them, and send them back to Aleph to reuse.
My hairbrush recently died so I upgraded to a CaliWoods wooden brush, my safety razor (also from CaliWoods) has metal blades that I replace when blunt and put through metal recycling when I have a large pile of them, and my bamboo cotton tips end up in my compost bin too.
I’ve used a menstrual cup since 2017. I don’t have to buy disposable period products or deal with a smelly bin every month and I use period underwear occasionally too. My toilet paper is made from bamboo and arrives ‘naked’ in a cardboard box every 18 weeks as I haven’t quite convinced my husband to switch to the ‘family cloth’ - reusable toilet paper.
My compost bin in the bathroom is filled with dental floss, cardboard, cotton tips, and bundles of my hair. Yes, even though it takes a very long time to break down, hair is compostable!
