Plastic free products for a sustainable bathroom

Nowadays, trying to reduce one’s environmental impact, and improving your lifestyle, involves being a bit more careful: being conscious about the environment is an approach that one can put in practice in a very simple way, thanks to the growing availability of plastic-free products on the market. Therefore, re-thinking the content of entire rooms of the house, such as the bathroom, so that they are truly free of plastic is much easier, especially if you rely on brands that offer important guarantees on the sustainability of their products.

Nowadays, the range of plastic-free products suitable for your beauty, hygiene and health needs is getting wider and wider, thanks to the growing awareness of how much each of us can make a difference. From toothpaste tubes to shampoo bottles, normally a bathroom quickly fills with plastic products, of which, according to the stats, not even half of it is being recycled (Source: Eurostat). This fact forces us to rethink our approach, starting to make small changes, which become excellent habits. Below you will find a small guide, useful for understanding how to make your bathroom plastic-free!

Cotton buds

 

Cotton swabs are among the top ten unwanted objects that are most frequently found on the beaches by volunteers, such as the Marine Conservation Society. Many people still throw them in the toilet, wrongly: from there, the cotton buds pass through the sewage system and then land at sea. Here they constitute a lethal danger for the marine fauna that sees them and ingest them by mistake. For this reason, from 1 January 2019, in Italy a law came out to stop the production and marketing of plastic cotton swabs (Source: Il Post). To date, these items can be easily replaced with sticks made of organic cotton and 100% biodegradable cardboard.

Soap

 

Another element that is becoming markedly popular in its plastic free version is soap, both for the face and for the body. As the supporters of the main associations that deal with environmental protection suggest, avoiding hand soaps and shower gel in liquid format and already packaged in disposable plastic containers can make the difference.

By choosing solid soap, on one hand it is possible to reduce the pollution resulting from the purchase of plastic, and on the other hand also to have a lower impact on the water quality, since these products generally produce less foam. Furthermore, solid soaps don’t contain a high percentage of water as in the case of shower gels or liquid soaps, therefore they tend to last longer and are much more convenient.

For the purchase of solid soaps that are effective and also delicate on the skin, it is better to prefer those made with natural ingredients, and the content of chemical elements is reduced to a minimum. Finally, by purchasing from producers you trust, it is possible to keep track of the ingredient supply chain, rewarding virtuous behaviours and making sure to reduce the environmental impact related to transport.

Plastic-free shampoo and conditioner

 

If you are looking to completely reduce disposable plastic when it is not strictly necessary, your next step for a truly sustainable approach could be buying solid versions of shampoo and conditioner.

The advantages associated with these solid hair care products are basically the same as those already listed for the skin cleansing soap:no plastic, long lasting, less impact for transport and less presence of chemical ingredients. This last aspect is very important for those who really care about their scalp, as the low content of chemical elements inside solid shampoo and conditioner has the additional advantage of being delicate on the scalp and reducing the irritations.

Eco-friendly toothbrush and toothpaste

 

According to estimates recently published by Friends of the Earth, the data show that in the United States alone, the share of toothbrushes thrown away every year is going to be over a billion. If you pause for a moment to reflect, this amount of plastic, which equals to about twenty-two tons, is really excessive and unnecessarily harmful to the environment. The alternative on the market is comfortable, cheap and also very elegant: the biodegradable bamboo toothbrush, available from many brands, which has a handle made of 100% biodegradable bamboo. The only warnings, in the case of most products, concern the bristles, which are usually made of nylon and must therefore be removed before sending to recycling. Many brands that offer alternatives to the general plastic approach also stand out for their plastic-free packaging, including toothpastes, made in a solid version or in biodegradable tablets.