One of my 2020 New Year’s resolutions is to be more green and earth-friendly and one area I’m focusing on is reducing my use of plastics and what I send to the landfill. Almost everyday we see images of natural disasters made worse by climate change, formerly pristine landscapes covered in trash, or animals struggling to survive in polluted habitats, and we can no longer just hope that someone somewhere will come up with a solution. But the good news is that it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition; incremental changes add up so if we all make small changes everyday, hopefully our collective behavior will create massive, global progress.
I’ve put together some useful steps you can take to ensure that you don’t add more trash to the landfill each year, plus some links to a few helpful products. And I have to recommend you check out Marley’s Monsters, an Oregon company that makes and sells many of the products below, all in plastic-free recyclable packaging.
Grocery Shopping
- Reusable shopping bags (click here)
- Reusable and washable mesh bags for produce (click here)
- Buy less products wrapped in plastic – buy “naked” fruits and veggies and look for products in glass or paper containers.
- Buy bulk food items and bring your own containers (glass jars or reusable bags).
- Shop at farmers’ markets (with your own bags of course).
Food and Drink
- Washable silicone or metal straws
- Reusable K-cups for coffee
- Silpat silicone mat to replace parchment paper, wax paper or aluminum foil when baking
Household
- Reusable kitchen towels to replace paper towels (click here)
- Biodegradable bags for dog
- Biodegradable trash bags
- Wool dryer balls instead of dryer sheets. In addition to replacing dryer sheets, they shorten drying time and reduce wrinkles and static. Put a few drops of essential oil on the wool balls to add a natural scent to your clean clothes
- Beeswax wrap to replace plastic wrap (click here)
- Reusable silicone storage bags to replace ziplock plastic bags (click here)
- LED lights
- Rechargeable batteries
Beauty and Personal Care
- Solid Shampoo and Conditioner bars – no more plastic bottles in the shower
- Biodegradable Bamboo toothbrush
- Reusable cotton facial rounds replaces disposable cotton pads for toner and makeup remover (click here)
This is just a start and there are many more ways you can make a difference, but most importantly, just start and set a good example for others who may follow in your footsteps to reducing our landfill waste.