Life Hack: Cloths NOT Wipes!

This post is about how to swap-in cloths for wipes.  Slowly add cloths to your house in place of wipes and before you know it you’ll be off and running wipe-free!  Why?  Wipes clog up our drains, litter our beaches, and are eaten by sea creatures.  It also talks about greenwashing and microfibres and sponges and the beautiful nuance of choosing the right textured cloth for the right job.  Listen up, people! 🙂

How many wipes do you think you use a day?  One for the kitchen table?  Well, maybe two or three.  One for your face this morning?  A few on your baby’s/toddler’s nappy change.  One to clean that spillage on the floor.  One for a quick wipe around the toilet seat and another for the sink.  Ah, sod it I’ll just pop it in the loo.  Listen, people:  WE NEED TO STOP USING WIPES.  And we definitely need to stop chucking them down the toilet.  Even the wipe makers ask us to do that.  *No toilets for wipes*.  As my good friend who worked in a water company said, wipes don’t go through the filtration system properly.  They sneak through and clog up the filtration, then the pipes that lead out to sea, then the drains and finally, the gullets of birds that pick them up in the ocean.  The national marine and conservation charity, Surfers Against Sewage, have had a particular issue with this over decades: Think Before You Flush!

We DO need to start using cloths!  CLOTHS CLOTHS CLOTHS CLOTHS CLOTHS!

Let me show you how and why.  Cloths are amazing.  You can use them, then wash them in the washing machine and then use them AGAIN!  YEAH!  Now, when I made the switch I had one problem with cloths – I could never find them when I needed them!  But wipes?  Well, I would buy them in their specially labelled packets and scatter them around my house.  Kitchen ones for the kitchen; bathroom ones for the bathroom; dusting ones for the sitting room; floor ones for the floors (lovely apple smell); all purpose ones for anywhere; baby wipes for the babies bum/face/hands; wipes in my bag and fancy face wipes for my face.  That is a LOT of wipes!  Dear reader, I loved them.

But I realised that I couldn’t keep using wipes because they are not at all degradable (see here: Biodegradable? Sort of… Maybe… Compostable? Well, no. Welcome to Greenwashing.)  So I got rid of all my wipes and bought more cloths.  You can get a pack of about 5 BIG cotton cloths for the kitchen from £1 and, as I said, wash and reuse them forever.  Now, cotton is great.  Microfibre is not.  DON’T be tempted to buy ‘modern’ microfibre cloths because these are another form of pollution.  Microfibres break off when washing, enter the water cycle and are eaten by plankton, fish and us!  I know:  Microfibre Bad.  (And, while we’re at it, definitely, definitely never ever buy one of those ubiquitous green and yellow scrubbing sponges.  NO, no, no, no, no, no.  Not only are they criminally ugly they break up into lots of little pieces and never, ever biodegrade.  They degrade, yes, into teeny bits that are ingested by animals and simply pollute the land.  They do NOT ‘bio’ degrade.  Leave them well alone.  For super scrubbing replacements have a look at the home-compostable safix scrubbing pad and wooden, replaceable headed brush (see post: Scrubbing Brush!))

So, *cotton* cloths.  You can buy different coloured cloths for different purposes (like they do in hotels – I was a chambermaid once).  Have one colour cloth for the loo and another for sinks and baths.  Have more for floors (or use a mop.  Or even a steam cleaner – WOO)…

Baby wipes?  You can bulk buy special cloths or re-purpose old towels or flannels for cleaning babies’ bums (that have FAR more traction than wipes and so leave bums cleaner (oh, *and* you can use the homemade, antibacterial but oh-so-gentle wipe solution I use (see earlier post on Bottom Wiping 🙂).  I put the solution in a tub next to the changing area then lay about 10 wipes in it to use as and when – just like wipes.  Dirty wipes go in a mesh bag and at the end of the day they go – you guessed it – in the wash.

You can have beautiful handmade crocheted cloths for the house too (I make these if you want some!) that you can easily learn to make yourself or buy.  Because you will come to appreciate that not all cloths are equal!  (*geek alert*)  You can have knobbly bobbly cloths for cleaning kitchen ovens and hobs.  (Next step: dip into bicarb and grapefuit essential oil solution and job’s a good’un – see post: Bicarbonate Of Soda.) You can have looser cloth weaves with flatter textures for all-purpose cleaning.  You can have a medium textured ‘grippy’ weave for cleaning surfaces and toilets.  And then there are so many colours!    And then when you’re done… you can pop them in the wash.

You can have cloths in the kitchen drawer to grab when you need to clean dirty hands and faces.  No chemicals needed – the action of rubbing with a soapy cloth is sufficiently antibacterial in itself ( see this 2017 cleaning article on usefulness of wipes).

In place of face wipes I have a konjac sponge (info here) that, just like a wipe, needs no soap on it for a quick facial cleanse or refresh with a bit of water.  For more of nighttime deep-clean I have crocheted soft, textured cotton cloths for removing eye make-up, slightly bigger ones for cleansing my face, slightly rougher ones for washing my face and ANOTHER one for a flannel.  It is a lovely set!  I use them a couple of times and then… wash them.  I make these, ask if you want any; but you can also buy cotton cloth style bits like these from the Wise House that are just lovely!

For here and there you can also reuse old clothing for casual cloths.  Use pinking shears to prevent fraying.  Old muslins from babies are fab around the house, knackered cotton clothing, old flannels etc.

The clue is to have LOTS of cloths of all different sizes, colours and textures.  Have a lovely big basket with lots of different types and sizes of cloth in.  Don’t have one or two or you won’t know where to find them when you need them.  Just like wipes you can dot them around the house.  Or hang them up even – my crocheted cloths are pretty and I like to show them off!

So there you are.  Ditch the wipes.  Look around you with new eyes and see CLOTHS in old clothing, in cotton yarn, and from budget shops.  Wash them, pop them in your basket and you’re good to go again.

CLOTHS!

 

BAGS

Bags!  They are everywhere!  Plastic bags for everything!  Some of them are reusable bags for life.  Some of them are recyclable with carrier bag recycling at large supermarket stores.  A lot of them are thrown away while new ones are bought for a single Special Purpose.  Let us think harder and stop using flimsy little bags with special names 🙂

What am I talking about?  Well, I am talking about sandwich bags!  Nappy bags!  Dog poo bags!  Fruit and veg bags!  Freezer bags!  Silly bags you usually buy, use once and chuck away.  Let us put our wallets back in our pockets and be a bit more thoughtful about this.

Sandwich bags

Daft.  Save your old bread bags.  Start saving them now if you have kids that need packed lunches in September.  Chop the top off them if you think they are too unwieldy and put that part in with your carrier bag recycling stuff.  Use them, tip out the crumbs and then recycle them.

Nappy bags

So daft.  Even if they are only a quid – seriously, why are you buying a plastic bag for a nappy?  For your nosey?  Fine, I understand.  But hang on, look around you!  If you are as posh as me (!!) you can use that pouch from your fresh coffee to put it in.  Seal it up as when it had coffee in it et voila!  Stink-free, straight in the kitchen bin never to darken a door or olfactory sense again.  Hurrah!  Alternatively, you can use old frozen fruit/veg bags – they are great as they are thick and fold over so again, no stink.  Some even have ziplock tops!  😉  Some thinner, more stretchy frozen food bags are recyclable though so do weigh up what you think is the best use of that bag 🙂  you can use bread bags, plastic cereal inners are GREAT, thick porridge bags also great.  These solutions all work really well as wet bags for reusable nappies when out and about BTW 🙂

Dog Poo bags

UG.  So pointless!  These can range in price from a quid to £7 for fancy ‘biodegradable’ ones (not biodegradable unless composted in an industrial unit).  Don’t bother, crazies!  Answer?!  Poo IS biodegradable!  A) if out and about flick it if it is on a path.  We don’t want to walk in it but I really don’t mind if you flick it into the woods/fields.  Nature will take its course.  Truly.  B) If you need to pick it up, which often we do, use a bag you have already used at home for something.  You don’t need a special bag!  How many poos does your dog do on a walk that you need special rolls of bags?!  A dog may do one or possibly two.  Don’t sweat it.  Use an old stretchy bag without hols in it – lots of veg comes in useful bags for this though so does have holes in so be careful 😉  Or use kitchen roll bags or loo roll bags.  These are all great when out and about too.  These can be recycled so it’s up to you if you would rather recycle these instead of dog pooing them for landfill/incineration 😉  If you want to use stiffer plastics like cereal bags or freezer bags, dog food/treat bags then maybe take some kitchen towel with you to pick it up then pop it in the bag and the bin.

Garden dog poo

Definitely don’t use a new bag for this!  Get a plastic pot/bucket and line it with with a used plastic bag.  This can be any heavy duty bag from frozen fruit/veg/chips or dog food or bicarb bulk package.  Anything.  You will find that you have lots of lovely, heavy duty bags you can roll down to size so when it is done with you simply roll the sides up and ta da!  Pop it in the local dog poo bin or wherever you chuck your normal poo bags.

Fruit and Veg bags

Get little crochet ones and take them shopping with your other bags.  Or reuse any translucent bags you have kicking about (see above).

Honestly.  It is a kind of blindness that we specific uses for specific household items.  but actually, we really don’t!  Get some little drawers – dunelm mill or the range have lots of fabric or rattan or plastic or wicker or metal filing wotnot drawers.  Pop them in your utility room or kitchen and put your used bags in them.  Tip out crumbs etc, flatten them and grade them according to thickness and you are ready to go.  No more buying silly lilttle plazzy bags for no reason other than to chuck ’em away.

Laters!

Recycling BINS

Yes!  Recycling bins!  I KNOW, it is very exciting!  Actually, I have a confession to make as I am actually really, REALLY excited about getting some bins in my kitchen to put my different recycling bits in.  Since starting this venture the amount of general waste we have has gone right down but our recycling collection is outta control 😉  My garage is FULL of bags of unsorted recycling.  Well a good portion of it is…  It is daunting and awful.  So I have to sort it all and get a special compartmentalised bin!  Then my life will be so much better!

How many bins do we think we might need?!  Two?  Three?  I was thinking two…  and then I started thinking about what I recycle and realised it is more like 5/6 different bins.  I kid you not!  Think about it – we currently separate our rubbish into stretchy plastics; normal plastics and tins; cardboard; paper; food (for composting); glass.  It’s unexpected isn’t it?  We are so used to having ONE bin in the kitchen in the UK (although my Kiwi friend said that they have had a few different recycling bins for years and years in NZ kitchens and finds it nuts that we don’t) the idea of having lots of bins is a bit weird.  But exciting weird!

So, what bin?!  OK, so I am starting at Argos.  They have LOTS of recycling bins for the kitchen, see thus: Argos binz   Stackable ones, side by side ones, ones with compartments you can remove whole, ones made out of steel, ones made out of plastic, ones that are big and ones that are small.  WHY I didn’t know about this I do not know.  I am SURE I looked!  Anyway, there they are.  And they are very affordable which is fabulous.  As a family of five I am going big.  But what do I need to recycle?

• Glass.  I don’t have much glass though and mostly hoard jam jars for vases or, er, jam jars; and oil glasses for new oils.  And nice bottles for presents – I might fill a glass ketchup bottle with sweets rainbow stylie for a child or keep a conical vinegar bottle to refill with salad dressing for someone.  So, a small box would suffice.
• Plastics.  Quite a bit of plastics; our council are great and recycle most stuff even PP5 bits and bottle lids.  Obvs I try and avoid/keep/reuse what I can but I can’t help what comes into our lives 24/7 (husband’s ready meal luncheons, I am tssking at YOU).  So this will need to be BIG – to be combined with…
• Tins.  I can tell if we are eating well by the amount of tins in the recycling.  Tins of pulses, beans, coconut milk, fish… Straight razor blades annually.  Foil (scrunched into a big ball).  To combine with above plastics 🙂
• Stretchy plastics.  We are collecting more of this along with carrier bags 🙂  We’ll need a small tub for this as they squish up small.
• Paper.  LOTS!  We read newspapers, the children draw and make stuff, I make stuff, letters and junk mail…  BIG box needed!
• Cardboard.  LOTS!  All making things, parcel wrappings, food wrappings, cereal boxes, persil etc.  BIG box!
• Food, cloths, safix scrubbers, wooden scrubbing brush heads, soapnuts.  Currently put all into a celebrations box for composting 🙂 🙂 🙂
• Carrier bags for life.  We don’t store these anywhere sensible yet.  Small box needed?

So this amounts to 3 big boxes for plastics and tins; paper, cardboard; and 2/3 smaller boxes for stretchies, glass, possible carrier bag storage.

That’s a lot of boxes!  I honestly thought I only needed two, maybe three?  And interestingly, all the shops seem to think we only need two or three as well.  We don’t!  We need 5/6 🙂

Am off to purchase my life-changing storage!

Laters!

Bicarbonate Of Soda

Oh my.  It has taken me a while to get here – we all know that natural cleaning/home guru types use bicarb to clean their homes – but I have finally made it.  I have had THE best time cleaning my house with the absolute beast of all cleaning agents: bicarbonate of soda.  I kid you not, it is, hands down, the EASIEST, most wonderfully efficient, cheapest and most lung- and skin-friendly way *ever* to clean one’s home.  I am so happy!  No eczema break-out awaiting here.  No slightly stinging knuckles.  No chemical induced wheezing (I had ‘Cillet-Bang lung’ once.  I cleaned a house we were moving out of very thoroughly with it and couldn’t breathe properly for about two weeks).  No worry about the kids being around or the windows closed while I scrubbed at the hob.

So what complicated procedure did I go through?  How does this mysterious chemical work?  Well, lean in dear friends.  I bought a kilo of bicarb off of Amazon for about a fiver.  I bought some grapefruit essential oil off of Amazon for £1.99.  THEN:

• I sprinkled a teaspoon of bicarb onto a small plate
• I added four drops of the essential oil
• I dabbed my everso slightly damp cotton cloth into the mixture, getting a generous amount onto the cloth
• I rubbed it on the grease…

And?!  AND?!  The grease came off in grubby little balls of greasy grub, revealing super non-greased, non-scratched metal underneath.  It was clean.

I was very excited at this discovery.  And still skeptical.  I literally, dear friends, did not believe my eyes.  So I got more bicarb and more essential oil and dabbed again and rubbed over the splashback/board/wotnot behind the oven.  I have tried cleaning this with Method.  I have tried cleaning this with Flash.  I have tried cleaning this with Sainsbury’s own kitchen cleaner.  I have tried Fairy kitchen cleaner.  I have tried leaving cleaner stuff on it.  I even tried a real live grapefruit.  What I have found is that they just smear grub around and make my cloth/grapefruit unpleasantly sticky with grease while not looking at all clean.  So this was, for me, the Test.  And *whispers* – it worked.

I KNOW!  WTAF.  I just rubbed my bicarb and few drops of grapefruity loveliness over it and the grease rolled into dried up little balls of grossness and plopped onto the hob.  No water, the grease does not respond well to being wet (oil and water don’t work together – which makes me wonder about the wet solutions I have been sold by companies (Unilever, am looking backatcha AGAIN) that stare into my eyes to tell me that they ‘cut through grease’ when they CAN’T because they are WET).  And if it is a sticky patch, rub the bicarb over it gently so it sticks on the top of it then go back after a few minutes and it comes off.  It dries the grease up and de-sticks it.

It is truly wonderful.  I also did the oven air vent like I was on some magical advert from the 90’s, cutting through the grease and having a dance while I did it.  And my kitchen smells grapefruity.  It is so pleasing!

I also did the hob which was unpleasant after a few days of cooking cakes, fish pies and roast dinners for Easter entertaining.  This time I sprinkled the bicarb directly onto the hob and left it a couple of moments then went to work on it with my cloth.  I couldnae believe my EYES.  The grease and general food grub reacted in the same way and rolled into dried up little balls.  In fact they were all so dry I vacuumed them up!  Then I went over it with a warm wet cloth and it has come up beautifully.

What else do I use it for?

• I already use bicarb to sprinkle along the bottom of my bin to absorb smells and excess liquid that might leak.
• I can also dab bicarb under my arms for the same purpose!
• Half a cup of bicarb down the loo acts as a cleaning agent.
• Half a cup of bicarb down a plughole followed by half a cup of vinegar works as a deodoriser and cleaner.
• And a dab of bicarb on a cloth can be used to shine up your silver.  Or if you are me, your sink 😉  (As in shine up my stainless steel sink – not my silver sink!  I use brasso for that…  LOLZ).
• Pop it in your wash with your clothes as a stain remover, whitener and brightener and fabric softener!  Half a cup in where your fabric softener normally goes and a bit less detergent and it does all these fancy things without chemicals.  I know, you don’t believe me.  It’s ok.  *try it* 🙂 Great info from thespruce.com about how baking soda works

It is AMAZING stuff.  I am in actual LOVE.  No plastic bottles.  No dispensers.  No locks on the cupboard door away from little fingers.  No chemicals.  And I have barely made a dent in my supplies.  Flash is £1.75 for a standard 500ml bottle from Sainsbury’s.  Bleach is £1.  Sink plughole unblocker is nasty stuff and about £3.  Airwick/Ambipur refills are over £3.50 and aim to reproduce ‘natural’ smells like white rose (personal favourite), vanilla or citrus.  But you can make your own with the essential oil you use when you clean your kitchen and it will de-smell your house anyway, or put some on a cotton wool ball behind the radiator 🙂  Fabric softeners are about £2 a bottle and fancy laundry detergent that keeps your clothes bright and stain-free are about £5 a kilo…

My supplies were £7 all-in with no after effects for either my humans or our habitat.  They are also just two items rather than six that total £15: kitchen cleaner, bleach, plughole unblocker (single use), airwick refills, fabric softener and fancy laundry detergent.

Excellent wonderment.

 

 

 

Scrubbing Brush!

Oh today is an exciting day in my Brave New World 🙂  My old scrubbing brush has given out so I have bought it some new bristles.

Bristles?!

YES!  You may remember that I swapped out my plastic washing up brush for a wooden one when I started this here mission.  Months later I now need to swap my first brush head and put my old one in the compost heap.

WHAAAAAAT?!  Yes, my friends, it is compostable!  The wood and bristles are completely organic.

So I have my new brush with its new head 🙂  I have a spare head too, these cost me £1.95 from boubaloo.com.  Cheaper and nicer than new plastic ones from the supermarket!

Here is the lovely brush.  You can see the metal prong at the end that you just slip around the new bristle head 🙂

You can also see a safix scrub pad!  Why these are not more known about I do not know – they are amazing!  They are easily available online and cost around £1.00 each.  This is the blurb on the back:

Excuse my dreadful photography skills!  So, these pot scourers are made from coconut fibre!  They last for months, are kind to hands and air dry.  They are also completely home compostable.

Those horrible yellow and green foam sponges that we regularly use are:

• in NO way degradable.  They will last for years and years until they break apart into little pieces and litter the environment as microplastic.  Every one of those sponges you have ever used still exists!  Somewhere, out there.
• Horrible to feel – I can’t stand the scratchy foam feeling, turns my face inside out.
• Unclean – once the grease is on them it doesn’t come off.  You need to scrub the scrubber!

Sad face.

SOOOOO get yourself these!  They seem to be made by one little company in India, using the husks of coconuts.  I’ll let you know how I get on, of course.

Laters!

Biodegradable? Sort of… Maybe… Compostable? Well, no. Welcome to Greenwashing.

It’s been a while – I apologise.  My family have been taken over by a virus of the most pernicious order.  The baby (well, toddler – I am in denial about her Growing Up) got infected and had to have antibiotics and I am feeling absurdly cheery considering the questionable state of my upper respiratory tract.

So, excuses out of the way, today I am keen to talk about greenwashing and in particular, the word ‘biodegradable’.  A wise old man introduced me to the term ‘greenwashing’ this week: Here dear reader, is the skinny on this discourse.  How I managed to miss this I do not know, but around 2009/2010 eco-brands were under fire for saying they were environmentally friendly/natural/plant-powered/eco products when, actually, they weren’t.  The complaints stood up and some brands changed the way they marketed their product so they, well, lied a little less.  More recently however, this issue has come to the fore again, and with the rise of anti-plastic movements and pro-eco buying habits it needs to be addressed.

A major issue is with claims that a product is ‘biodegradable’.  The Balance state that a biodegradable product should, ‘break down into natural materials in the environment without causing harm.’  When asked if their products are biodegradable Ecover say:

‘Yes. All the raw materials we use are biodegradable according to international standards’.

However, is has been found that Ecover products do leave traces of themselves in the natural environment and therefore are not, actually, completely biodegradable.  The key point in the debate is found in the phrase ‘according to international standards.’  Persil also claim to go above and beyond regulatory standards when it comes to their toxic non-bio products.  They justify using environmentally unfriendly chemicals in their washing detergents because you don’t need to wash the clothes twice!  This article in the Ecologist states that:

‘Big name brands, such as Unilever’s Persil, still use phosphonates. ‘Clearly with our laundry detergent it is important that the product washes effectively – otherwise the environmental impact is increased if clothes have to be rewashed – and that it works well at low temperatures,’ says Helen Fenwick, Unilever Sustainable Living Plan Manager. Fenwick says Unilever is committed to safety, as well as reducing the GHG impact from washing clothes. ‘Our formulation specialists use only internationally permitted ingredients and our long experience enables us to apply rigorous safety standards, which are sometimes higher than those set by the regulators,’ she says.’

Hmmmm.

If you look at the discourse it turns out that actually ‘biodegradable’ refers to the end state of a product (cleanly back to nature) and not the way it is broken down.  Biodegradable does NOT mean that it can be put in your compost.  Actually, it can mean that a product needs ‘extra biological help’ to break down sufficiently.  This can mean that we, as product users, may unwittingly be smearing product about our environments that will leave a lasting trace that is not environmentally friendly.  It also means, in the terms of a product like these wipes which claim loudly and proudly to be biodegradable, that consumers may be choosing to spend a bit more on a product that is eco – but where do I put it to biodegrade?  Not in the compost.  On their website they say that you can put their wipes, ‘in the bin or recycling’.  I am surprised they are encouraging the disposal of their eco-product into landfill and am curious as to what recycling these wipes are suitable for.  If the packaging is not recyclable, and the product itself is not compostable then…  what IS it?!  Method, however, do have wipes that are compostable (yay!).

So, what do they say?  Well, Ecover claim that:  ‘Our products are formulated for the lowest possible toxicity and the fastest biodegradability’.  Oh, fabulous!  Nooooo, wait.  It is so important to question what this means.  What is the benchmark for ‘lowest possible toxicity’ and ‘fastest biodegradability’?  Lowest possible according to what standards?  What is ‘fast’ for biodegradability?  Two days?  Years? Decades?  The assumption as a reader is to believe from these statements that they are doing their best.  They are setting industry standards.  No-one can have lower toxicity or faster biodegradability…

But that isn’t actually what they are saying, is it?  Or surely as eggs is eggs they would be saying exactly that.

In contrast, Method are more upfront about the level of success their products have, saying that their washing detergent is 98% biodegradable (www.methodproducts.co.uk).  For the consumer this may be enough but it still leaves one wanting.  We are also still faced with the unpalatable truth that these eco-products are coming to us in plastic.  Method are pleased that there bottles are 100% recycled and recyclable, but confess that we have to check local recycling facilities to see about the pump/spray nozzles.  Is this, then, an environmentally friendly product?  Interestingly, in California:

‘…it’s illegal to sell any plastic item, or any item with plastic packaging, that includes a label stating it’s “biodegradable,” “degradable,” “decomposable,” “compostable” or “marine degradable” (or any alternate form of those terms).’

I LOVE THIS!  They continue:

 ‘It’s also illegal in the state to sell a plastic product labeled “home compostable” (or some equivalent claim) unless the manufacturer holds a Vincotte OK Compost Home certificate. Vincotte is a Belgium-based inspection and certification organization.

Finally, the state bans the use of potentially misleading marketing terms, such as “environmentally friendly,” when they’re applied to plastic products and packaging.’

Wah!  Actual certification!  This State is informing consumers and preventing the possibility of greenwashing.  They don’t know they are being informed, it would just be normal to know the difference between biodegradable and compostable.  It would be normal to assume that a product in non-recyclable plastic packaging is not eco.  It is about basic standards and principles.  I want to be informed.  I want to know what degree of ‘biodegradable’ a product may be, I want to know if it is compostable.  Because in the UK I would put money on most people thinking that biodegradable is synonymous with compostable – and as we have seen, it really isn’t.  And green companies are relying on that assumption to market their product to us as being eco-friendly.

This, my friend, is greenwashing and it is very, very naughty.

 

 

Bottom Wiping :)

Ah yes.  Bottom wiping; the joys, the fancies, the silliness of it.  And how many ways in which we do it!  We can use loo roll or bidets, our left hand, or flushable (and very often non-flushable) ‘moistening’ wipes.  And our babies!  Obviously in the west we use baby wipes with little variation unless you are a bit alternative.  Which is a gosh darned shame for our lovely oceans!  I have spoken of this before and will again 🙂

So, firstly, the toilet roll.  A peculiar western fancy that is really gross when you’ve travelled around a bit.  It was incredibly strange using water in South East Asia and then again in India but when you think about it we do like to use water to get clean.  We don’t smear paper around our faces to get clean, we like wet stuff.  But with poo it’s ok just to smear paper around and look down on people who use water.  It really is backwards.  A fine example of common knowledge being mistaken for wisdom.  And this is not to say that I use water, I do not, that would be gross!  Ah, sweet Orwellian doublethink – when one holds two contradictory thoughts at the same time, knowing one is more correct while doing the other…  This is how marketeers corner us as a herd and prevent us thinking too much about what we are up to.  We can buy toilet roll that is marketed as environmentally friendly while it is wrapped in plastic…  we can buy food that is organic but not free range, we can buy diamonds knowing they fuel conflict in Sierra Leone while having a monthly direct debit donation to Oxfam  This is how we function as humans – to know and be in complete unison would be absolutely impossible in a busy world, this is why monks and nuns seek isolation: to concentrate and focus and limit the doublethink.

So we use paper in the west, fact.  But how can we buy this paper without the plastic wrapping?!  At the moment I am being marketed at by a lovely looking company called www.whogivesacrap.org.  A fantastic write up of this company’s product is here by myplasticfreelife (dated September 2017, so very up to date, and thorough – checkit! :)) Here she says that she generally used a product called ‘Seventh Generation’ loo roll that came without plastic although sometimes used plastic to post it – but having had a squizz myself this is only available in America anyways.  She moved to using whogivesacrap though, as they definitely did not use any plastic.  We can use them too!  The rolls are 3x more expensive compared to recycled normal rolls at Sainsburys though, so for me they are not an option at the moment.  An interesting point of their business is that they give 50% of their profits to water and sanitation charities that help in the ‘developing world’.  I am not sure about how helpful this aspect is in reality, but for now I’ll leave that decision up to you.

The point now is to contact Sainsbury’s and ask them to stock their toilet paper in cardboard cartons and paper wrapping.

And on to wipes.  Oh, sweet wipes.  Wipes are so convenient!  Wrapped in a waterproof plastic container to keep them fresh; portable; easy to grab one-handed; hundreds in one small packet; and wonderfully multi-purpose.  Snotty noses, chocolatey chops, grazed mitts, and, of course, mucky bums.  And now, the increasingly ubiquitous household wipe.  Cleans your floor!  Your kitchen surfaces – better than a reusable cloth because using a cloth is the equivalent of rubbing raw chicken on your baby’s high chair (really, you know the advert)!  Your toilet and bathrooms!  BUT THEY ARE COMPLETELY ANTI-SOCIAL!  ANTI, ANTI, ANTI!  ANTI!  Anti-actual life, anti water, anti-waste pipes, anti-toilet, anti-landfill, anti-nature.

They get stuck in water pipes from toilet to sea.  They are eaten by birds.  They do NOT degrade, whatever the packaging tries to say.  They contain drying chemicals for bottoms, even sensitive ones.  And this is another example of doublethink:  we are buying chemically composed wipes for our babies that work really hard to boast that they are as cleansing as WATER.  As pure for your baby as WATER.  As sensitive to your baby’s skin as…  WATER.  If only we could actually use this halcyon product, ‘water’!  Instead we: a) buy wipes; b) use wipes that even the manufacturers say are NOT as good for your child as this thing ‘water’; c) throw wipes down the toilet because we are told on the packaging that they are ‘flushable’, ‘disposable’, and ‘degradable’.

So instead of uncritically absorbing marketing claims as ‘truth’ let us unpack what they are really saying a little bit.  Engage brain, AND:

‘Flushable’ does not mean biodegradable.

‘Flushable’ does not mean ‘won’t be eaten by wildlife’.

‘Flushable’ does not mean ‘won’t clog wastepipes that lead into the sea, backing sewage up into rivers’.

and

‘Disposable’ is a joyfully cheeky term used by Wipe-Makers that is actually a myth.  These wipes are the very opposite of disposable!  I mean, anything is disposable – arsenic, battery acid and asbestos are disposable.  Does this mean they should be disposed of, all casual like, in our domestic waste?!  Does it mean that when they can no longer be seen by us, from our houses, that they are benign or, ta-da, ‘disappeared’?  No, of course not.  And the same goes for these convenience wipes.  They are not actually disposable because when they are in the bin they are then taken away and…  they stay as wipes.  In wipe form.  For donkeys years.  In the sea or rivers, in hedges, on verges, in animals (I know it’s emotive, but it is true I’m afraid :()  They are not made benign.  They are not disappeared.  Bamboo wipes, however, are actually disposable.  Cotton cloths are disposable: they are benign and will disappear.  So why don’t we use and throw these away several times a day instead?!  Because we have made them to be valuable.  They are re-usable, they are for a purpose, and so we hold onto them and care about them.

‘Disposable’ does not mean we can throw them away.  It means we don’t need to care about them.  They have no value to us.  Their use, their memory, their imprint, is what is disposable, rather than the physical wipe.  I think we can value what happens to our ‘disposable’ wipes by critically questioning why they are termed ‘disposable’ and, ultimately, reject this term as a marketing myth.

‘Anti-bacterial’ in reference to household cleaning wipes does not mean more sanitary than a cloth and spray.  Using a convenience wipe with anti-flu, anti-norovirus and anti-bac properties is not actually better than using a reusable cotton cloth.  Just like anti-bac hand-wash is only anti-bacterial in the way it is soap that is rubbed over your hands, wipes are anti-bacterial, anti-noro and anti-flu germs in the use of an antiseptic cleaning agent and the action of rubbing or cleaning.  So there are no special properties inherent to a wipe that cannot also be found in an ecologically sound cleaning spray like Method or even kitchen ingredients (more of which later!), and the action of cleaning.  A TV advert disputes this fact by likening the efficacy of a kitchen cloth to that of wiping raw chicken around your child and kitchen.  This is categorically untrue at worst and misleading at best.  This plays on our idea of ‘disposable’ as if we throw germs away.  As if using a cloth is smearing, not cleaning, and reusing is fundamentally unhygienic.  Which it is, if you never wash it.  Which you can do in your washing machine, even after one use.  (Like you do your clothes?!  Is the re-using of clothes, unless you are P-Diddy who apparently wears a new pair of socks every day but is also considered a bit, er, silly, also unsanitary?)

Actually, it could be argued that a scrubby cloth rubs off stuck on stains BETTER and more EASILY than a slippery wipe.  It could be argued that a scrubby cloth can look really rather lovely in a kitchen or bathroom, compared to an ugly plastic pack of wipes.  It can be argued that cloths are cheaper because they are longer lasting than wipes you throw away.  And it can be argued that a cloth used with a naturally made cleaning product is better for your child because it is chemical and bleach free.  Wipe Makers say cloths are gross because they, apparently, harbour germs.  But aren’t wipes unpleasant because they contain bleaches and chlorine that you would never let your child near normally.  But on a highchair it is ok?

And, finally, hold onto your hats,

‘Degradable’ does not mean bio-degradable.  It means that at some point in the future, maybe even a few hundred years away, they will degrade.  Biodegradable means it will easily return to the earth, be consumed by nature in a harmless, eco-sustainable fashion.  We are biodegradable.  Plastics can be called ‘degradable’ – but this isn’t in a good way as we know.  It is marketing gumph, really to make you feel that the wipes you are using are natural, easily gotten rid off, leaving no trace.

This is incredibly misleading.

And so, what to do?!  Well, re: baby wipes, I have written about this before.

I use an old takeaway tub or ice cream box.

I fill it half full with WATER (!!), add a tablespoon of olive oil and two drops of either lavender or tea tree essential oil.

Olive oil is a moisturiser for your baby’s bott and also helps wipe gooey poo off (especially the nightmare that is meconium!!  It is FAB for that :))

Lavender or tea tree essential oils are antiseptic (science fact, not hippy nonsense) and leave a lovely fresh, utterly harmless fragrance.

I then put about 10 or so washable, cotton cloths in the tub to get all moist and ready to use. You can get funky cloths from Amazon, or from cheekywipes:  Cheekywipes have 25 bamboo cloths for £13.50 and free delivery, which works out at about 54p a wipe.  ‘Disposable’ wipes are around £15 for 18 packs if you bulk buy, though you can frequently buy wipes for £1 a pack, making them about 1p a wipe.  Average 3 changes a day, 3 wipes a change = 9p on wipes every day.  So after a week you could have saved the world 60-70 disposable wipes and exchanged them for your first reusable cloth.

After a month you could have saved 270 wipes and exchanged them for the price of 5 reusables.

Upscale this to 6 months and you would have thrown away 1620 wipes.  1620!  Jeez Louise, I can’t believe that.  And the cost of this would be the equivalent of your 25 reusable bamboo (actually biodegradable!) wipes and your essential oil.  And then you’re sitting pretty for the rest of your wipe-using life, which if you have more than one child can last for around 5/6 years.  So your lovely reusables, the (woohoo!) ‘WATER’, oil and essential oil will save you around…. *drum roll please*:

£178 – £250 per child

Which is LOADS on something you don’t need.  Imagine the reverse-marketing.  Pampers are saying to you, ‘WOW!  We have a product here that is not at all biodegradable, cannot be flushed down the toilet or reused, is nothing like water and might irritate your baby’s skin 🙂  A bargain at only £200 per child!’ 🙂 🙂 🙂

So…  Imagine you have to pay this outlay before you even have your baby.  £200!

And then imagine you have to dispose of them in your own garden!

Imagine 18000 wipes ‘degrading’ in your garden!  Per child!  Summer would SUCK.

Alternatively, see your neighbour who relies on reusable, bamboo wipes…  And washes them in the washing machine and so has nothing in their garden but grass.  And they paid around £30 for their lifestyle instead of £200.  Jealous, much?!

So, with that hugely emotive rhetoric I leave you, dear friends!  And I implore you from the bottom of my heart to leave the wipes on the shelf and make yourself a tub of actually water-based, reusable, BIO-degradable, earth friendly, bamboo wipes for your baby.  And tell your friends.  And show off the funky designs on them.  And then, when your babies are grown you can use them to clean your bathroom.  And then, when they are old and need retiring they will go back to nature, naturally.

I know it hurts to hear that wipes are, er, crap.  Big hugs.  And actually, it is ok to use wipes if you need to.  I do, because, like you, I am human.  I use my bamboo as much as I can but sometimes I fail, or need a pack of wipes in my bag when I am out or need a quick clean of my bathroom because I don’t have my cloths quickly enough to hand.

I get it.  I just want to share information, for knowledge is power 🙂

xx

Soapnuts: The Results! They’re NUTS!

And so, onwards and upwards!

I know you have all been checking in hourly to see what I have to say about me soapnuts.  Well…

They work.

I know, I don’t believe it either.  I know that washing powder in machines lasts for a bit so would positively affect the washing success of the soapnuts.  But I have done 7 washloads now, with sports kit, uniform, muddy dog towels, pants and socks and duvet covers.  It is truly marvellous.  I am still skeptical though!  It’s just so weird.  I mean, NUTS.

So, so far my findings are thus:

• Smell?  The soapnuts do have a funny smell when the clothes come out of the washer.  It is not a smell I have ever smelt before and I don’t really like it, personally.  BUT when the clothes have dried – air dried or tumble dried – they smell completely fresh and clean.  Not like Ecover, which had a smell in trying not to have a smell.  These clothes genuinely smell fine and dandy.  we have worn our normal clothes and noticed no difference.  The test is if duvet covers smell soapnutty (not great), and if sports clothes genuinely are clean.
• Dispersal?  You put the nut shells in a cotton drawstring bag and pop that in the drum with your washing.  I thought they might fall out and then disintegrate all over the washing but they stay in the bag, it’s easy peasy.  You take the bag out with the washing and then put the shells in your compost pot.  (I LOVE this bit, it feels very awesome.)  The bag you leave to dry – it came with 3 cotton bags which is fab.
•   Feel?  I tumble dry my clothes which makes them soft anyway.  We don’t use fabric softener (sniff, I miss it) or any other stuff.  But I have to say that the soapnuts have honestly, honestly, made our clothes softer than ever.  The duvet cover is glorious!
• Family thoughts?  The family don’t know, they haven’t noticed and so the nuts are doing good.  My husband is particularly fastidious about his washing and general smelliness so this is a very interesting result indeed.
• Sustainability?  They are from a sustainable source.  I was wondering if we all started buying them what would happen to the poor soapnut (er, trees?  Bushes?  Plants.  Oh dear.  See how I have moved from being an ignorant consumer of one product to another?!  The shame) but all is well.  I think.

General Comments?  Well so far I have no reason not to be sold onto the idea.  But we have yet to test some aspects of it and the old washing powder could be affecting the soapnuts’ efficacy.  So I am still skeptical!  I mean, really.  They are nuts.  BUT what this does do is shift your sense of ‘normal’, which is what this project is all about really.  I am not sure if I will ever feel normal using nuts to do my laundry (!) but I do feel that it is odd and unpleasant that we do use washing powders that are such strong chemicals.  They even have huge warnings on the box about how they might irritate your skin and eyes.  We just totally accept this.  It’s not just normal, but if we were asked we would probably think it was a necessary evil.  Now an alternative is possible the tacky powder feel, the way you have to wash your hands after putting on a wash so you don’t accidentally ingest or spread the chemicals and strength of the smell seem questionable.  Should we really be using it if we don’t have to?  The answer is almost certainly no.

So why do we?

Detergent and Bread

YUM!  Snarf, not really.  I just wanted to say that I have been GOOD today and, having run out of bread, I dusted off my breadmaker (literally) and shoved some ingredients in it.  Yes, I am making my own bread.

I know that being green means dumbing down in some respects.  I am also aware that baking ones own bread is often considered the preserve of those with a certain amount of leisure time.  But then again, it is only in a bread maker.  I am not arms deep in flour while bluebirds flit about my halo’d head.  There is metal and plastic and clunking.  However, I am becoming aware that a certain amount of plastic avoidance can only happen by not buying a certain product that ALWAYS comes in plastic.  Bread is particularly frustrating because even the bakery bread comes in paper bags with plastic windows 😦  As of yet I haven’t sourced/made an alternative bag to put said bread in.  And anyway, I have a breadmaker.  So I am baking.

I have also, and I am very excited about this, bought some SOAPNUTS.  ‘What the…?’  I hear you saying.  I am also saying this too.  Here they are: soapnuts

Soapnuts are £8 for 1kg at biggreensmile.com at the moment.  This is 3p a wash, for 330 washes.  So that would last me, with two exercising adults, three kids and a spaniel, about 160 days (I do about 2 washes a day) which is 5 months!  Five months!  We usually get through a family box of persil a month – about £8 a month.  So this is the same as Persil running an advert saying buy one, get four free.  The £32 I would save over that period would easily fund my deodorant and soap that is more expensive than on the high street.  AND I love that these are easy to measure out, there cannot be any waste – you put in 5 nuts or 7 nuts.  (NUTS!)

This is the info on Ecozone (a brand) soapnuts as sold on the biggreensmile website:

“Ecozone Soap Nuts are economical and effective, they save you money by replacing washing detergents.

The 300g organic cotton bag holds enough soap nuts for 100 washes which is an average of 5p per wash.

• Organic

• Allergy free laundry detergent

• Hypo-allergenic

• Totally biodegradable

• Works in all types of washing machines

Soap nuts have been used for thousands of years as a natural washing detergent by people native to both Asia and the Americas. Also known as Soap Berries the soap nuts grow on trees of the sapindus genus and are a source of Saponin a natural surfactant which cleans and freshens your clothes. Soap nuts are gentle on your clothes, colours stay brighter for longer, whilst effectively removing dirt.

How to use

Soap nuts are easy to use.
1. Put the required amount of soap nuts into the small bag provided and tie tightly.
2. Place laundry in the machine with the soap nuts on top and run your normal program
3. At the end of the wash remove the bag of soap nuts and allow to dry. These can be re used.

For lightly soiled clothes use 3-5 nuts
For Heavily soiled clothes 4-6 nuts
For hard water areas you should use 7 nuts

(100 washes)”

NUTS!  I have no idea, but they are sold on Amazon too and have 4.5star reviews from hundreds of people.  See: Soapnuts on Amazon

I bought them from Amazon because I am wicked at my actual core and don’t care about workers rights and stuff (Ok I do really, I am human though and I had other stuff to get that yes, I should have gone into town and bought from my independent local seller but I didn’t because, because, because…)

So watch this space people.  Keep checking.  I will inform you on the utility and effectiveness of my soapnuts when I get them 🙂

Laters!

Trying to Do Good: The Contradictions

Holy hellup.  This is a snapshot of my kitchen counter tonight:

Now, hold your judgy-ness on our scran – I have barely stopped today, the kids are back at school tomorrow, I love pizza and chips bla bla take your pick (see, I am normal) 😉  But here we have the contradictions of Trying to be Good.  On the one hand, dinner comes out of plastic packets.  ‘Whitby Scampi’ a new product on offer – blathers all over the oh-so-funky Jamie-Oliveresque packaging about how it is actually ‘langoustine’, or even lobster; how it is sustainably sourced and is packaged right here in the UK (in Whitby no less).  But doesn’t even attempt to be shite-packaging free.  It isn’t even vaguely recyclable.  All the other snobby, faddy boxes ticked though, bravo Whitby Scampi (lobster).  Totally missing the point that THERE WILL BE NO LOBSTER when their new spangly packaging is filling the sea.

And then the chips, obvs.  Now, I could make my own chips from potatoes packaged in plastic but I ate my potatoes yesterday so I can’t right now.  And pizza, always in the plastic 😦  (No I don’t home-make pizza right now and if you think I should you are missing the whole point of this anutritious but convenient and tasty meal.)  But then we have my efforts!  We always buy free-range eggs and compost the cardboard (YEAH!  Am feelin’ good) and yesterday I bought myself a wee pot of thyme.  It comes in a plastic pot (sigh) but at least that is reusable.  I am not a gardener but I bought this wee pot so I can have a constant, free and plastic-free use of herbs.  I often buy herbs on the spot, ‘freshly cut’ in those plastic packets.  It seems really sad that they put lovely smelly herbs in a plastic packet and, actually, I have only just realised that.  But I shall not buy them any more!  Oh no.  I have my own supply :).  DOUBLE YEAH!

Now, if only I can stop my husband coming home with baby wipes we don’t even need, clothing the baby’s bottom in plastic nappies and buying ‘Whitby Scampi’.  I do not judge him though or get cross.  He is a fantastic example of plastic blindness.  He LOVES my efforts to reduce plastic in our lives, he is massively supportive.  And yet he buys unnecessary plastic items not because he is bad or stupid or lazy but because he doesn’t see the plastic.  They’re just ‘wipes’ or ‘food’ or whatever else.  I think he/we sees the product inside, not the awful rest of it.  And this is ok.  As I have said numerous times before, seeing the plastic is the first step.  Noticing it in your bin, in your fridge, in your hands and on your baby’s bum.  Noticing it suffocating your herbs to actual awful death (too much?!).  Noticing it on your wanders in the parks and woods and beaches, in your kids school playground… noticing, noticing.

And so we are all at different stages in our anti-plastic journeys.  And that is ok too 🙂

Courage, comrades!