Did you know that according to world waste facts every year we dump 2.12 billion tons of waste? And 99 percent of the stuff we buy is trashed within 6 months. On average U.S. households throw out 70 pounds of textiles annually, which take 40 years to break down. Some of the longest lasting items like diapers and plastic bags can take 450 years to break down (glass bottles supposedly take one million years).
How can we reduce our waste? Take a look in your garbage cans. What common themes do you notice? In our house it was food packaging, food scraps, paper towels, plastic bags, and personal care stuff like facial tissues and feminine products. Our recycling bin is filled mostly with food packaging, paper and cardboard. Once I saw that I knew where we could best focus our attention to have the largest impact.
By swapping out a few single-use products for some multi-use products and reading our other blog post for more simple ideas for reducing waste, you can have impact without cramping your style.
Here are our favorite waste reduction products (and they aren't paying us to say this):
1. Stasher bags
Stasher bags are dishwasher safe, oven and freezer friendly, these handy silicone bags can be used in lieu of disposables. Spendy but worth it. These also allow us to pack lunches, picnics, and on-the-go snacks without using single-portion packaging.
2. Reusable straws
My kids love reusable straws. We have normal-sized metal ones and jumbo smoothie straws.
3. Countertop composting
We use this stainless steel compost bin to store scraps until we get them in our outdoor compost bin. It has held up well and keeps smells contained. However, my Christmas list has this countertop composting appliance on it. Hoping the family will take a hint and I'll see it under the tree someday.
4. Reusable tissues
The thought of reusable facial tissues kind of grossed us out until we saw this solution. You pull fresh tissues from the bottom side and then put used tissues in the top of the case. There is a divider inside that separates the clean from the dirty. Then you just throw the dirties in the wash, fold 'em, and put them back in. Doable for kids, pocket friendly, diaper bag friendly, nose friendly, planet friendly...who knew boogers could be so friendly?
5. Reusable paper towels
We admittedly haven't tried these reusable paper towels yet but are intrigued by the idea and exploring options.
6. Thinx period underwear
With periods causing us ladies to burn through disposable pads and tampons each month, Thinx period underwear can be used to supplement or replace disposables.
They are great for all types of flows. One tester that typically used one tampon every two hours on her heaviest days was able to switch to only two pair of Thinx throughout the entire day. And wearing Thinx at night means you don't worry about leakage from a shifting pad or long duration tampon.
Do you have some favorites? We'd love to hear about them! Please post your tried and true waste reducers.
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