Reduce plastic waste :: PlasticLess.com

The Columbus Washboard Company has an awesome website. It makes me happy. There is only one aspect of their business that makes me sad. They are the ONLY washboard manufacturing company left in the USA.

Clothes washing is a chore that is automated for the vast majority of people living in America and other developed countries. For many people, going green in the laundry room means buying big appliances that use less water and electricity than their old ones. They might also choose soaps or detergents that pollute less and come in sustainable packaging. Washing all your clothing by hand sounds like absolute madness.

When we moved to a developing country, we were a bit surprised to find that our options for furnished accommodation did not include washing machines. We were very surprised to find that it is in fact humanly possible to do all your laundry by hand. When we decided that we staying long term, we bought a twin tub washer spinner. It is, unfortunately, a very big hunk of plastic (I never claimed to be perfect). I am able to effectively reuse gray water from the laundry for toilet flushing and watering the garden (non-food).

I had my eyes peeled for a washboard during the weeks that we were hand washing. There was still a washboard in use when I was growing up. It was mostly for socks. My mom insisted on us washing our own stinky sports socks. Washboards are popular with the Amish and with soldiers. If you are planning to make some changes in your laundry procedure for the sake of the environment, give the old scrub board some consideration. Automatic washing machines don’t do anything magical, they just move your clothes around in some soapy water, remove the soapy water, rinse and repeat. Washboards are obviously labor intensive, but you could consider the chore to be part of your fitness regime. There’s probably a piece of equipment at the gym that simulates the main action required to wash socks on a washboard. I don’t know if it targets your abs.

Washboards work well with bar soap. Some people are moving to laundry soap in bar form to avoid excess packaging.

A lot of other household tools and gadgets disappeared for good when the avocado colored appliances landed on our planet back in the 70s. The washboard managed to hang on partly because it was in demand for alternate uses like musical percussion and decoration. It is also really useful.

Photo credit: Robert Couse-Baker

Update: The question of drying clothes came up in the comment section and I mentioned wringers. I realized later that many people aren’t backwoodsy and ancient like me so they might wonder what I am talking about. Here is a photo, I am pretty sure they aren’t due for a comeback.

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I was going to create a post that was addressed to DEVO and asked that they stop wearing their silly plastic hats. Then I realized that they are irrelevant. At about the same instant, my horribly song-tagged head underwent a kind of metamorphosis whereby it was no longer tagged with the original song. It now contained the song as a Swiffer commercial.

Gadgety household cleaning tools sell well because people generally hate the job for which they are intended. Advertisers feed on needs and wants. We all need to use something to clean our floors (at least once in a while). We all want an easier way to clean our floors. My experience has been that gadgetry doesn’t cut it. I am suspicious that the convention of having a broom closet came into being so that we could hide all of these ineffectual impulse purchases from view. It goes without saying that there is a lot of plastic waste involved in this cleaning gadgetry. I really hate those plastic covered metal handles that seem like they are designed to rot to pieces within a year.

Big commercial machines like the ones that I have seen in use in airports and hospitals do a good fast job, but that would be overkill for our little home. These machines are not a very green choice either.

We have tile floors. This is the norm for much of Southern Europe and Northern Africa. The way we clean our floors is described on the English speaking internet as the French way. We push a wet rag around the floor with a broom. To be more accurate we buy what we call floor cloths. These are thick and absorbent and just the right size. One will hold up for about a months worth of cleaning on a smooth tile floor. If I had a new one, I would post a picture. The one we are using isn’t very photogenic.

Natural broom bristles on a broom like this one are made from fibers harvested from palm trees. That was news to me.

Everybody knows what corn brooms are made from… that’s right… Sorghum. If you are shopping for a corn broom, consider getting one that is produced on your own continent to reduce the carbon footprint. Mexico is a producer, but China is flooding the market with cheap brooms.

Sidenote: If you are ever planning a costume that involves headgear, reuse helmets or safety hats rather than making something from scratch.

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They say that no good deed goes unpunished. I don’t have any scientific data, but I am of the opinion that using fewer chemicals for household chores results in more clogged drains. I could very well be wrong. I have made so many changes in my life over the past few years including moving house several times. It was only fairly recently that we started using vinegar and baking soda followed by some hot water to open up sluggish drains. If you haven’t tried this before, I highly recommend it. It works and you can easily obtain the key ingredients in plastic free packaging. The Good Human wrote a succinct guide to this eco-friendly method two years ago.

Effective advertising has led many of us to associate clogged drains with Draino. It comes in a plastic jug. In the past, advertisers advised people to put this stuff down their drains regularly as a preventative measure (now why would they do that?)

Photo Credit: StacyA

Recognizing a slow drain early and treating it immediately is important if you are going to rely on vinegar, baking soda and hot water. They do not dissolve everything in their path the way Draino will. They do a good job of shaking up the typical matrix of fatty substances, bacteria and vegetable matter that lurks in the kitchen drain and they are often enough to send the soapy hairball on its way in the bathroom drain. Sites like This Old House have advice on how to physically unclog all sorts of drains.

Establishing who is responsible for the physical removal of hair from tub drains is an important milestone in any relationship and the having no hair on your head does not mean that it is not your job.

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Green used to mean money.

More recently, green has come to mean environmentally responsible.

Once enough consumers started shopping with the environment in mind, there is an ever increasing overlap. Companies are falling all over themselves appealing to concerned consumers.

The term Greenwashing is about 20 years old and these days it appears that the majority of marketing is guilty of this practice. Some of it is easy to recognize, like British Petroleum’s transformation to Beyond Petroleum.

Other misleading or irrelevant marketing may fool even the smart people. I am still undecided about the hosting company that professes to use solar and wind power. I am not naming it because of my indecision. I bought their marketing hook line and sinker and I even joined an affiliate program because I planned to talk it up on my blog. When I sat down to do the serious research on the company, I found a lot of negative word of mouth. They are either a very mediocre web hosting company that decided to greenwash as a way to attract a niche market OR a legitimately green web hosting company that is tragically lacking in customer service and reliability. Either way, I am not recommending them.

I think that one of the catch 22s of green marketing is the fact that many environmentally conscious individuals are skeptical of ALL marketing. If you create a product that sells itself by virtue of its greenness, you have it made. Otherwise, you have to market to people very carefully.

The FTC has some pretty clear policies when it comes Environmental Marketing Claims. Other agencies and organizations have some very strict rules and auditing procedures for companies that want to call their products organic.

Organic is practically a brand. It is instantly recognized as a good thing and it has a lot of brand loyalty. This is a good thing for people with something truly organic to sell. Unfortunately, there is a lot of counterfeit Organic on the market. That’s where third party auditing and certifying comes in. It is an added cost and inconvenience for business, but it is necessary.

Scot Case, president of Terra Choice Environmental Marketing Inc., recently told a journalist that buyers need to do their homework and check out a company’s environmental track record when it comes to green products.

Sources for this post:Palm Beach Post, FTC Website

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I have been living in furnished apartments and houses for several years. This means that I have often been using the plastic things that my landlord chose to supply. My most recent move was to what must be the least furnished of the four different places in question. Rather than a plastic garbage can, I found that there was no garbage can. Rather than a plastic dish drainer I found that there was no dish drainer.

The garbage can required quick thinking. A moving box had to fill in for the first evening. The next day, I found a store that sells used metal containers. I bought the perfect sized metal canister for the equivalent of about two bucks. I made a handle on the top using a wine cork and a screw.

The dish drainer hasn’t presented itself yet. Stainless steel drainers are available, but they are expensive and the ones that I have seen in the shops are Chinese and not that sturdy looking. We have been resorting to using a towel on top of the drain board. It works, but it precludes leaving the dishes to air dry. I am thinking about building a simple version of the IKEA drainer pictured here…

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I have a dislike of plastic buckets from way back before I had an issue with plastic in general. It started back when I was still on the farm back in Canada. Water expands when it freezes. Plastic buckets crack when they are full of freezing water.

I can understand why the plastic bucket has become the default choice. They are lightweight and inexpensive. I only know a of a few niche markets where other buckets still rule. The horsey crowd all know about rubber buckets. They are durable and safe and they don’t crack when they are left in the freezing cold with water in them. A metal bucket is the only choice for emptying ashes from the fireplace or wood stove.

Plastic buckets are on my mind because I think I am going to have to buy one tomorrow. Plastic dominates the market to such a degree that it hard to find any alternatives.

One great alternative to buying a new plastic bucket is to find sources of used buckets. The fair trade coffee roastery that I worked for saves up buckets and buckets of used coffee grounds for a vegetable farmer to use as compost. They get empty vegetable oil containers from local restaurants. Empty 20 liter ice cream containers can come in handy too, although they don’t usually have a handle. I don’t usually highlight the ‘reuse’ portion of the three Rs, but it’s a lot more viable than reducing in this case.

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This blog is about reducing our personal consumption of plastic. So far, it has been a hodgepodge of old ideas and new ideas. Old ideas can make a lot of sense, most of the time. Plastic has only become a ubiquitous part of our lives in the last few generations. Before that, other materials were doing just fine at meeting our needs… or were they?

You need to be very cautious about antique items that contain dangerous materials like lead and mercury. I would suggest a ‘better safe than sorry” approach with regards to old cookware, utensils and serving dishes. Even decorative antiques can pose health risks. Looking into the issue of lead poisoning was very depressing for me. I did not know that a proposed ban on lead paint went before the US House of Representatives in 1910 and that it took 68 years before the Consumer Product Safety Commission eventually banned it. Over 4000 tonnes of lead paint had been slapped on walls and toys and various other things in the interim.

I wonder if the push and pull related to chemicals leaching from plastic drinking containers will drag on that long? Actually, I am certain that it will not. Things move faster in the information age. Several companies removed products containing Bisphenol A as soon as the issue started making headlines. Interestingly, I think the scandal about lead in products made in China may has sensitized the media and consumers in such a way as to catalyze the reaction to Bisphenol A.

Another depressing issue involves the modern low watt light bulb. Al Gore et al. want to ban incandescent light bulbs in homes. The present alternative is a CFL that contains mercury. They also contain more plastic than a typical incandescent bulb.

Proponents of these efficient bulbs say that the fact that they contain more hazardous materials and the fact that they take more energy to produce are more than offset by the energy savings. I am worried about the environmental impact of their production because they are presently made in China. I am also worried about the mercury. There have been advances, with some bulbs having 1/5 the amount of mercury of typical CFLs.

I have personal experience with cheap CFLs that did not have the long life that is touted by their promoters. The answer might be higher standards. Right now, they are trying to compete with standard light bulbs. When legislation kicks in this will be less of an issue.

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I visited Ireland this past weekend and when I stopped for a Fair Trade Organic Coffee at a shop in Dalkey, I had a small disappointment and also some inspiration. I was sitting down in the store to have my coffee and I would have preferred to drink from a reusable cup rather than a disposable one with a plastic lid. I saw a poster at the till touting their refill program for things like toilet cleaner and shampoo. While we enjoyed our coffee, we discussed the possibility of starting a program like this ourselves. There are a lot of benefits to this type of program besides waste reduction. If you source the most environmentally responsible products possible for each purpose, you may be reducing the amount of toxic chemicals that are going down you local drains.

Something that I found been produced and consumed quite profusely in Ireland were spoken words. Opinions, narratives, arguments, philosophies and more were almost overwhelming me while I was in Dublin. When I was researching this post, I landed on this wordy page about the UberGrocer. Words are not biodegradable.

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I jokingly suggested this product as an alternative to a squirt gun last week. I should make a serious pitch for using metal buckets instead of plastic for general chores and gardening.

Having tried both plastic and metal for pet dishes in the past, I can assure you that metal is better in every way. They make a lot of noise if your dog has a chain, but you get used to that. I loved the fact that you could pour boiling water on them as a regular sanitizing routine.

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Pump dispensers for hand washing liquid are generally plastic. We still have a couple of these dispensers from before we decided to make an effort to reduce our use of plastics.

Buying commercial size refill bags is one way to reduce plastic consumption and still use the convenient dispensers. This week we are trying out an experiment. My wife saves up a few thin soap bars and dissolved them in water to make a liquid for the empty dispenser.

I have been asked about what soap I use for shaving my face. I am still using up a metal can of shaving foam. I think I will try using bar soap when I finish the can.

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