A Zero Waste Dump

Table of Contents

This was originally written in September 2019 and some parts may be out of date.

Preface

This is a compilation of research into zero waste! It’s a work in progress but it contains the important information.

A note on finding reputable sources: a lot of this stuff is gleaned from zero-waste bloggers who generally do a great job, but are also being supported by products, and potentially aren’t always going to be finding the best resources for their information, or don’t have practice reading science papers, or whatever. For some areas, there just aren’t great science-backed evidence of best practices (making it a really interesting area to explore). I tried to find back-up sources for as much as I could. Parsing similar (but often slightly differing) information from a lot of different sources was one of the main challenges of this project.

Some FYIs– it’s probably obvious but these things are merely suggestive, it’s kind of a take-what-you-will and back-burner what you can’t (yet/right now/ever). I don’t practice all of these things (yet), but we’ve used our recent move as a jumping off point for shaking up a lot of old habits. Also, you may need to experiment with what you like doing and what works for you. You can always change up your habits, and there are lots of new zero-waste options coming out all the time as better materials are worked on, and as new research is done.

I was personally surprised to find that as I introduced a lot of this stuff in my own life, a lot of things started to become simpler. It’s like a weird, “things get more complicated for them to get simpler” type of thing. We often seem to be over-educated in the so-called necessities of life (capitalism and consumerism and all that).

I would highly recommend you take a look at the articles I’ve linked throughout; if you think it might be easier I can also compile those sources into a list. Fuck, it’s hard to stay informed.

Hope you enjoy and find something useful, and let me know what you think.

Introduction

We all know plastic is bad for the environment—it leaches chemicals and decomposes really slowly, and now China is no longer accepting plastic recycling, so most of it is ending up in the landfill. Unfortunately often even when we recycle plastic it ends up in the landfill anyway. A lot of plastics that seem like they should be recyclable aren’t, like most colored plastics, such as the ones used for most self-care products. Plastic is in our clothes, it packages most of our food, etc. So the primary goal is to move away from plastic, toward things that compost (cardboard, natural fibers) and things that don’t leach nasty stuff and are way more reusable/recyclable (glass and metals). Here’s an article that compares glass and plastic. Generally, it seems like metal is easier to recycle than glass.

Really this all stems from the same habit: beginning by recognizing the materials we are buying, the industries we are supporting by it, seeking out the sources of where our stuff comes from, and trying to find ethical, sustainable alternatives. Checking ourselves when we throw something in the garbage, to learn about what and how we’re consuming.

To stress something that kind of sucks: much of the processes by which our stuff gets to us is invisiblized to us, and thus it’s hard to know it’s true impact. Along the supply chain are numerous opportunities for producers to create waste and use potentially dangerous chemicals. There are few completely ethical alternatives, which will probably be highlighted throughout. All we can really do is make decisions that seem the best to us, with the information we have; and we’re living in a system that obscures unethical and bad environmental practices, so all we can really do is the best we can.

Also (and I’m aware I’m probably preaching to the choir here) while there are big overlaps between zero-waste practices and decreasing carbon emissions, and I’m really excited to think and talk about that more, obviously at this point individual action is not enough, and in fact was never going to be enough, because individuals aren’t the one’s producing most of the emissions. According to a study of the most effective things individuals can do, the best things are “Have one less child”, Don’t have a car and fly less (or don’t fly), buy green energy, and eat a plant-based diet (the meat industry being a massive producer of greenhouse gases). Most of the zero-waste stuff would probably fall into the “moderate effect” category. Still, it’s not negligible, and by talking about it and getting excited about it, it definitely does make a difference. When one person takes on better habits, it affects the people around them. Normalizing living more ethical and environmentally conscious lives is huge, and every one person who does a little thing makes it that much easier for the next person to do another little thing. Take on the easiest things first; you can always build up with time.

Clothes

From what I’ve read, buying used is probably the best thing you can do. Clothes that aren’t made of natural fibers (like wool, hemp, silk, linen, cotton) are made from synthetic fibers (polyester, nylon, rayon) derived from plastic or petroleum, and they tend to shed tiny bits of plastic that we aren’t able to filter out during the water filtration process. So they end up in the ocean, where they are consumed by sea animals, and they also end up infiltrating our food. Natural fibers are able to decompose much faster, and are less harmful to the environment when they do so. (That being said, even a lot of natural fibers have high energy production that is itself detrimental to the environment, especially cotton, which uses a ton of water and pesticides. If you want vegan, wool and silk aren’t options either. Brightly colored, non-natural dyes can also be chemical-ly and environmentally detrimental).

A couple articles on the environmental and ethical impacts of clothing:

It’s kind of a trade off for a lot of this stuff. Even if you buy used, it might still be better to look for natural fabrics, because micro plastics are released when we wash clothes. (Used clothes will still release less, having been washed prior.) Line-drying your clothes is a good option as well since drying tends to break clothes down faster, and use of dryers is the greater energetic contributor of the process. You may have heard of fast fashion, the tendency to make clothes as cheaply as possible and sell them as cheaply as possible, so that they are essentially disposable from season to season. This obviously creates a huge amount of waste and there are detrimental factors on both sides of production: fast fashion companies usually underpay their workers in developing countries and their working conditions are bad and often unsafe.

When we get rid of clothes we’ve hardly worn, often we try to donate, which may be a little better for the environment than sending them to the landfill, but if you donate to most large companies like Goodwill, most of that clothing is only on the rack maybe a month before they ship it to developing countries-primarily countries in Africa–and undersell the local producers there, which has detrimental effects on their economies (yay for globalization, hey—also the reason why Toms is an unethical business model). So it’s good to buy used, but it’s also good to keep clothes as long as you possibly can before donating them. Try to buy things that last, and try not to be bitten by new fashion bugs (it’s so hard). It’s a hard call. In regard to climate change, the fashion industry produces 10% of total carbon emissions globally1 (which is fucking huge), which apparently is more than the airline industry (at around 2.5%, but growing rapidly2).

The Adam Ruins Everything podcast has a good episode about fast fashion; it’s more about the human aspect than environmental.

Personally, I’m trying to get more used to upkeeping what I have–finding places that will mend my clothes (this is usually pretty cheap, only around $10 to fix a hole). You can get shoes mended as well. Getting soles replaced can be a bit pricey (I recently spent $75 on this) but I think it’s worth it for a nice pair of shoes.

Bottom line, try not to buy things you’ll only wear for a season or a year. Try to buy things that last. Try to imagine yourself wearing things for years to come. (My favorite quote from Paris-to-go’s instagram: “Is this something my potential future children, Kombucha and Aquafaba, would want to wear?”) It’s honestly so difficult to get away from fast fashion and trendiness mentalities. I’m still trying to find a perfect wardrobe where I don’t feel I need anything else; but I’m also trying to be satisfied with what I have.

FYI, I think furniture has a similar extremely fast turnover; the IKEA machine and all that. Luckily furniture is often easy to reuse and give away, but it’s a good thing to be aware of.

Summary

Food

SO much of our food comes in single-use plastics. A lot of this is probably pretty common sense stuff, and once you’re on the lookout and are used to it it gets easier; really it’s just a lot of thinking about what the lifecycle of the stuff you’re buying is going to be. Even if it’s in recyclable plastic, a lot of that doesn’t actually get recycled.

An easy common thing is to take reusable bags to the supermarket, and especially try not to use the single-use plastic bags they provide for produce (we’ve saved up a stock of plastic bags and reuse them over and over). You can get reusable produce bags at most health foods stores, or online.

Try to get bulk items as much as possible, and bring your own containers to collect them if you can— whatever works, but aim to transition to glass and stainless steel. At our supermarket, they just need to know the weight of the container. The first time they tared our empty containers for us, and then we went and filled up. A lot of places have pasta, grains, beans etc. in bulk. If you can find a bakery where you can ask for the bread in paper or in your own bag that’s a good option; grocery stores will often be willing to give you a hunk of un-packaged cheese, if you ask, so you can put it directly into your own container. You might have success with this at farmer’s markets. Here’s a blog post on zero-waste dairy.

If you buy something packaged (it feels like it’s often just unavoidable), try to use that item sparingly, and buy a larger amount. Often at health food stores you can find bulk herbs and spices as well, and possibly bulk oils and vinegars. A quick search on zero waste food gives tons of resources on how to navigate this transition. One aesthetically pleasant one: https://www.litterless.com/tag/food-and-drink.

Try to buy things in cardboard, paper, glass, and metal containers; reuse if possible. Even reusing single-use items once makes a little bit of a difference (this whole thing seems to be a practice in finding the effects of little things).

Buying local probably reduces emissions somewhat in travel time, and is good for bolstering the local economy, and gets you in tune with what foods are in season in your area, and often comes with less packaging, both in the way you get it and in the delivery process. Honestly I would like to do more research into ethical food consumption, haven’t really looked into it yet. If you have any resources you like on it let me know.

If you go to a restaurant, try to bring a reusable container with you to scoop your leftovers into. Try not to get takeout (this one is hard for us, we really love our takeout). Bring a reusable cup to the coffee shop; ask for your pastry without a disposable bag. I feel like this probably goes without saying, but don’t buy plastic bottles of water. You can also do the cute, cheap thing with the mason jar. Get a cute lid. Get a cute metal straw. So cute. Make a cute koozy to protect your cute hands. (amidst all the ridiculous Ball jar adverts this is the simplest design I could find.)

Compost if you can. We don’t have city-wide composting in Somerville, but nearby Cambridge does, and even has some drop off sites, so we take our compost there. There are also private companies, but they might be a little pricey. We would try to compost in a backyard if we had one (My parents have been doing this for years—my dad always has a “worm bin” where he adds earthworms to help break the food down faster. Then they use it on their garden.)

Unfortunately food that ends up in the landfill gets so compacted that it can’t decompose because it doesn’t have access to oxygen. Instead, it ends up giving off methane fumes, which is a potent greenhouse gas, so composting is important (other random things like cardboard, paper towels, dust from sweeping and vacuuming, and animal hair are also usually compostable). Look up your city’s guidelines on what is compostable. You can store compost in the fridge or freezer in order to prevent it smelling/going bad before it gets picked up.

You can also reuse some food scraps–citrus peels can be added to homemade cleaners to make smell nice and add antibacterial and cleaning quality, and it can also be used to clean cutting boards. A lot of vegetable food scraps can be boiled in water to make a good vegetable stock for soups, including things like onion peels, and you end up feeling like you’ve really extracted a lot of nutrients. There are tons of recipes for this out there, and it’s really very straightforward: This is a list of foods that can go into stock and a link to the recipe for it.

I don’t know if this categorically fits here but I also started carrying around a cloth napkin made from an old t-shirt, to use when I’m out (I’d like to switch to like an actual nice like handkerchief type thing eventually…). Even though napkins are compostable, compost often isn’t made readily available in public places. And I also use it for my snot.

Summary

House/Cleaning

Making your own cleaning supplies out of safe materials is a lot more environmentally safe than buying chemicals in single-use containers. We use just a mixture of 1/3 white vinegar, 2/3 water. This is basically an all purpose cleaner. We put it in old spray bottles (and when those stop working we’ll switch over to a glass bottle) and use it on everything. You can add essential oils or citrus peel to make smell nice/add a cleaning boost, but we don’t because we have cats. If you can find vinegar in bulk that would be cool, though I haven’t seen it yet—we buy a big jug. There’s also a section of bulk refill cleaning supplies at our supermarket, and there’s a bulk store that opened recently that seems pretty awesome—if you can find something like that near where you live, you can get things like dishwashing soap, laundry detergent, and cleaners in mason jars, which have lid attachments.

Get laundry detergent in cardboard (probably powder) if you can to avoid the plastic container. You can also make your own laundry detergent (this is one recipe, I’m sure there are tons of variations. A challenge in making your own is then having to source all those materials). I’ve started hand-washing the occasional pair of underwear, socks, or a sports bra to lengthen the time between laundry loads; it’s very easy to use a little bar soap or Castile soap, scrub the garment, and then rinse with water a couple times and hang dry (smaller items are easiest). My other clothes, besides workout clothes, rarely need to be washed if I maintain them, and keep my own self clean, and remember to wear deodorant. Don’t wash your clothes unless they stinky.

Try to buy kitchen tools and cleaning brushes made of stainless steel or wood, rather than plastic. Consider switching to reusable rags instead of paper towels—you can generally just throw them in the wash, or wash and rinse them with dish or Castile soap, sometimes soaking or boiling in vinegar to sterilize them. If you do use paper towels, they are compostable usually if you don’t use them with toxic chemicals. You can cut rags out of old shirts, too—thicker, older, 100% cotton without much stretch is best I think.

There’s a ton of great info on this. I particularly like this post.

Summary

Body Care

This is a hard one because there are so many products out there we like and often feel we need. I probably am more lax about a lot of self-care stuff than most people, and I understand a lot of people probably have a higher bar of cleanliness (lol). But consider questioning what you need here (and everywhere); it’s very easy to be convinced, by advertising and what we’ve been taught and told all our lives, that we need a lot of things that aren’t actually crucial and might even be detrimental to our health. The chemicals used in products in beauty and body care are very poorly regulated (this article is great, and also go into the effects of sunscreen on coral), and many are not safe for marine life (and maybe our lives as well). It pays to be very suspicious about your body and beauty products. And besides, the simplification is sometimes surprising and pleasurable.

Body

Bar soap is nice because you can often buy it loose, with no packaging. If you want a body wash, try to find one in a glass jar (though the cap/pump is usually not recyclable), or buy in bulk if you can find it. I only use soap on my body, not on my face. You could probably use olive or coconut oil as a body moisturizer. I basically never use any moisturizer on my body.

Face

Soap is often too drying and too alkaline for the face (skin likes a slightly acidic environment), hence the popularity of cleansers; from a lot of what I’ve read (having bad acne for much of my youth I’ve done just fuckall tons of reading on skincare), anything harsh, oil-stripping, and over-exfoliating just isn’t doing your skin any favors—which eliminates plenty of drugstore options. If your skin feels tight and dry and absolutely needs moisturizer or it’s going to shrivel up and die after cleaning it, it’s being stripped of its natural oils, which will eventually weaken and damage it. I use a konjac sponge, which is biodegradable, to gently clean and exfoliate once in a while (thanks Anna!), and usually just cleanse with water and a washcloth, or a milk cleanser that I probably shouldn’t have bought, and try to use sparingly. There’s a lot of sources out there on this, including on Trash is for Tossers. Trash is For Tossers is a blog that’s okay, but I don’t really like how product-pushing it is (seems reasonable to be suspicious of product-pushing zero-waste blogs, no?). Here’s a post on skin’s self-regulation properties, which also goes into oilcleansing, a potential less-waste option if you don’t want to go for just water.

Beyond that, if you want makeup, I think it’s pretty easy to make a surprising number of things yourself, or look to products that try to be ethical in their ingredients and packaging. Honestly I don’t know much about this; I’ve used the same beauty products for like five years and just haven’t run out. You can use olive oil as a makeup remover. I feel like I’ve heard French women don’t like concealer or foundation because they think it’s cute to “embrace their flaws” or something? usually I find “be like a Frenchperson” crap to be insufferable but that one’s kind of nice. Real skin texture is nice.

Here are some DIY recipes that seem cute but I haven’t tried.

Here’s a source for ordering environmentally conscious beauty products (and a lot of other stuff) with less packaging waste.

Hair

Alex and I don’t use shampoo or conditioner. Personally I find that that’s the best thing for my hair; using shampoo always makes it ridiculously poofy and then overly oily a day later. I use an apple cider vinegar and water mixture maybe once a week, and sometimes a little tea tree oil. Some people use baking soda, but that sounds pretty harsh, and it’s also alkaline, and I’m pretty sure could bleach your hair a bit. If I’m showering regularly, water actually does well on it’s own, with just scrubbing and brushing my hair. There’s a lot of blogs on this (wow big surprise), and a lot of people seem to really like the results (after the initial greasy period)—there’s not much science to it really, you just have to find your personal level of preference—reading a lot about other people’s experience helped me. Alex just stopped using anything and his hair is fine. Like there was no change, wtf. It’s a big ask though. Personally, since I’ve never had a ton of success with shampoo anyway, I think I’m actually able to maintain a more clean appearance this way, since my oiliness stays at a pretty consistent, lowish level. Less of my hair comes out in the shower. Consider a shampoo bar that you can buy with minimal to no packaging; I’ve heard people really like the Lush shampoo bars, and shampoo bars can also last a lot longer than a bottle of shampoo because you’re only sudsing up the minimum necessary amount—less waste of product.

There are some nice natural fiber brushes that compost at the end of their life, that have the added bonus of distributing the oils of your hair to the ends, which nylon bristles don’t do. Wooden combs also seem popular. Brushing your hair also helps to stimulate your scalp and physically cleans, brushing out dead skin, dust and dirt.

Teeth

Teeth are hard, because there are a lot of elements to tooth care and a lot of reasons why you don’t want to mess it up. Namely money, and having to get fillings.

Toothpaste

A lot of zero-waste people make their own toothpaste or tooth powder (like this one), usually using baking soda as a main ingredient. Some argue that baking soda is too harsh, but there’s been consistent research to suggest that baking soda is actually not even as harsh as conventional toothpastes3. The ADA doesn’t disapprove of using baking soda as an abrasive and cleaner, but they don’t advise using it alone, probably due to their enduring devotion to fluoride. Baking soda in toothpastes has been used for many years; I used a baking soda-based commercial toothpaste (Arm and Hammer I think) for a few years in high school and college, and didn’t experience any problems with it; no cavities during that run, and it didn’t do a terrible job at whitening, though it tasted, you know, baking soda-y. Though that’s just one anecdote. Regardless, it seems pretty safe to say it’s going to be no more abrasive than your average toothpaste, especially if it’s cut with something like bentonite clay or coconut oil.

Regarding fluoride, things continue to be kind of blurry. In this article from NBC, for example, the cited studies are just confusing; it’s trying really hard to put a positive spin on fluoride toothpaste, but the main studies it cites are on children, from the eighties, and only amounts to almost a thousand kids; and apparently there was no indication from these studies that brushing and flossing without fluoride helped at all. So, this would indicate we don’t need to brush our teeth at all, we could just kind of rub with fluoride? Which seems very counter to at least personal and generational experience? Or maybe I’m just brainwashed? And then it tries to backtrack on that and says there still might be a benefit to brushing? And then it says there’s a 2009 analysis involving 60,000 people that indicated a fluoride wash was just as effective as brushing with fluoride toothpaste. Which begs the question, why do we need to use fluoride toothpaste, if we are getting some form of a fluoride wash type of thing every time we drink fluoridated water? What level of fluoride constitutes a fluoride wash? Do we need to be doing fluoride washes, and have fluoridated water, and brush with fluoride? Because that seems intuitively excessive (Big Fluoride?).

Even if fluoride does help prevent cavities, at this point it seems unclear what method of delivery is best or even if there is a best. Moreover the article claims that fluoride was universally accepted as beneficial, and yet according to the survey there were apparently only three studies since the 50s amounting to fewer than a thousand children that acceptably test the question of whether brushing with fluoride is effective. It feels like it might be kind of a selective review… and feels like they just really really really want you to keep buying fluoridated toothpaste. From the other studies I’ve skimmed, it seems mostly just clear that yes, fluoride in some capacity helps prevent cavities and tooth decay. It’s hard to dig around in the papers that try to test what method of delivery is best, and I get the feeling a lot are backed by biased parties. And it’s late, and this is becoming kind of novel. I’m guessing the best thing for your teeth is just not to eat sugar and things that turn into sugar, like bread and starches. People have been brushing their teeth for thousands of years4, so I’m just going to bet on the fact that there’s some kind of benefit to it, even without the fluoride.

The real problem for us is, even if we want fluoride in the toothpaste, it’s hard to get it in a zero-waste, environmentally-conscious way. Tubes are usually plastic and non-recyclable, and toothpaste often contains a cocktail of other chemicals that are neither necessarily good for your body or the environment, triclosan5 and sodium lauryl sulfate6 among then. I think the worry here is more that there just isn’t enough regulation surrounding what goes into toothpaste, similar to cleaning supplies and beauty products.

As far as I can tell there are no toothpastes that contain fluoride and come in a recyclable container. Probably why diehard zero-wasters trend toward not using fluoridated toothpaste; there are homemade options as well as tooth powders and tablets that have other ingredients that are good for your teeth; some contain xylitol, which is a non-sugar sweetener that has been shown to be good at preventing cavities and dental decay7. David’s is one of the few tubes of toothpaste that are metal, but it’s fluoride free. I’ve tried to look for a fluoride wash in glass but that seems elusive as well. There are fluoride washes in plastic that at least are a little more recyclable than the tubes. Tom’s uses at least partially recycled materials, and is recyclable (along with other toothbrush tubes) through Terracycle, and says it’s free to sign up on the Terracycle website. I haven’t done this myself and I don’t know much about Terracycle, but that is a potential option, for all the fuss.

When my current tube runs out, I’ll probably just try making my own, or buy a low-waste non-fluoride toothpaste or powder and use it for six months and see how my teeth feel and what my dentist says. Some people just seem to have a tendency toward dental decay, and so have to use fluoride products, but some don’t seem to have this problem, and have no issues without fluoride; again, it’s just mostly a personal decision, you can experiment with it and decide on your own comfort level.

Floss

Floss is usually made of nylon, and neither recycles nor breaks down well. It is often small enough to slip through water filtration systems and gets into the ocean, where it has a tendency to throttle marine life. Not to mention its packaging is usually plastic, and usually not recycled.

There’s unreliable evidence of the effectiveness of flossing8, but this may be due to lack of research as opposed to real evidence that it’s ineffective. From personal experience, my gums seem a lot healthier when I floss regularly, so I’m going to keep doing it. The whole dental industry is pretty weird and shammy and unreliable scientifically, so really it feels like a tossup at this point. Apparently in Europe a lot of dentists don’t suggest flossing? I vaguely remember reading that somewhere?

There doesn’t seem to be a good vegan, compostable alternative to plastic-derived floss; some people use their own hair, which personally I don’t think I could do, and besides my hair’s too short. The best thing I’ve found is this, which I found at my local health store; it’s a silk floss. Silk isn’t the most pleasantly created substance; the silk worms are heavily domesticated, can’t function in the wild, and are dissolved in boiling water when they pupate to extract the silk9. How nice. However, it is compostable, and at this point it’s an unfortunate ethical choice we have to make. I’d rather take part in the silk industry than be putting out stringy bits of plastic.

Toothbrush

As far as I can tell most zero-waste people use Brush with Bamboo. I’ve used it before and it was fine, just as good as any old manual toothbrush. The wooden handle is compostable, the bristles are not; they might be technically recyclable but are probably too small and will just get lost, which seems to be the case for all the environment-conscious brushes I could find; you’ll probably do well with any brush so long as it’s made of wood and compostable, or if it uses recycled plastic and you can send it in to get recycled. If you use an electric toothbrush, you’re at least putting out less waste than using a disposable toothbrush, by only throwing out the head. It’s not ideal, but what can you do. Hopefully compostable bristles will be figured out soon.

Paris-to-go has her dental hygiene practices here, and there are many other zero-waste posts out there about tooth care.

Period

The menstrual cup is the main star of the show here. There’s definitely a learning curve, but it feels worthwhile—I think period waste was one of my main sources of consistent bathroom waste. And after I bought my three reusable pads and menstrual cup, I looked down and was like, shit. I might not have to buy more than this for a long time. It ended up feeling so much simpler than single-use items. Plus, you can often leave the cup in for twelve hours, and there’s far lower risk of toxic shock, making it a safer option than tampons.

You might have to try some different cups to find one you like. A lot of people seem to like the OG Diva Cup, it seems pretty reliable. Paris-to-go recommends the Mooncup because it’s vegan and fair trade, and uses post-consumer packaging. Litterless likes the Dot Cup because it doesn’t show stains (though I continue to be a little skeeved out by affiliate links. I get that it’s nice to make money but it makes me trust the recommendation a little less). I tried the XO Flo mini from GladRags and it kind of sucks, the little stem to pull it out broke after the first day. Other than that it still seems to work okay, save my slight panic about it being swallowed up (lol tmi? Though that’s never stopped me before. (It can’t actually get wholly swallowed though—your cervix is only so high, and it can’t get past that)). There’s a ton of good info on Put a Cup in It, a website that compares different cups and has a quiz you can take. They also have a lot of informative youtube videos about choosing, insertion, care, trouble-shooting, etc. You may have to try a couple different cups to find which one suits your shape, and some of them have return or refund policies. Even though I haven’t had the best experience with this first cup, I definitely don’t think I’m going back to disposable pads and tampons; even though my current cup isn’t perfect, I already prefer the ease of it, and even if I end up spending $50-$60 trying a few different cups it will still save a lot of money and waste in the future. Paris-to-go also goes into the question of silicone usage in zero-waste. (She says silicone is recyclable, but I’m pretty sure it’s not, at least in the States. Regardless, you’re hopefully using the thing for like ten years.)

A fun(ish) thing about the cups is that since they last forever and you can reuse them, they could get you through like an environmental disaster/apocalypse scenario (unfortunately not like that unthinkable of a situation). Or if you’re just camping/backpacking and don’t want to deal with extra tampon waste. I have three GladRag pads, which work fine; I just use them for when my period’s light, before or after using the cup. Go for organic cotton for reusable pads. Soak them in cold water after use to get stains out, then wash by hand with soap or throw in the hamper. I usually just wash by hand and then let them air dry; I’ll use vinegar to sanitize.

Period underwear sounds awesome. Haven’t tried it though.

Other

Random other bathroom items.

Deodorant is easy to make yourself and there are good buyable zero-waste options, coming either in glass+metal lid or in cardboard. I’ve used Schmidt’s and like it a lot, it’s lasted forever (though I maybe should use it more often), but it does have a plastic lid. Buying deodorant, rather than an antiperspirant with aluminum, seems like it’s pretty mainstream now, as the damaging health effects from aluminum are pretty well-known. Similarly to all beauty products, there isn’t much regulation.

Shaving is another challenge for zero-waste. Most switch over to a double-edge safety razor. I haven’t because I rarely shave anything and have some plastic razors left over if I do. It sounds like these have a learning curve, so be careful and go slowly if you switch over, and make sure you have razors of the correct sharpness—too sharp can be overkill and end up making things more difficult.

Toilet paper: We here in America just love it. Apparently we use a lot of it. The softest toilet paper is made from old growth virgin wood, and it’s often packaged in soft plastic; it gets bleached with chlorine. It’s also apparently pretty hard on sewer systems.

There are some pretty good options regarding toilet paper. Cloth wipes are pretty intense and possibly unhygienic, but the process for cleaning is pretty much the same as reusable diapers, which are relatively common—they just need to be sterilized in the washer. Honestly I would love to try a Tushy but I’m not quite ready to shell out $70 for an attachable bidet. It might seem like they waste water but considering how much water is used to make toilet paper it probably actually saves a considerable amount. We’ll probably try to continue to buy recycled toilet paper, in non-plastic wrapping, at least for now. Folding your toilet paper also will help cut down on how much you use, as opposed to crumpling it.

  1. https://unfccc.int/news/un-helps-fashion-industry-shift-to-low-carbon ↩︎

  2. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/climate/air-travel-emissions.html ↩︎

  3. https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(17)30812-7/abstract ↩︎

  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_brushing ↩︎

  5. https://www.ewg.org/release/fda-finally-bans-toxic-triclosan-antibacterial-hand-soaps — triclosan is an antibacterial agent that has been shown to be hormone-damaging. It’s now much more regulated https:// www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/5-things-know-about-triclosan) ↩︎

  6. A strong surfactant—soap-type thing, basically — that is added to a lot of beauty products and toothpaste to make them foam. According to this review study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC4651417/) it seems relatively safe in small doses, but could be a skin irritant and is probably not healthy to ingest. In its raw material form, it is moderately toxic to marine life. My understanding is that it’s not going to kill you or damage you much, but its benefits are unclear. The level of cleanliness to the point of possible abrasion it gives seems unnecessarily excessive. ↩︎

  7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4232036/ ↩︎

  8. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD008829.pub2/abstract ↩︎

  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk#Production_process ↩︎