Plastic-free household by 2011...But....

[Dingletwitz]

Anyone else doing this? Or has done this? I'm stumped with a couple of things so far:

Shower curtain
Sunglasses

Any non-plastic ideas?
Other items I'm bound to be also stumped with?

[kittynurse]

Shower curtain: we have a fabric curtain with a liner. I suppose you could go without the liner.

Sunglasses: glass lenses with a metal frame?

[kayabrink]

I know there are stand alone hemp shower curtains out there, I wanted one a few years back but balked at the price.
Items you're bound to be stumped by:
telephone, computer, tv, printer? because those ones have me just ??
Besides this, I wear glasses and contacts and also have plastic cases for both. My eyes must be seething in chemicals.

[delightedbutterfly]

All appliances always seem to have some plastic..

Toothbrush bristles?

Parts inside you car, carseats, credit/debit cards, electrical cords, smoke detector
Posted via Mobile Device

[swd12422]

Shower curtain liner: We just got a polyester one (not sure if that counts as plastic) that can be used alone or as a liner. Does it have to be natural fibers?

[APBTlover]

Originally Posted by brymommy

Toothbrush bristles?

I just recently saw a site advertising here on MDC... Life Without Plastic, I think it was called. They had non-plastic toothbrushes.

[Dingletwitz]

yes, tech and auto are the two areas I just have to deal with.....I have seen the natural toothbrushes and they look interesting! It's good to know there are some fabrics that are non-chem that could be used for the shower! I've just this year been able to seriously rid the place of plastic. The business in the oceans just has me sick. Honestly.

[Jaxinator]

There are plenty of cotton and bamboo shower curtains, you just have to search them out.
For instance:
http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden...2/product.html

[Pumpkin_Pie]

Definitely don't get a hemp shower curtain. I bought one that was obscenely expensive and ended up throwing it out after about a year and a half. It mildewed like crazy, and even with treating it with anti-mildew spray, it still rotted away super fast. The only way I could see keeping it from getting mildew and mold on it was to take it down and wash it and dry it every time it got used. Definitely not happening in my house.

[zoebird]

might you consider a shower door? i admit it is not my favorite look, but at least it works without a shower curtain.

electronics and related are heavy on plastics (and lots of other nasties), and we do keep our electronics to a minimum (lap top computers, cameras). the rest is at the office.

i'm learning via space clearing and feng sui and also EMF clearing how to mitigate the electrical elements, but having trouble finding baubiologial ways to manage the plastic off gassing. other than plants--like the peace lily--that can handle this stuff. and i'm not against the plants. but, i keep the electronics contained to one basket when not in use, including cords and the like, and keep that basket up and away from little hands, and have a salt crystal (himalayan rock salt) that goes into the basket on top of the electronics.

glasses would be glass with metal frames--more expensive, though.

tooth brushes--can be done with just a wash cloth as well. a friend of mine knit up some finger brushes with bamboo, and it's like a little sock. a little tooth paste, and rub around. she washes it by hand, of course, after each use, so she has 7 of them (one for each day), and then they get soaked in home-made mouth wash, rinsed and dried, then used again. pretty nifty.

packaging is a big issue here. we are transitioning away from packaged foods (eg, finally making our own yogurt, salsa, jams, etc), and so we should be free of those things soon.

my soap containers are all plastic, though, so i need to find some way to move away from that. i have glass bottles (olive oil bottles and such) that i could use for purchasing soap in bulk or storing soap that i would make. perhaps i'll just make my own hard soaps, and use it around the house in various ways. then the only issue is laundry detergent.

hmm. thinking thinking.

[karika]

What an awesome thread!

I have been focusing on buying as little new plastic as possible. You guys are even more proactive about it. I figure if I already own it, I aint gonna sweat it... like for laundry detergent I make it in a 5 gallon bucket. It is plastic, but I already own it, no new oil was used in the making. If I do buy laundry detergent, I buy the kind in a box, but they always put a plastic scoop in there... sigh. I wrote to Arm and Hammer and asked them to become the industry leader and save money by losing the scoop, I mean most of us have measuring cups in our homes and can use them... I am inspired there are others trying to live without plastic. I was still letting myself buy old plastic at the thrift store, like I need a small pool, we had blow up 7 ft ones and the blow up parts sprang a leak. The person I live with threw them away! I would've tried to seal the leak, but they are already gone. So my addition to the hard to get around list is a pool for the backyard....

[Dingletwitz]

Yes, the soap containers! That's another one. My brief foray into laundry soap making was a bit, uh, dismal. It's on the experimentation list for the rest of the year. Despite the recipe I tried, odors stayed on the clothes. Pooh. I'll keep trucking. I switched all our regular soaps to the old-fashioned bar style. My thought? People have had great success with bar soap for a long, long time. And at thirty cents or so for a bar that lasts for months around here, we're not going to go poor on it. It's just not as fancy as neutrogena shower wash. (and I do miss that stuff, funny). I've seen dr. bronner's in vats somewhere and plan to go that route again--just refill. Now to find something to refill in that is not the original plastic container.....

[Ruthiegirl]

What kind of shower do you have? Do you really need a curtain?

We took down our shower curtain rod and drape awhile back. We have a tub/shower combo and one of those hand held shower heads. We just stand up, use the shower head to rinse, turn the water off, soap up and then rinse off. Very little over-spray and much lower water/energy bills.

I use my towel to wipe the floor (usually not needed) and do a quick once-over of the bathroom. Nice and clean and I love our bathroom now without the huge shower curtain and the musty smell that always seems to linger in shower curtains.

Our hand held shower head is plastic, but I have seen metal ones and I think with a bit of rubber tubing, you could make it nearly plastic free.

[Dingletwitz]

yes, we do have a hand held that is chrome with a little bit of plastic at the sprayer--but it is heavy, and with the manes in our household hard to get soap out one-handed--certainly an idea for thought, however! We've always had the clear plastic liner as the only shower curtain, but it is bothering me every time I look at it lately.

[zoebird]

there are these things that we look like we can't get rid of: packaging.

cheese comes in plastic (and it's good cheese), and meat comes in plastic (for the stuff we buy and how it is transported from the farm), and a lot of our bulk dry goods come in plastics. we keep the meat and cheese in plastic, but i take the dry goods out right away.

i suppose we could go straight to the butcher and get cheese in huge bulk at the cheeseshop (where they would use paper), but i'm not sure we can go through that much cheese before it goes bad.

anyway, that's one of those things that is really tough.

[Dingletwitz]

okay here's another: What kind of fabric might I use for spices that I get from bulk? I've been reusing the plastic ones and it makes me cringe. Could I wrap them up in paper of some kind? I think the weight would be off tho. I've made a few cotton bags that are used for the bulk grains and beans but I can't see carting spices without losing most of it in the fibers.

[zoebird]

we put ours in paper, and then into jars when we get home. the paper we reuse (as scrap paper or paper bags), and then we compost it.

[Ruthiegirl]

I use wax coated paper bags. Like these:

http://www.amazon.com/Wax-Paper-Bags...2744766&sr=8-1

I bring my own bags to the store. They don't mind.

[velochic]

Is the goal to have no plastic AT ALL for ANYTHING in the house?

[velochic]

Other things that might be problematic:

clothes hangers/rods
television parts and other electronics parts... the very computer you're using has a ton of plastic in it
computer parts
wiring, power sources for everything,
furniture (for example, the plastic feet to not scratch the floor)
refrigerator
appliances, in general
door jambs
outlets and outlet covers
hairdryer
combs and brushes of all sorts
insides of toilet tank
cleaning utensils (like mops that probably have some plastic)
handles of most everything (window latches for example)


I honestly don't know how you can LITERALLY go plastic-free. These are just the things I thought of off the top of my head. There may be plastic in everything from your carpeting to your walls.