The bathroom and the kitchen are often the biggest culprits for household waste and other environmental damages. Fortunately, there are lots of ways we can make our bathrooms more green...
1. Bar Soaps
Not only do bar soaps look beautiful, they often come with either no or minimal packaging. Places such as lush and provincial living sell soaps package free which come in all kinds of beautiful colours and scents. Other bar soaps come in tin or cardboard packaging which can also be recycled. Another great place to find bar soaps is at your local farmers market - often these soaps use natural and/or local ingredients.
2. Refillable Containers
Refillable containers for liquid soaps, shampoos, moisturisers etc. can be taken to a local bulk food store and refilled indefinitely. They reduce a heap of plastic bottles from being thrown away (and not to mention... they look 100 times nicer). Even though plastic containers can be recycled, each time they are reproduced into other products, the quality of the plastics downgrades until it eventually ends up in landfill. On the other hand, glass, metal and ceramic products can be recycled time and time again without losing their quality.
3. Wooden Brushes
It doesn't take long for the bristles on a toothbrush or nail brush to become so damaged that the brush has to be thrown away. Switching from plastic to wooden or bamboo brushes greatly reduces wastage as they simply biodegrade when they have come to the end of their life. Wooden nail brushes can be found at most homeware stores and bamboo toothbrushes are often sold at bulk food stores. Alternatively, there are corn starch toothbrushes out there which also biodegrade.
4. Thankyou Personal Care Products
Thankyou's personal care range provides water and sanitation services to those who don't have access to things like toilets and safe water in their communities. It is a completely non-for-profit organisation which is allowing consumers to make positive changes simply by doing their routine grocery shop. The products are also palm oil free, cruelty free and often vegan. Thankyou products can be found at many big retailers such as Coles and Chemist Warehouse.
5. Plants
Plants are a great way to make any part of the home more green. They often thrive in bathrooms because the air is often more moist because of the running water. Closed and open top terrariums, pot plants and orchids are all suitable in a bathroom space with adequate light.
Just by making a few switches in the products we buy, we can make a huge impact on our world. It doesn't matter if we aren't all completely off-the-grid and zero waste (I'm certainly still far from that point); lots of people being sustainable imperfectly will make a massive difference!