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I wish I had more options to consume less plastic. I'm pretty sure most of the plastic I use doesn't get recycled for various reasons, although I can estimate

I wish I had more options to consume less plastic. I'm pretty sure most of the plastic I use doesn't get recycled for various reasons, although I can estimate 90% of it by weight I do put in the proper recycling can. I also care enough to avoid plastic if given a reasonable alternative. However for a bunch of consumer goods there is no reasonably priced alternative. I wish I could vote with my wallet and spend a significant (but not prohibitive) percentage more for detergent or shampoo or whatever in another container. I can't help but feel like policy could help here.

protonimitate 7y ago
Fwiw Seventh Generation makes a laundry detergent that comes in a cardboard bottle. I can get it at Stop And Shop here in the states.
- fiter 7y ago
  There is a plastic cap and a plastic bag inside this cardboard bottle, of course. If I purchase these I make sure to separate the cardboard so it can be recycled but I believe many places the cap/bag will not be recycled.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Have you checked if your local waste disposal is actually recycling cardboard anymore? Most are just landfilling it like everything else.
    - fiter 7y ago
      I could not find positive confirmstion that Berkeley, CA recycles the cardboard, but a the city's related buyback center does buy cardboard by the pound indicating that it is possible.
melling 7y ago
“ However for a bunch of consumer goods there is no reasonably priced alternative.” We only started using plastic in large quantities 50 years ago. We have a Tragedy of the Commons with plastic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- harimau777 7y ago
  I think the may be less that it is impossible and more that none of the manufacturers do it so consumers cannot choose to buy it.
burkaman 7y ago
I don't know how common this is, but the Boston area has https://www.cleenland.com/ https://www.cleenland.com/, a store that offers most household items in bulk, so you can go fill up a mason jar or something with detergent or shampoo. Maybe something like this exists in other cities? If not it should, and really it should just be an aisle in the grocery store.
mumblemumble 7y ago
For shampoo, I'd recommend going with a solid bar. They're hard to find outside of health food stores and the like, but oftentimes you can find them being sold with only a simple paper wrapping for packaging, and a $5-10 bar will easily last many times longer than bottled shampoo as long as you're keeping it somewhere where it can get a chance to dry out between showers. Conditioner is trickier; I've yet to find a solid conditioner that I like. For detergents, we've recently switched to Dropps for both laundry and dish detergent, and I've been quite happy. It's mail order, so not zero packaging, but about as low as you can get, and they put some thought into designing a box that's easy to re-use. For dry foods, if there's a grocery store that sells in bulk in your area, that can make a big difference. We made some cheap muslin bags that we take to the store when we're stocking up; most food co-ops and Whole Foods will let you provide a tare weight so you don't have to pay an extra $0.10 for the weight of the bag. People like to malign Whole Foods for being expensive, but their bulk section tends to be priced comparably to packaged options at traditional grocery stores. For razors, double-edge safety razors are an option, but a bit tricky to learn to shave with. I've found I can also keep a standard Gillette Mach3 cartridge going for a good 3 months by drying it after each use (and keeping it dry - no storing in the shower), and "stropping" it on a tea towel before shaves. My hypothesis is that it's corrosion, not use, that is the main limiter of a blade's life span.
- inertiatic 7y ago
  Thank you for the useful tips, I'll certainly try the last one and I hadn't thought about looking for bar shampoo. However my main issue is that there are so many hoops to jump through, and most consumers won't even get to the point of considering things like this unless these are presented as equally valid alternatives to the plastic packaged goods on their local convenience store.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    Agreed. But I don't think we'll get there without some people being willing to do the extra work to get the trail blazed. My city cut down on plastic bag usage considerably by introducing a $0.07 excise tax on every disposable grocery bag, but I don't think that would have been politically tenable if there weren't already a lot of people using reusable bags. Plastic packaged goods, I don't know. . . I almost wish that some organization would launch a big campaign against Trader Joe's to get them to reduce their packaging use. It's going to be really hard to convince a bodega to stop selling packaged goods, for all sorts of reasons. But Trader Joes has enough control over their supply chain to do it. Their clientele is bobo enough to maybe be a bit easier to get on a bandwagon. They individually shrink wrap the broccoli, so they're a pretty easy target. And they're popular enough that a successful campaign could have a big cultural impact.
ravenstine 7y ago
You could always try not using shampoo. A shampoo is good occasionally, but you really don't need to strip your hair of oils every single day.
- arafa 7y ago
  It does seem like a radical option but is surprisingly doable. Beyond Soap was a book recommended here, which was a great read and discourages daily use of soap and shampoo (and conditioner if need be): https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Soap-Truth-Beautiful-Healthy/dp/0735233608 https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Soap-Truth-Beautiful-Healthy/d...
- inertiatic 7y ago
  Sound advice. However, we don't need to use most of the products we use anyway, but we do, so we should try to make things have as little impact as possible.
- coffeecat 7y ago
  Around the time when the marketing industry exploded in the 20th century, it became a hygienic necessity to strip the oils out of your hair and replace them with a synthetic alternative (conditioner). I haven't used shampoo for about 10 years now. For some reason many people are shocked by the notion of not using shampoo, but my hair looks good and I see no benefit to removing its natural oils.
  - anthonypasq 7y ago
    might as well not use deodorant either, those bacteria under your arms are naturally occurring! wouldn't want to disrupt anything. gotta love taking advice from ancient humans when determining how to be hygienic.
    - jayd16 7y ago
      He's right though. You should try it. Depending on your haircut you can probably go much longer than a day without shampooing. That doesn't stop you from rinsing it, after all.
bagacrap 7y ago
The type and form factor of plastic is significant. Types 1 and 2 are more often recycled than any other type (note that "recycled" is different from and rarer than "collected by municipal waste service"). However even those are not recyclable when too thin, such as with Keurig cups. Detergent and shampoo bottles tend to be highly recyclable. It's true there aren't many alternatives at the moment for certain things like berries. I've never seen a bulk barrel at the grocery store for raspberries (for obvious reasons), and the clear, thin plastic they come in is not usually recycled. At farmers markets you can find them in biodegradable paper cups, but farmers market berries aren't available to most people most of the year. As you note, the only way to fix this is legislation. Plastic is near free because it's a byproduct of something else we already use too much of (crude oil). If its production were taxed in alignment with its environmental cost (e.g. at the same rate it costs to collect it out of the oceans) we'd see far more alternatives.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  > certain things like berries At farmers' markets, most berry vendors sell raspberries and blackberries in egg carton-like paper baskets to absorb any juice. Strawberries are in plastic baskets.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  > it's a byproduct of something else we already use too much of I wouldn't go that far. For things like ethylene, if there were no other demand for it, it would just get burnt in power plants like natural gas.
- Ciechanowski 7y ago
  AI wis
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
My current goal is to go plastic free in the kitchen, or as close as possible. Right now, the only plastic in my kitchen is the appliances, and a few eatables which are impossible to buy without plastic packaging. All my utensits/cutlery/storage containers are ceramic, glass or metal. Its more expensive, but not so much. The only major thing I can't avoid plastic for right now is meat. Always comes in packaging. I am hoping to find a butcher where I can show up with my own glass containers in which they dump the meat.
- r00fus 7y ago
  The wax/parchment paper used by butchers in wrapping meats - does that contain plastic?
  - abdullahkhalids 7y ago
    Depends [1], but that option is sadly not available at clean and safe meat shops in my city. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_paper
maerF0x0 7y ago
https://www.beatthemicrobead.org/product-lists/ https://www.beatthemicrobead.org/product-lists/ select your country "green" and the area of the home.
dublinben 7y ago
You might consider it too much of a premium, but Loop¹ will send you familiar brands of consumer goods in reusable packaging. ¹ https://loopstore.com/ https://loopstore.com/
OrgNet 7y ago
Burn the plastic to heat your home... thats what they end up doing anyways but they charge you to sell you back the electricity...

protonimitate 7y ago

Fwiw Seventh Generation makes a laundry detergent that comes in a cardboard bottle. I can get it at Stop And Shop here in the states.

fiter 7y ago
There is a plastic cap and a plastic bag inside this cardboard bottle, of course. If I purchase these I make sure to separate the cardboard so it can be recycled but I believe many places the cap/bag will not be recycled.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Have you checked if your local waste disposal is actually recycling cardboard anymore? Most are just landfilling it like everything else.
  - fiter 7y ago
    I could not find positive confirmstion that Berkeley, CA recycles the cardboard, but a the city's related buyback center does buy cardboard by the pound indicating that it is possible.

melling 7y ago

“ However for a bunch of consumer goods there is no reasonably priced alternative.” We only started using plastic in large quantities 50 years ago. We have a Tragedy of the Commons with plastic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

harimau777 7y ago
I think the may be less that it is impossible and more that none of the manufacturers do it so consumers cannot choose to buy it.

burkaman 7y ago

I don't know how common this is, but the Boston area has https://www.cleenland.com/ https://www.cleenland.com/, a store that offers most household items in bulk, so you can go fill up a mason jar or something with detergent or shampoo. Maybe something like this exists in other cities? If not it should, and really it should just be an aisle in the grocery store.

mumblemumble 7y ago

For shampoo, I'd recommend going with a solid bar. They're hard to find outside of health food stores and the like, but oftentimes you can find them being sold with only a simple paper wrapping for packaging, and a $5-10 bar will easily last many times longer than bottled shampoo as long as you're keeping it somewhere where it can get a chance to dry out between showers. Conditioner is trickier; I've yet to find a solid conditioner that I like. For detergents, we've recently switched to Dropps for both laundry and dish detergent, and I've been quite happy. It's mail order, so not zero packaging, but about as low as you can get, and they put some thought into designing a box that's easy to re-use. For dry foods, if there's a grocery store that sells in bulk in your area, that can make a big difference. We made some cheap muslin bags that we take to the store when we're stocking up; most food co-ops and Whole Foods will let you provide a tare weight so you don't have to pay an extra $0.10 for the weight of the bag. People like to malign Whole Foods for being expensive, but their bulk section tends to be priced comparably to packaged options at traditional grocery stores. For razors, double-edge safety razors are an option, but a bit tricky to learn to shave with. I've found I can also keep a standard Gillette Mach3 cartridge going for a good 3 months by drying it after each use (and keeping it dry - no storing in the shower), and "stropping" it on a tea towel before shaves. My hypothesis is that it's corrosion, not use, that is the main limiter of a blade's life span.

inertiatic 7y ago
Thank you for the useful tips, I'll certainly try the last one and I hadn't thought about looking for bar shampoo. However my main issue is that there are so many hoops to jump through, and most consumers won't even get to the point of considering things like this unless these are presented as equally valid alternatives to the plastic packaged goods on their local convenience store.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  Agreed. But I don't think we'll get there without some people being willing to do the extra work to get the trail blazed. My city cut down on plastic bag usage considerably by introducing a $0.07 excise tax on every disposable grocery bag, but I don't think that would have been politically tenable if there weren't already a lot of people using reusable bags. Plastic packaged goods, I don't know. . . I almost wish that some organization would launch a big campaign against Trader Joe's to get them to reduce their packaging use. It's going to be really hard to convince a bodega to stop selling packaged goods, for all sorts of reasons. But Trader Joes has enough control over their supply chain to do it. Their clientele is bobo enough to maybe be a bit easier to get on a bandwagon. They individually shrink wrap the broccoli, so they're a pretty easy target. And they're popular enough that a successful campaign could have a big cultural impact.

ravenstine 7y ago

You could always try not using shampoo. A shampoo is good occasionally, but you really don't need to strip your hair of oils every single day.

arafa 7y ago
It does seem like a radical option but is surprisingly doable. Beyond Soap was a book recommended here, which was a great read and discourages daily use of soap and shampoo (and conditioner if need be): https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Soap-Truth-Beautiful-Healthy/dp/0735233608 https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Soap-Truth-Beautiful-Healthy/d...
inertiatic 7y ago
Sound advice. However, we don't need to use most of the products we use anyway, but we do, so we should try to make things have as little impact as possible.
coffeecat 7y ago
Around the time when the marketing industry exploded in the 20th century, it became a hygienic necessity to strip the oils out of your hair and replace them with a synthetic alternative (conditioner). I haven't used shampoo for about 10 years now. For some reason many people are shocked by the notion of not using shampoo, but my hair looks good and I see no benefit to removing its natural oils.
- anthonypasq 7y ago
  might as well not use deodorant either, those bacteria under your arms are naturally occurring! wouldn't want to disrupt anything. gotta love taking advice from ancient humans when determining how to be hygienic.
  - jayd16 7y ago
    He's right though. You should try it. Depending on your haircut you can probably go much longer than a day without shampooing. That doesn't stop you from rinsing it, after all.

bagacrap 7y ago

The type and form factor of plastic is significant. Types 1 and 2 are more often recycled than any other type (note that "recycled" is different from and rarer than "collected by municipal waste service"). However even those are not recyclable when too thin, such as with Keurig cups. Detergent and shampoo bottles tend to be highly recyclable. It's true there aren't many alternatives at the moment for certain things like berries. I've never seen a bulk barrel at the grocery store for raspberries (for obvious reasons), and the clear, thin plastic they come in is not usually recycled. At farmers markets you can find them in biodegradable paper cups, but farmers market berries aren't available to most people most of the year. As you note, the only way to fix this is legislation. Plastic is near free because it's a byproduct of something else we already use too much of (crude oil). If its production were taxed in alignment with its environmental cost (e.g. at the same rate it costs to collect it out of the oceans) we'd see far more alternatives.

dehrmann 7y ago
> certain things like berries At farmers' markets, most berry vendors sell raspberries and blackberries in egg carton-like paper baskets to absorb any juice. Strawberries are in plastic baskets.
dehrmann 7y ago
> it's a byproduct of something else we already use too much of I wouldn't go that far. For things like ethylene, if there were no other demand for it, it would just get burnt in power plants like natural gas.
Ciechanowski 7y ago
AI wis

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

My current goal is to go plastic free in the kitchen, or as close as possible. Right now, the only plastic in my kitchen is the appliances, and a few eatables which are impossible to buy without plastic packaging. All my utensits/cutlery/storage containers are ceramic, glass or metal. Its more expensive, but not so much. The only major thing I can't avoid plastic for right now is meat. Always comes in packaging. I am hoping to find a butcher where I can show up with my own glass containers in which they dump the meat.

r00fus 7y ago
The wax/parchment paper used by butchers in wrapping meats - does that contain plastic?
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  Depends [1], but that option is sadly not available at clean and safe meat shops in my city. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_paper

maerF0x0 7y ago

https://www.beatthemicrobead.org/product-lists/ https://www.beatthemicrobead.org/product-lists/ select your country "green" and the area of the home.

dublinben 7y ago

You might consider it too much of a premium, but Loop¹ will send you familiar brands of consumer goods in reusable packaging. ¹ https://loopstore.com/ https://loopstore.com/

OrgNet 7y ago

Burn the plastic to heat your home... thats what they end up doing anyways but they charge you to sell you back the electricity...