BYO Toiletries

We don’t often stay in hotels that supply toiletries but they are common in Iran and you only have to be staying in a cut above grotty, t be offered them in abundance. I recon it’s a combination of the Iranians love of plastic disposable products, and being hospitable….and the better the hotel the more you get. We have been offered everything from sewing kits to shower hats to shampoo.

Poor Village Boy he so loves a freebie and its hard for him to say no – but he loves the planet more so we refuse these complimentary products and use our own stuff.

Yup! The easy way to avoid plastic crap in hotel rooms is to bring a wash bag full of your own products. This works wether you are in Iran or Huddersfield…. we have a set of reusable travel bottles which we fill up with home made products, we leave them in our wash bag along with spare wooden toothbrushes and hey presto, ready to go, anywhere, anytime.

Of course you dont have to make your own stuff you can buy your toiletries in bulk bottles then decant off into smaleer bottles as needed.

You can get sets of plastic bottles from chemists like Superdrug though be warned the cheaper bottles are not very durable.

Muji also do a good range of handy pretty bottles.

Camping shops have some great hard wearing options though they are more expensive.

If you really don’t want to use plastic you can get metal bottles though please note they are not so good for backpacking. They tend to crumple under pressure.  You can read about our choice of bottles, and plastic versus metal, here

If you want to make your own plastic free cosmetics have a look at this

For more posts on plastic in Iran read up here

Find lots more pictures of Iranian plastic pollution here at Planet Trash and Flickr Plastic Is Rubbish

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here the >>>A-Z plastic free index

Want to travel plastic free – check out the plastic free backpack

Tip 3 – Take Your Own Snacks

Travelling plastic free in Iran…

Every bus we traveled on in Iran dished out snacks. The better the bus the more snacks you are given. Biscuits cakes water and juice, all of it is offed, all of it is plastic wrapped. A single journey will generate bag loads of non biodegradable trash and so we don’t accept it. Instead we bring our own.

Despite Persia’s love affair with packaging there are still hundreds of places that sell loose.

You can nuts dried fruit and all manner of things by weight from the bazaar.

If you are squeamish about eating unwrapped dried apricots from the dusty bazaar, the bakeries are extremely clean and hygienic. They sell bread, biscuits and cakes loose and by weight. Make mine a kilo of cakes.

Finally there is always peelable fruit.

Fantastic – but still not out of the woods. While some of these places might have paper bags most use plastic so you will need to take your own. We travel with bio bags and reusable cotton produce bags.

For a drink its water in our reusable, refillable bottle treated with a Steripen. So when everyone else is creating rubbish with a life span of forever, we are not.

Smug? You know it!

For more posts on plastic in Iran read up here

For loose food in the UK try the loose foods list

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here the >>>A-Z plastic free index

Home made cream, suntan lotion and the rest

Its is so easy to make your own creams and lotion that once you start you will never look back. The advantages are huge not least of which are you get to control what goes on your skin, be way more eco friendly and you save a whole load of cash. You can make almost anything the cosmetic companies sell but without the palm oil, dodgy chemicals (have you read what goes into this stuff?)and weird colours. Though you can have all those too if you want.

Bases

Start by making a base creams, moisturizer or lotion

How do you make cosmetic creams and lotions the basics

The Aromantics cream making starter pack some more details

Specialist Creams

Once the base is made you then you add active ingredients to make specialist creams such as:

Suntan Lotion

- add Microfine Titanium Dioxide OR Zinc Oxide to make a suntan lotion

Self Tan

- Add DHA to make a fake bake that really works – find out what DHA is right here

Magic, age defying, cellulite busting potions

- scour the internet for all the gubbins, the AHAs, enzymes and crushed pearls that are supposed to grant instant beauty and add them too. I can’t promise results, but it’s fun experimenting.

Making creams while travelling

You cannot carry a years supply of home made cream in your rucksack so here are some ideas about making your own home made creams in hotel bedrooms.

Making cream in Bangkok

a years supply of sun block

PLASTIC SPOILER
Some of the above will come plastic packaged. As I get huge amounts cream out of one small bag of ingredients so I consider it a worthwhile compromise. It still represents a huge decrease in plastic consumption.

Suppliers

I love aromantics and buy most of my stuff from them but there are loads of good guys out there.

Other plastic free health and beauty products can be found right here

You can find out HOW TO …do all sorts of other things… plastic free right here

Find other plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Upcycling floppy discs

Is this a bit bonkers? Or incredibly sweet? Floppy discs (who still has those?) into planters. From recycle Uk Facebook page - recommended!

Want more crafty projects?

Have a look at what these talented folk have done over in the arty crafty part of this blog and visit my PINTEREST board for funky ideas. The people over there are so clever aren’t they?

Find many other ways to reuse and recycle plastic here  

Boycott Plastic

Recycling is only part of the answer – a small part. Our favourite solution is to REFUSE plastics. Check these plastic-free products. Use them then compost them.

Hot Food Warms the Soul

Reblogged from :

Super sleek. Stainless steel. Reusable. What’s not to love?! We have to admit, we’ve fallen pretty hard for the thermo-pot from black + blum. But how could any foodie resist the style and functionality of this stainless vacuum food flask? The thermo pot is topped off with a lid made of cork, comes with its own stainless steel spoon that magnetizes to the side, promises to keep your food hot for 5 hours, and comes with a 10 year guarantee!

Read more… 44 more words

So lovely, so useful,so want one!

Something rotting at the bottom of the garden…..

365/66 California Compost (Photo credit: mjmonty)

Take waste disposal into your own hands by taking up composting.

Composting accelerates the natural process of biodegrading or rotting down organic waste material into a rich soil or compost. ( What is biodegrading? read this quick resume.)

It sounds complex, and indeed many tracts you read on composting treat it as some kind of arcane science, but basically you put all your scraps into a compost bin keep it warm and well balanced and it rots down naturally into a rich soil or compost.

Simples.

With the right bins you can turn all your biodegradable waste into plant food, or, if you dont need plant food, just dispose of your waste ecologically.

The Compost Post Index

We love composting for so many reasons. You can read about them in detail here, but they include:
Cutting our carbon footprint by loads by diverting biodegradable waste from landfill.
Cutting our dependance on waste collection services by taking responsibility for our own waste.
Cutting our bin liners.

From a plastic free perspective, composting means I don’t need to use bin liners to wrap my mushy waste. All mushy waste goes straight in the compost bin. Read living without bin liners for more information.

There are many ways to compost.

You can build or buy an open bin – this didn’t work for me.. rats invaded my bin and refused to leave. Other people manage though. So I use an enclosed system called the Green Johanna to compost everything. Yes its plastic but you can compost meat and there’s NO RATS.

You could try an underground composting system if you just want to get rid of organic waste rather than make compost. Or this – the green cone that just eats your waste.

This nifty little electric composting unit that you can keep indoors in a kitchen cupboard

Animal waste bins can bu used to compost your pet poop .

Some people rave about worm bins but I wasn’t impressed – post to follow.

Well there should be something there to suit everybody so c’mon people LETS COMPOST.

New to the subject – read up on all things composting here including compostable plastics.

Want to cut down on your plastic rubbish? – you can find other plastic free products with the >>>A-Z

Hairbrush and comb update

Flat hairbrush (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just been re-checking my hair care data and, yes, you can still get plastic-free hair brushing products  here

Find more plastic-free products (sourced as part of our plastic boycott) here – the >>>plastic-free resource index

Kitchen cupboard sized compost bin

I am lucky enough to have a garden where I can keep  my compost bin. However if you don’t have the space, you could try one of these and compost in your kitchen.How it works?

Automatic Compost Bin.

Two chamber design: So clean and easy, you can even compost indoors. Add food at any time into the  upper  chamber. Heat, mixing, and oxygen help the natural  cultures  break down the food within days – before odors  develop. Push a button to transfer  to the  tray below. It will continue to compost there for another week, while you fill  the upper chamber again. Remove the tray at your conveinence

Why compost – well it means no more plastic bin liners, along with numerous other benefits.

Do you want to live a plastic-free life? Browse our uber list of plastic-free products HERE

and find out how to do things plastic- free HERE

How to COOK plastic-free

Plastic-free recipes

Image via Wikipedia

Meals

Fruity Muesli

Full english breakfast or fry up

Cakes

Chocolate cake – marge free

Marge free lavender buns

Other Stuff

Home made apple vinegar

Sage and Onion Stuffing

Sweet mincemeat

Bread crumbs

Herbs – plastic free home grown

Fats and Oils

Drinks

Fizzy drinks and sodas

Kitchen Accessories

Bun / cup cake case

 

And you can find a whole lot more  plastic- free products HERE 

and how to do more stuff plastic free HERE

Plastic Free Valentines

 

How to get loved up plastic free

Get some air mile free flowers or at least some plastic free flowers

Here’s why you want to get both

Add a  plastic free card

and chocolates or at least some jelly babies

In like Flynn.

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here the >>>A-Z plastic free index