What water bottle

I do love our water bottles so much I thought I would write a post on them. Here they are.

Please before you scoff, yes we did have proper traveller canteens but we lost them. And the replacements we bought, and the ones after that. Which is bad news as it is very hard to find a good water bottle in SEAsia. So far we have only been able to buy children’s  bottles, the kind that go into lunch boxes, from their equivalent of our “What A Pile Of Crap” shops. That is why I have a pink plastic Barbie bottle which leaks while Village Boy carries a power rangers metal bottle which sheds glittering flakes of metalic, and no doubt poisonous, paint on everything…but is at least beverage tight.

However, despite the above  failings, it is the perfect combination of bottle types. Allow me to expand.

As you know we sterilise our own water using a Steripen. The steripen needs to be submerged in water so the neck of the bottle needs to be wide enough to allow this – Barbie bottle is just right for the job.

When buying juice from stalls instead of getting juice  in a plastic cups We use Barbie bottle.

It is also good for making tea in though probably leaks BPA like a beeitch.

Barbie bottle is so good you might think why bother with transformers glitter bottle. Well the wider the neck the harder it is to drink from on bouncing buses. Far less likely to slobber with transformers.

Also the smaller the screw fitting, the less chances there are of leakage.

Transformers doubles as a hot water bottle on freezing farms.

Transformers is not made from plastic.

Both bottles take half a litre which is perfect for the Steripen which will do 1 or 1/2 a litre at a time.

half a litre of water each is as much as we need to carry the beauty of the Steripen  is that we can always sterilise more when needed.

These bottles fit nicely into bags and don’t weigh too much.

However when Barbie bottle gets left behind this is the bottle I really want

Kanteen Reflect Steel Bottle: No Paint or Plastic, Bamboo, Laser Etched.

If you love your water bottle please do share why.

Find places to fill your water bottle here

Want to find more travel related plastic free tips? Check out the travel category

Stay at home type? Check out my range of Uk based plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

How to backpack (or holiday), plastic free

Crossing land borders in South East Asia has been unusually stressful this trip thanks to the big bag of  white powder I am carrying in my rucksack. No we are not funding our trip by an ill advised foray into drug smuggling but trying to travel plastic free. Plastic free means no plastic toothpaste tubes so we have brought a sack of home-made tooth powder with us. While carrying tightly wrapped  packs of dentifrice may be innocent, it sure doesn’t look it and I dread the day I have to explain to some grim-faced custom official. The response I fear  involves rubber gloves.

So why do it? Well we are visiting wild and remote places, the kind of places you have to walk to. Places with no garbage collection service and your rubbish goes onto the village dump just out-of-town. A system that has been in place forever and that used to work. In the old days of course most trash was biodegradable, animals would eat it or it would compost down, it was safe to burn and the ashes could be used as fertilizer. The system was not perfect, but people have lived like this for centuries and maintained  sustainable landscapes. The introduction of plastic rubbish has changed everything.

Plastic rubbish remains intact for hundreds of years. It cannot be eaten, does not dissolve and it is difficult to burn. When it does eventually break up or degrade, it only breaks down into smaller pieces of plastic. Disposing of plastic is a big and expensive job. It has to be collected up and buried in landfill or incinerated. Some plastics can be recycled but only a small percentage are. Whatever your method of plastic disposal, it requires amongst other things a decent infrastructure, some roads, machinery, power and vehicles. You don’t get all that the places we go.

So  now the ditches alongside the rice paddies are choked with plastic crisp bags, the beaches littered with plastic water bottles and  plastic bags cover huge swathes of land. Evil smelling bonfires of smoldering plastic trash are now as much a part of the backpacker experience as tinkling temple bells. These filthy fires add to air pollution and global warming and worse – certain types of plastic, when burnt,  release dioxin, a known human carcinogen and one the most potent.

We don’t want to leave a pile of everlasting trash in the places we visit so we boycott plastic disposables. Here’s how:

Our plastic free backpack list

We use a Steripen  to purify our own water  and so cut out those pesky plastic bottles. This fantastic bit of kit works by UV light, weighs next to nothing and is tiny and purifies water in 90 seconds. if you bought only one thing….

Of course then you need to take water bottles

Because so much street food comes in disposables we take

tin cups

reusable tin tiffin tin No 1   and tiffin tin No.2

chop sticks. And folding cutlery.

We say no to plastic straws in drinks, which leads to some  interesting mimes. Next time we will take our own straws

Our wash bag looks like this….

We use hydrogen peroxide  for  treating wounds and mouthwash

And the heroin tooth powder  for cleaning our teeth

I carry a years supply of sun block – home-made and plastic free. Same for  Self Tan

I make my own creams  and lotions WHILE travelling -check out  Making cream in Bangkok

We use a  solid shampoo cuts down on more bottles.  Lush (www.lush.com ) do some  but we use bar soap – it works fine

We shop at local markets and bakeries for unpacked tasty plastic free snacks and we  take our own bags to put them in including a reusable carrier bag.

We use re-chargeable batteries for all the techie stuff.

Buy from…

Follow the links to see where we got our stuff ( all over the place), or check out the Amazon -  shopping list below for similar products available in the UK.

Find out about plastic, why we boycott it and who we are here

Stay at home type? Check out these plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed in the awesome

A-Z plastic free index

a years supply of sun block

 I have absolutely no melamine and my skin burns even in cloudy conditions. Sure I cover up but I still have  to factor up on a regular basis.

I have been making my own sun block for years now and it does work (details below), but when setting off on our plastic free travels I had to ask myself:

Could I  really carry a years supply of home made sun tan lotion out there with me?

If so I would I carry it?

Last time I went away I took my home-made lotions in metal pots. While they are fine in the handbag they are not so good for hard core backpacking. My pack gets flung on and off jolty old buses and the metal bottles crumpled and creased under the strain. Then the lids could not be removed or started to leak.

Obviously I am not going to use glass bottles.

This is one of those times when plastic bottles are the best option so why not just buy the lotion out there ready made and packed in plastic bottles. Its not even as if those bottles would be going to landfill or end up as litter. In most of the countries we visit plastic bottles represent cash and are collected by  litter pickers.

Plenty of justifications for buying ready-made, plastic –packed lotion and yet I was not keen on that idea. Part of it is just stubbornness. I want to see how far I can go with this. Another reason is I hate  the crap they put in those creams – all those nasty chemicals and irritating perfumes.

So here’s my solution.

Back home I made some uber strong sun block cream. It’s  as thick as axel grease with a factor of about 100. I adapted an Aromantic recipe, reduced the water and upped the sun block ingredients,details below. It was all very ad hoc so there is no recipe.

Now, while travelling,  I thin down the axel grease with  homemade lotion as needed. I refill the  reusable plastic bottles I took from home. I can make a range of factors depending on how much lotion I add. So far it is working.

The logical amongst you will be looking puzzled. Surely  the problem remains? Rather then carrying a years supply of sunblock I now have to carry a years supply of lotion to thin the sunblock down with??

No because I make the lotion as I go along using the Plastic Is Rubbish backpackers home made lotion kit.

I think you will be proud of me!

Here’s how you make sun tan lotion

And here is  The Plastic Is Rubbish Backpackers home made lotion kit

Other cream related posts can be found HERE. If like me you don’t tan, you might be especially interested in Home madehfake tan

There are lots more plastic free beauty products here.

Want to find more travel related plastic free tips? Check out the travel category

Stay at home type? Check out this list of plastic free products -the >>>A-Z<<<  index

Related articles

• Great pot (plasticisrubbish.wordpress.com)
• Making cream in Bangkok (plasticisrubbish.wordpress.com)

Antisceptic, tooth whitener and mouthwash …

Bought this bottle of hydrogen peroxide from Boots in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The bottle is glass the cap is metal. Plastic free you might think well apart from the plastic lid liner and plasticised paper label. So massively plastic reduced is it that it is my choice of  antiseptic for my travel medical kit.

As well as cleaning wounds it can also be used as a mouth wash and helps whiten the teeth.

I love a multi-tasking product.

For a great mouthwash recipe try this blog.  And don’t stop at the mouthwash, there are lots of wonderful sounding things in there.

Other plastic free beauty products can be found right here.

Want to find more travel related plastic free tips? Check out the travel category

Stay at home type? Check out my range of U.K based plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Making cream in Bangkok

I don’t know what you do in a downtown hotel room in Bangkok but I make body lotion. I have been making my own creams and lotions successfully at home for ages now but since then of course I have packed my bags to travel the world. Obviously I don’t want to go back to using plastic packed cosmetics but carrying a years supply of creams and lotions was not an option. So I thought why not continue to make my own creams WHILE back packing.

As I am sure you know, cream, body lotion and the like is basically water and oil mixed together in varying quantities. The more oil the richer the cream. As water and fat do not naturally mix you need to use an emulsifier.

The process is simple – mix the oils and emulsifier and heat to a certain temperature. Heat the water to a certain temperature. Mix the two together to make cream.

So before I left I weighed out, mixed up and melted together a batch of oils and emulsifiers. I used hard oils like Shea so the end mix set firm – think butter in the fridge consistency. I planned to add the water at a later stage.
So when my body lotion ran out in Thailand it was time to see if my cunning stunt was going to work.
I set out my equipment.

Tiffin Tin 2
Metal cup
Heating element I had brought along to make tea (and cream) with.

Shea butter emulsifying oil mix
Let the show begin.
I put a dollop of the oil/emulsifying mix in the metal cup and some water in the tiffin tin.
I clipped the tin cup to the side of the tiffin tin with my tweezers.
I heated the water in the tiffin tin with the element.

When I thought everything was hot enough I added some of the water to the melted oils and mixed vigorously.

Not a complete success. The oil and water did emulsify but didn’t thicken quite as much as I had hoped. I had created a kind of sloppy lotion rather than a cream but it was good enough for moisturising.

I refilled my plastic bottle and went on my merry moisturised way.
Lots more information about my cream making exploits can be found on the following pages

Lots more information about my cream making exploits can be found on the following pages

All cream index

How do you make cosmetic creams and lotions the basics

The Aromantics cream making starter pack some more details

Home made sun tan lotion

Home made fake tan

Other plastic free beauty products can be found right here

Want to find more travel related plastic free tips? Check out the travel category

Stay at home type? Check out my range of U.K based plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

In the news

Bit excited today as the PIR. Blog

is featured over in Gadling Travel Blog,  a worthy publication with obviously  good taste. You can read the full article here

It also mentions some good old (plastic free) timers,  Beth over at fake plastic fish and plastic manners … Let’s hear it for the girls.

Best of all I am so pleased that plastic free travel is of interest to a wider audience. Is the tide turning? I truly hope so.

Want to find travel related plastic free tips? Check out the travel category.

Stay at home type? Check out my range of U.K. based plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index.

How to …clean your teeth plastic free

Cleaning your teeth involves so much plastic what with the tooth brushes and tubes of toothpaste. Lucky for you I have researched a number of plastic free products for you to try.

There are these all natural toothbrushes from Germany and these compostable scrubbers from Australia.

Plastic free and almost plastic free dentifrices are listed here:

tooth cleanser – bi carb

tooth paste metal tubes

tooth powder home made

I recommend the home-made tooth powder as being the nicest tasting, best all round option.

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

Want to cut down on more of your plastic rubbish? – find plastic free products with the >>>A-Z

this is the water bottle I really want……

Kanteen Reflect Steel Bottle: No Paint or Plastic, Bamboo, Laser Etched.

 

Find places to fill your water bottle here

Want to find more travel related plastic free tips? Check out the travel category

Stay at home type? Check out my range of Uk based plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Tiffin tin two

We have two types of tiffin tin. One is a two tier sandwich box handy for  bits and bobs the other is  a big bucket of a thing with a tightly fitting but not waterproof lid.

We can get a whole load of fried rice in there.

We get it filled with juice in plastic obsessed Thailand.

We use it to heat water in when we need to make our own emergency tea.

We used it as a cooking pot out in the jungle.

Other plastic free aids we carry include tin cups and folding cutlery and reusable folding chop sticks. Yes we clank but we don’t leave behind rubbish with a lifespan of centuries. And if that sounds smug….don’t care.

Want to find travel related plastic free tips? Check out the travel category.

Stay at home type? Check out my range of U.K. based plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index.

Related articles

• Time for tiffin (plasticisrubbish.wordpress.com)

Making Basic Creams and Lotions

As I am sure you know, cream, body lotions and the like, are basically water and oil  mixed together in varying quantities.

As water and fat do not naturally mix you need to use an emulsifier. Read this article on emulsifiers – it makes it all clear

The cream making process is simple –  mix the oils and emulsifier and heat to a certain temperature. Heat the water to a certain temperature. Mix the two together.  Ta da.

For rather better instructions, and a great place to buy ingredients, visit the website  www.aromantic.co.uk.

If it is your first time creaming up, I can recommend the cream starter kit from aromantics.. It has everything you need tho there are some plastic elements read this for more info.

I can now make all kinds of potions from light lotions to heavy repair creams.

Here are some things I have found out about making cream

If I leave out the preservative my skin is less likely to react badly to the cream, (I have very sensitive skin). I was prepared for problems of the mouldy cream but so far that hasn’t happened.

Home made fake tan works.

Buy commercially made products and YES YOU ARE PAYING FOR WATER. Not to mention a whole load of chemicals that may not be very good for you packaged in plastic. It’s a cheesy swizz.

The more oil the richer the cream.

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