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Full english breakfast or fry up
Herbs – plastic free home grown
Fizzy drinks and sodas
And you can find a whole lot more plastic- free products HERE
and how to do more stuff plastic free HERE
We like to drink sophisticated,cooldrinks and cocktails plastic free. Over the years we have sourced a wide range of useful products. Some of them (or similar) are available from Amazon – this shopping list may inspire you.
Find other kinds of plastic free straws right here.
You will also need a soda siphon /fizzy water machine….. but more on that later.
Yes this is an affiliate programme, but its the only way I could get a funky and inspirational list like this, and I am happy to recommend Amazon. We use them all the time, the service has always been good, even for returns, and the prices are reasonable. We also like their packaging policy. In our experience it has always ben compostable ( apart from some sticky tapes), though you might want to double-check.
To find more shopping lists click the tag.
Want to find other plastic free alternatives? I should say so!
Check out these plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed in the awesome
Get a milkman with glass bottles – stalk your neighbors looking for empties or check here to see if there’s one in your area.
Nice cup of tea? Need a teabag? Buy Twinings – all their packaging in 100% compostable.
Take your own cup to work and to Starbucks – try this little beauty
Get yourself a water bottle fill it with tap water – if you are lucky enough to live in Gods own city check out this fantastic scheme.
Use the Ecover for all your household cleaning products and when the bottle is empty get it refilled – you can find out who refills here
Take your own compostable and reusable bags and packaging with you when you go shopping and buy loose. Find bags here
Fast food fix – pizza in a cardboard box, fish and chips in paper or one of the big burger chains – if you don’t have the drink (don’t be fooled by those paper cups – plastic lined they are) – are all plastic free. Or even take your own containers. It can be done.
Flowers and chocks for the one you love ? MEEE. Go to florist and take your own paper and go to a proper sweet shop or even Thornton’s and take your own paper bag. Find bags here
Get yourself some bicarbinate of soda and use it to clean everything from your dog to your carpet to your teeth.
Use a solid shampoo bar or even soap instead of shampoo and try this vinagar rinse – it really works. Try making your own lotions and creams – its really easy and they work even the sun block!!.
Want to reduce your plastic rubbish?
Check out these plastic free products boycott at the A-Z plastic free index
and visit the fantastic How to …plastic free range
Lots more on the various types of plastic and what they are used to make can be found HERE
Find out about plastic, why we boycott it and who we are here
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:
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
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.
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
Is our new category that takes the search work out of anti plastic blogging. It works like this.
You want to know how to make a fry up plastic free?
Cant be arsed scrolling through the A-Z plastic free index or looking through the categories for individual items?
Then go straight to HOW TO and find out how to make a fry up plastic-free
Here are some of our HOW TO ….. PLASTIC-FREE subjects.
Cook plastic free -make these rubbish free meals
bag up so you can shop plastic free – even at supermarket Deli counters
keep pretty Cosmetics, tooth powder and cotton buds are some of the things you will find over here. Also includes
Cook plastic free -make these rubbish free meals
wash up – the pots that is – by hand. Yes we are old school here.
bag up so you can shop plastic free – even at supermarket Deli counters
More being added all the time see them here
Check out this list of plastic free products sourced as part of our boycott -the >>>A-Z<<< index
Washing up liquid - Ecover – in a refillable plastic bottle – check out where you can find a refill service here in the blog.
I know the bottle is plastic but kitchen? glass? tiles? idiots? C’mon. This is a case for reusable plastic – and I have been using mine for YEARS now. If you wanted to be a purist you could use a metal bottle I guess.
Cotton dishcloth – check out local shops
Bristle brush useful for all kinds of scrubbing type chores and burnt on gunk – can bought on-line here or from the delightful kitchen ware shops at Saltaire Mill.
Scouring pads – natural – a loufa – useful for gentle scouring and wiping. You can grow them you know
pan scrubs metal - for rather worse burnt on stuff .
Wire wool is also the bad cooks friend – try hardware stores
Cotton tea towel – check the shops
washing up gloves. – biodegradable fairtrade rubber gloves – guaranteed to compost down.
You can find out HOW TO …do all sorts of other things… plastic free right here
Want to cut down on more your plastic rubbish? Find plastic free products with the A-Z plastic free index
People are always asking me how I stay so young and lovely looking with no plastic in my bathroom cabinet.
Easy I say – I get all Blue Peter and make my own products. Its quicker then trying to choose between a hundred different shampoos and its really simple, fun to do and, best of all, I get to control what goes on my body, where it comes from and what environmental impact it has.
Incidentally have you seen what goes into commercial cosmetics? Try toxic chemicals in cosmetics, safe cosmetics website and the ewg database of all the chemicals you are rubbing in daily. If you are of a nervous disposition you might want to skip these and just resolve to reform.
For the most recent posts on beauty check here
Older posts can be found sorted below by category
Accessories
Cotton Buds
Dental Care
General Beauty
Bicarbonate of soda
Cream Hand body etc – home made Including specialist lotions like suntan self tan and eternal youth serum.
Hair Care
Plastic- free menstruation – sanitary Protection
You can find out HOW TO …do all sorts of other things… plastic free right here
Find out more about plastic here why boycott it here
Check out other plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott at the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index.
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
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.
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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
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Specialist Creams
Once the base is made you then you add active ingredients to make specialist creams such as:
- add Microfine Titanium Dioxide OR Zinc Oxide to make a suntan lotion
- 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.
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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.
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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.
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Suppliers
I love aromantics and buy most of my stuff from them but there are loads of good guys out there.
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Other plastic free health and beauty products can be found right here
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You can find out HOW TO …do all sorts of other things… plastic free right here
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Find other plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index
We are having so much trouble with straws, we keep saying “no straw”, drinks keep coming with straws. Next time I go out I am going to bring my own reusable straw and insist drink purveyers use that.
I will choose one of the following
or glass straws
to cornstarch disposable /compostable straws.
That’ll teach ‘em.
You can find out HOW TO …do all sorts of other things… plastic free right here
Buy plastic free drinking stuff on HERE
Or check out my range of Uk based plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index
