Recycling

check out the national recycling awards – they are coolio

Ikea Crackers

Its not just flat packs they sell but these paper wrapped crackers – pretty tasty they are too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Du Vin Du Pain Du Plastic Free Fromage

C’est tres bon

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

Steripenmandu

As you know I love our steri pen for saving me, as it does, from polluting remote villages and pristine landscapes with dirty mineral water bottles. I got mine from E bay but if you are in Katmandu you can buy them from.

KEEP …. map and address here

(You can also buy sterilized water to fill your own water bottle here at 10 Nepalese rupees a liter)

Or

Mount Everest Equipment Store UP School Road Tamel.

Salty Tasting Teeth

Experiments with the Teeth

For the past few months I have been using my own  home made tooth powder which has been very successful. Though I brought mountains of the stuff to India with me, my supplies have now run out. So I have been using salt. I bought my salt from Dzomsa in Leh. It came in a paper bag – good – reinforced with plastic tape – grrrr.

August

This month I…..

…got jiggy with flickr and started a plastic is rubbish photo pool to illustrate plastic pollution world wide. It features fab pictures like this one …and some of mine too!

…found out that rubbers have plastic in them and that maybe I should call them erasers

…sourced some metal and wooden pencil sharpeners to keep my new pencil nice and pointy.

…realised that wooden pencils could be used to replace plastic pens

…sourced some home made hair gel and hairspray that can be made with plastic free ingredients

…found these tiny reusable water bottles for little ones
….gave up shampoo for soap

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

To find out more about me, the boycott and when its gone right and wrong, clickhere

The new shampoo

Back in the early days I gave up buying shampoo in nasty plastic bottles and took to making my own from soap flakes. However I got to thinking why bother with all that flaking and making – surely soap is soap is soap. Turns out yes it is and you can wash your hair with a bar of soap just as well as anything else including shampoo which is just runny soap.

I find its best to wash twice.

Now this is really good news for back packers cutting down as it does on not only your plastic waste – excellent result – but the amount of stuff in your wash bag and so in your rucksack. You might think that’s nothing when you are back at home,  when you are carrying the damn thing while being mobbed by rick shaw wallahs, every bit of weight reduction counts.

However I have had bad experiences with Indian soap.  Soap bought in a cardboard box comes wrapped in a plastic bag inside.

But not this soap….

Himalayan Blends soap comes in a fairtrade box made out of recycled cotton. For more check out their site  www.villageartisan.com hand milled by khan and sons vpo palloor chamba hp

If you are in Leh you can buy it from the Organic Store.  If you are in Shimla, you can buy it from the everything shop on the Mall.

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

July round up

This month I have seen a lot of animals rooting through in the plastic filled Indian rubbish dumps looking for food. Guess what? Its not good for them!

I have also been investigating the wonders of Bicarbonate of Soda. It can be used to clean every thing from the cat to the kitchen sink buy it plastic free here

It can also be used to clean your teeth

Or you could make your own tooth powder like what I do

Talking of cleaning, I clean forgot to mention soap so here it is

I have also updated my useful plastic free weblinks

I have broken the following pledges

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

To find out more about me, the boycott and when its gone right and wrong, click here

Backsliding

In the three months plus I have been in India I have been far from computers and so unable to write up as much as I would wish. So my backsliding posts have not appeared. Here are my plastic crimes for the past hundred days ….

Tea bags two boxes – unlike Twinings tea bags in England they do not come in biodegradable packaging

Soap – seems that all soap in India is wrapped up so I bought some in a cardboard box. The soap was in a plastic bag inside.

Water – two bottles when there really wasn’t any other option. Hated doing it though – I have not drunk bottled water for ever and I have of course got my steripen.

Vinegar in a glass bottle – sadly it had a plastic lid. Sometimes I have to compromise because there is no other option. I use this as conditioner and so it represents a huge decrease on the plastic bottle waste I  would otherwise create were I still using this hair care product.

Honey in  plastic pot. I actully bought this for the plastic pot – I needed something to keep my salt in. But I dropped it and the lid broke so now it has to go on my backsliding pile.

About me

The eagle eyed amongst you, those who read my every post (if only such existed), may have noticed that I appear to be in two places at once, both Huddersfield and India. I am currently traveling through India and applying my plastic free principals to a backpacker lifestyle – see my new category traveling. I am also writing up a back log of plastic free actions from my time in England. I have actually given up far more plastic then have had time to write about.

NB This is being updated from a place where the electricity and satellite connections are unreliable, where it takes ages to open a page if it opens at all, copies random info and the lights go out about 6 times a day. Please bear with me.