Plastic In Menstrual Products

Those disposable pads and tampons? Not cotton wool as you might have thought but plastic. Sigh!

Why?

Along with cotton buds, tampons, applicators and panty liners make up 7.3 % of items flushed down the toilet in the UK.
For every kilometre of beach included in the Beachwatch survey weekend in 2010, 22.5 towels/panty liners/backing strips, and 8.9 tampon applicators, were found.
About 90% of the materials used to make sanitary pads and liners are plastic and include polyethylene, polypropylene and polyacrylate super absorbents.
Every year, over 45 billion feminine hygiene products are disposed of somewhere.
Read more here

How

There is no doubt menstruation can be a grubby business. So three cheers for the mooncup using, reusable wearing, all green and lovely ladies of clean. Here’s what they use

Resuables

Because of the nature of the product, where it has to go and what it has to do the options do contain some plastic. Shop bought reusable pads may be made of synthetic fibres and have a waterproof backing (though some don’t). Silicone is non biodegradable and very plastic like. But they are reusable and so cut your plastic consumption by massive amounts. You can find out lots more via the product links.

Reusable menstrual pads / sanitary towel. They are as they sound. Reusable pad you wash after use. You can buy them ready made from smaller suppliers on Esty to bigger mainstream companies. You can even make them yourself. Read more here – buy or make Reusable menstrual pads / sanitary towel

Internal / Menstrual Cup – This is little silicone or rubber cup that you use internally. It collects the flow and is then emptied washed and reused. Before you squeal and scream read this.

Disposables

Not only do towels and tampons come wrapped in plastic, the fibres used to make them are often synthetic plastic. About 90% of the materials used to make sanitary pads and liners are plastic and include polyethylene, polypropylene and polyacrylate super absorbents. Natracare to a great range of almost plastic free menstrual products. Try these

Tampon with applicator made from organic cotton with a cardboard applicator in a paper wrapper.

Other Interesting Options

About which I know very little

Sea Sponges

There’s an interesting read here with instructions on how to make your own and reviews of ready made here.

Buy Local First

Being committed to local shopping, I prefer to buy that way whenever possible. I would encourage you to do the same. One of the joys of living plastic free is mooching round the local shops seeing what you can source.

Buy from independent online traders

If you can’t buy local please do check the links above to the suppliers and buy direct from them and support their online businesses.

Finally ….If you can’t do that then I have put together and Amazon catalogue. Yes I know…


Gladrags Menstrual Color Cotton Pads – 3 – … £18.67	Mooncup Menstrual Cup Size B 1pieces £19.99 Comes in 2 sizes – check before you buy you can read a review on http://plasticisrubbish.com/2010/01/03/lady-stuff/	Mooncup Menstrual Cup Size A 1pieces £19.99

Natracare Regular Pads £1.90 – £18.27	Natracare Organic All Cotton Tampons With A… £2.59 see review on our website http://plasticisrubbish.com/2014/06/26/tampons-with-applicator/	Reusable Hemp Sanitary Towel

Reusable Cotton Sanitary Towel – Flowers &a…	The Busy Woman’s Guide to Cloth Pads by Tracy Puhl	GladRags Color Day Pad £6.00 –

Amazon is a very dirty word at the moment and I thought long and hard before suggesting them. Heres why I went ahead….. No we are not entirely happy with Amazons recent history. However, we have always found their service to be good and their packaging usually compostable.

If you buy a product via this link we do get an affiliation fee for this. This is not why we do it.

Candied Peel

6 June 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.5 Christmas, 3.2.4 cook book

Needed for fruit cakes, christmas puds and mince pies but not so easy to get plastic free. Here are your options…

The Nut Shop Leeds Market also offers a wide range of nuts and dried fruit, even loose sprinkles for cakes. By weight. Details HERE

If you cannot get to Leeds you can try
Wholefood Market a supermarket chain
Weigh & Save shops a UK franchise
And other loose food outlets as listed below

Loose Food A to Z

Find out if a shop near you sells bulk food loose. This is stuff that that normally comes plastic packaged ie rice, pasta and salt. And yes these shops do exist in the U.K. There’s just not many of them.
Heres alist of towns with shops selling loose food.

Packaging

While these shops provide bags and they are almost always plastic ones. You will need to take your own plastic-free /reusable bags.

Make Your Own

I’m not such a huge fan of candied peel but I love

Fiery Fruity Ginger Bits

I add them to my home made mincemeat. This recipe is two for the price of one as it also gives you

A Sour Sort Of Mixer
I make this and use the left over peel and ginger in place of candied peel. I guess you could leave out the ginger.
In a pan put
Peel of an orange and a lemon no white pith cut into strips
Ginger cut into pieces – rather depends on how old the ginger is (fresher is stronger), and how much you like it.
Add the juice of one lemon
And some water
Boil up with sugar to taste.

Strain off the liquid. This can be used a sweet yet tangy mixer that tastes rather good with fizzy water as a soft drink or better still fizzy water and vodka!

Fiery Fruity Ginger Bits
The peel and ginger is now softer and easy to eat. It is sweeter and has now lost some of its flavor but still packs a fiery punch. It can be added to other dishes as a kind of seasoning. Go easy!

Proper Candied Peel

Make your own – I have never tried this and possibly never will but the zero waste chef whose advice I trust if example I cannot emulate, does it so I leave you in her capable hands!

And then you can use it in your home madesweet mincemeat – plastic free recipe here.

Cookbook

Who knew? Baking – it’s not that bad! Check out the plastic free cook book here

Bun/muffins

31 May 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 General & Homemade Tagged 3.1 general, 3.1.2 reusables, 3.2.2 Kitchen, 3.2.4 cook book, 5 Content Veiw 4 Comments

Baking buns is fun but try getting plastic free bun cases and you will be in difficulties as they all come packed in plastic tubes.

Paper & Card

Lucky then I found these paper cases in a cardboard box by If You Care. They are in some shops and can be bought on line. They do three different sizes.
“If You Care Baking Cups are made from unbleached totally chlorine-free (TCF) greaseproof paper. They are perfect for sweet and savory baked goods. Your muffins, cupcakes, mini quiches and other recipes won’t stick to our baking cups because of their natural easy release properties.”
Not sure what “natural easy release properties” are but If You Care were lining their greaseproof paper with silicone last time I looked. And silicone is of course plastic.

Read about greaseproof paper here. spoiler – these days much of it is plastic lined or chemically treated
Read up on Chlorine free paper here.

Silicone Reusable

Otherwise you can go for silicone reusable cases. Yes they are made of plastic, (if you count silicone as a kind of plastic and we do), but they are reusable as oppose to disposable paper

I got these silicone moulds in cardboard packaging from Strawberry Fair which has since, sadly, closed down. This is just to let you know they are out there

Heres what the manufacturers say they “are incredibly versatile and durable. They are the perfect size for small individual jellies, can be used to bake cup cakes in the oven or microwave and then frozen if necessary. No muffin pan required, they are stain and odour resistant and even have a line to fill up to for a consistent look.”

If you can’t find them there are hundreds of other that come plastic packed. Its a one off purchase that will reduce your throwaway plastic packaging so you might consider it worth while.

See more reusable products here.

Baking Tray

You will need to use a stainless steel muffin case without a non-stick coating. No nasty chemicals for you. You can read up about Teflon here
Nisbetts do a good range of stainless steel cookware and they have stores around the U.K

If you can’t find anything in the shops you can of course buy on line. And then you come up against the prickly problem of packaging. There is nothing that enrages plastic activist in me more than researching a a plastic free and environmentally friendly, purchase onlin only to find the onward packaging is plastic.

If it comes via an online, postal service, I want to know how the product will be packed and the more information the better. Down to what kind of tape is used (whether it is plastic or not) and whether the invoice will be in a plastic bag on the front of the box.

Which is why I like he following companies. They offer plastic free products but also consider the onward packaging.

N.B. But no matter what I say, check and double check for yourself. One mans plastic free is another’s little bit of sticky tape.

Find lots of plastic free recipes with the plastic free cook book

N.B.

Lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x

And before you go…

If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project (read more here) or

Washing Soda, Bicarbonate Of Soda & Borax

22 May 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Cleaning Up, 3.6 Good to know, 4.9 Useful to know Tagged 3.1 Bicarb, 5 Content Veiw 3 Comments

When I first went plasticfree I read up on alternative ways to clean online. Lots of people reccomended Bicarbonate of soda, Washing Soda and Borax.
So I went out and stocked up.
Then I began to make increasingly complex recipes to clean my tiles and wash my clothes. To be honest I found ECover refill washing up liquid, bicarb and soap met all of my needs. Adding borax or washing soda made very little difference. But because they are stronger than bicarb, you are meant to wear gloves when you use them. So now I have to source plastic free gloves. Way too much hassle So I have stopped using them. And I don’t miss them.

What Are They

The trinity of green cleaning – washing soda, bicarbonate and borax. Often mentioned rarely explained!

Let’s take washing soda and bicarbonate of soda first. Why because they are related.

They are both biodegradable
Washing soda has many industrial uses and as such is produced on an industrial scale. Bicarbonate of soda is a byproduct of that process.

Washing Soda or Sodium carbonate (also known as soda ash and soda crystals) has a chemical formula of Na2CO3.
Bicarbonate of soda Chemical formula NaHCO3.
One sodium atom difference between the two

Making Bicarbonate and Washing Soda

Bicarbonate of soda can be produced as a by product of washing soda via one of these heavily industrialised processes:
The Solvay Process Uses limestone, salt and ammonia to transform salt (sodium chloride).
Mining – Trona ore is mined, then heated until it turns into soda ash also known as washing soda. Bicarbonate of soda is obtained along the way. Read more.

Baking Soda V Washing Soda
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Both are alkaline so good at removing organic soils (but not inorganic).
Washing soda has a pH of 11
borax is 9.3 pH
Fairy liquid has a pHof 9.2
Ivory bar soap from Proctor and Gambol 9.5
Soapy water has pH of 9
Bicarbonate of Soda has pH of 9

Baking Soda’s PH is not as alkaline as washing soda. That one sodium atom (Na) makes a difference.
Washing soda is stronger than bicarb
Washing Soda can soften water bicarbonate of soda cannot.
N.B. You can turn bicarb back into washing soda by baking it so that breaks back down into water steam, carbon dioxide and washing soda. I have never done this but by all accounts need to cook your bicarb in the oven for half an hour at 400 F (or 200 C).

Borax
Borax falls somewhere in between .It is gentler than Soda Crystals yet stronger than Bicarbonate of Soda.
There are concerns that borax is toxic. So much so that you cannot buy it in the U.K. anymore. but there is little in the way of firm conclusions leading many to pooh pooh this ban.

Uses Of Bicarbonate and buy
Uses Of Washing Soda and where to buy
Uses of Borax and where to buy HERE

Technical Data

Technical grade

What do I use

NB if I ever did need some washing soda I would cook up some bicarb.

BUT I live in a soft water area.

Use & Buy

Uses Of Bicarbonate and buy
Uses Of Washing Soda and where to buy

Uses of Borax and where to buy

Borax occurs naturally in evaporite deposits produced by the repeated evaporation of seasonal lakes. The most commercially important deposits are found in Turkey; Boron, California; and Searles Lake, California. Also, borax has been found at many other locations in the Southwestern United States, the Atacama desert in Chile, newly discovered deposits in Bolivia, and in Tibet and Romania. Borax can also be produced synthetically from other boron compounds.
WIkkipedia

Proper borax is No longer sold on the shelves in the UK. You have to make do with a borax substitute from Dripak.

“Borax Substitute is sodium sesquicarbonate – a mineral compound, with similar pH to borax, making it ideal for cleaning and laundry. It is gentler than Soda Crystals yet stronger than Bicarbonate of Soda.

Using Borax Substitute around the house
Uses Borax Substitute as a:

Multi-purpose cleaner – Mix it with some water to form a paste. This makes it an excellent scouring agent that offers more cleaning power than Bicarbonate of Soda.
A water softener to help keep your washing machine clear of limescale.
To make your own bath salts, simply add some perfume or essential oils and a drop of food colouring to some Borax Substitute.”

That said you can still buy borax from Ebay

Uses

Some uses for borax here

Borax, washing soda, bicarbonate or all three. What should you use for your cleaning needs? A comparison HERE
See all out #plasticfree cleaning aids HERE

Technical Data

Technical grade

Sodium carbonate, also known as soda ash, is a white, anhydrous and hygroscopic powder with a purity. There are two forms of sodium carbonate available, light soda and dense soda (granular). Sodium carbonate has a melting point of 851C, it decomposes when heated and therefore a boiling point can not be determined. Sodium carbonate is an inorganic salt and therefore the vapour pressure can be considered negligible. It is soluble in water and solubility increases with temperature. The average particle size diameter (d50) of light sodium carbonate is in the range of 90 to 150 µm and of dense sodium carbonate is in the range of 250 to 500 µm. Sodium carbonate is a strong alkaline compound. The pKa of CO3 2- is 10.33, which means that at a pH of 10.33 both carbonate and bicarbonate are present in equal amounts.

Click here to view MSDS

A Whole Universe of Creativity

16 May 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 General & Homemade Tagged 0 guest post, 00 working

British Wool – A case study. This lovely piece of work is utterly inspiring. And plastic free. And made using U.K. wool. lovely!.

I can’t remember exactly when I came across pictures of the beautiful blankets made from the pattern called Sophie’s Universe, but I fell in love with the design straight away and knew that I wanted to make a version of my own. The pattern was originally released on-line as a crochet-along (CAL), which is still available, but a book has been published now. It’s possible to buy packs that contain all the necessary yarn, but I had a hankering to make mine in 100% British wool (the packs use either cotton or a cotton/acrylic mix). Anyway, being of an independent nature, I wanted to choose my own colours and yarn producers.

I visited my local yarn shop so that I could feel the yarn and look at colours for real, rather than rely on the colour reproduction on a computer screen. I really wanted to use some local yarn, so I chose Cambrian Wool in its natural colour as the basis from which to work. I bought a cone of this direct (they are just down the road) and all the other wool came from the yarn shop, thus supporting two local businesses. Cambrian Wool is from Welsh Mule sheep (a cross between the local breed and Blue-faced Leicester), I used a couple of coloured versions too and all the rest was pure Blue faced Leicester (either from Wooly Knit or West Yorkshire Spinners).

It took me about six weeks from start to finish (I crochet quickly), and I have a beautiful creation, 100% British Wool, that is completely plastic-free, and which should last a lifetime. I feel strongly that if I am going to put many, many hours into a piece of work, I owe it to myself and the planet to use good quality materials that won’t have negative impacts in the years during which it will be used and enjoyed.

Please note…

This post was written by the contributor.
Guest Post & Plastic Free Promotions
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Bird Food

15 May 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 House, Office & Garden, 3.1.7 Wo/M/animals Tagged 3.1.3 Loose Food, 3.1.6 Garden, 3.1.7 Pets & Animals, 3.2.2 West Yorkshire

Feeding the birds can be a plasticky business but not for us happy Huddersfield folk. Up at Earnshaws saw mill, a place better known for their damn fine timber products, they sell a whole range of bird seeds loose – everything from nigra seed to peanuts. If you don’t know your linseed from your sunflower they have a chart telling you what seed will attract which bird.

After that its really easy.

Take your own plastic free bags (and I find biobags are the best for bird seed because you can knot them – some of those seeds are tiny), fill em up and take them home.

happy birdies all round.

And this was seen up on Facebook

B&M are doing a great deal on Fat Balls for birds – £8 for a box of 150 balls, no netting and no plastic! Made in Britain.

Wiggly Wigglers do different kinds of birdseed, packed in a thick paper sack which can be composted. The seed is very good quality.
RSPB do 12.5kg paper sacks delivered with 20% off at the moment. Expensive though.

What to feed when

Advice on how to feed birds when and on what can be found (along with the expensive bird seed), at the RSPB web site.

Breakfast

12 May 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.2.4 cook book 2 Comments

Crunchy munchy cornflakes, sweety wheaty bix, fast food breakfasts that look all innocent in their jolly cardboard boxes what could possibly go wrong. Most breakfast cereals come in plastic bags, (often inside cardboard boxes) so its

Porridge Oats

You can get them in cardboard boxes (that are plastic free), or paper bags. See here

with milk from the milk man.

Museli

But sometimes I don’t like it hot.

Oats with sliced banana and apple with milk from the milk man.

If you want to have this with nuts or dried fruit you can get everything you need here

Fry Up

Go to a butchers or butchers counter in a supermarket with your own container or biobags.

Mushrooms and tomatos from the green grocer in cotton produce or paper bags (find here) which I reuse and eventually compost.

eggs in a cardboard box ditto.

Brew Up

The teabags are from Twining’s and the packaging is plastic free. Sadly the tea bags are not! Yes teabags contain plastic! We use loose tea. You can find out more here.

If you are a coffee drinker, get your coffee from Coffee Evolution.

with milk from the milk man.

Juice – homemade

Disposable Cups

26 April 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Disposables & Reusables Tagged 00 compostable plastic, 00 working, 3.1.2 disposables

Disposable cups are made from plastic lined paper, polystyrene or plastic.

To make paper cups water proof they are laminated with polyethylene, a plastic resin.

Sustainability is Sexy claim that paper cups are made from virgin wood because there are major problems making paper coffee cups from recycled paper. Regulations are strict about what materials you can use to package food and drink and recycled paper isn’t strong enough.

We use a lot of disposable cups.

Here are some figures. As you can see, cup waste is huge!

Stats

The 2.5 billion synthetic cups thrown away in Britain every year are made from a mixture of materials which prevents them from being recycled alongside paper and cardboard. Daily Mail

A report conducted jointly by the Alliance for Environmental Innovation and Starbucks found that 1.9 billion cups were used by Starbucks in 2000.[5] In 2006, Starbucks reported that this figure had grown to 2.3 billion cups for use at their stores.[6]

And just recently the Guardian reported that “A conservative estimate puts the number of paper cups handed out by coffee shops in the UK at 3bn, more than 8m a day. Yet, supposedly, fewer than one in 400 is being recycled.”

According to the paper industry, Americans will consume an estimated 23 billion paper coffee cups in 2010. Rob Martin, the Vice President of Merchandising and Production for Tully’s Coffee, estimated the 2006 use usage at 16 billion paper cups.[4]

Some Solutions

Polystyrene & Plastic

Why anyone would want to drink out of a polystyrene cup is beyond me. The drinks taste horrid which many be due to the nasty chemicals that go into polystyrene. Plastic cups too are awful. Flimsy and tacky.

Polystyrene is difficult to recycle. Difficult but not impossible …

For those of you who insist on using plastic cups there is the save a cup recycling system

Save a Cup was established by the vending, foodservice and plastics industries as a not for profit company. It was set up to collect and recycle used polystyrene (plastic) vending cups. Today the service has been extended and now includes cans, pods, plastic and paper cups.

Paper/plastic Cups

Because these cups are made from paper and plastic they are difficult to recycle. The parts have to separated. Though this can be done it is a complex procedure which adds to the cost of the recycled product.

Leading many recyclers to say that they don’t recycle paper cups. Though some do. It’s a murkey scenario at best.

Compostable Cups

There are compostable products on the market. they are made from clear certified-compostable, cornstarch plastic (PLA) or paper cups lined with the same. Vegware for example do a full range. But there would need to be far more, large scale municipal composting schemes for this to be a properly effective answer for the above amounts of waste. You can check out a rather sweet cup to compost scheme here.

Take Your Own Cup

Of course none of the above address the issue of creating massive and unsustainable amounts of trash by using disposables. Don’t be part of the problem – take your own reusable cup and use that instead. You can find a great range of cups here.

Tissues

20 April 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Personal 1 Comment

Obviously I don’t ever buy those stupid little plastic wrapped packs of tissues. I use reusable handkerchiefs or, if desperate, toilet roll.
Butthere are times when a box of tissues come in handy …and then there are problems.

Buy what you think is a cardboard box of paper tissues and you may well find, once you rip open the dispenser bit, the hole is reinforced with a plastic collar….grrrrr

Unless you buy the cheapo ranges – so cheap they don’t bother to reinforce the hole.

Suppliers
Tescos budget own range
Lidles – (see other plastic-free Lidless stuff here)

Delivered

Greencane deliver in bulk or as part of a mixed order including loo roll and toilet paper. All orders come in cardboard boxes.

Find out more about Greencaneproducts here.

To order products visit the website.

More Info

And you might like these other health & hygiene posts

bin liners

6 April 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 House, Office & Garden

We used to use hundreds but now I have given them up! So what do I keep my rubbish in then? I could use compostable bin liners made out of cornstarch or paper bags but why pay when you don’t have to? And we dont!

We boycott plastic, recycle, and compost – all of which means our kitchen bin is nearly empty. What rubbish we do create is mostly dry, at worst a bit sticky, so it can go straight into our kitchen bin.

The bin has one of those hard removable plastic liners that can be washed out after emptying – which helps if waste is a bit grubby.

We empty our kitchen bin straight into our black bin. You could use a degradable plastic liner in the wheelie bin if you really wanted to – or had to. We don’t need to as, most of our rubbish is dry, and our council is sensible.

End result – we DONT NEED TO USE ANY KIND OF BIN LINERS.

Originally we had a bin with a steel liner but it began to rust and was hard to keep clean. So I changed to plastic. See we don’t hate it (you can follow our plastic we use tag to see the plastic we indulge in).

Dont know which compost bin to buy, only got a tiny apartment, or have no need for humus? Dont worry, you can still compost – try this range of interesting compost bins

W – Plastic Free Places that start with the letter W

4 April 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.2 Shops & Businesses Tagged 3.1.3 Loose Food

Watford
Vicky has this to say about Bon Appetite in Watford “that had loose nuts and dried fruit. Can’t find the original post now but anyway finally remembered to see what it is called – Bon Appetit – on The Parade in Watford. Sells world foods in bulk ( mostly in plastic but large quantities ) , loose fruit and veg, large paper bags of flour, loose nuts, dried fruit and some fresh food counters where you may be able to take own containers ( haven’t tried).

Wimborne
Spill The Beans, Wimborne, Dorset. As they sell loose spices, dried fruit and nuts. Plus eCover refills, Faith in Nature and other solid soaps – all package free. HTH . From Liz Hodge http://spillthebeanswimborne.co.uk/

Winscombe
“There is a wonderful little shop called Scoop and Spice, in Winscombe (a little village) in North Somerset. I think it still also has another shop in Yatton (a commuter village in North Somerset). You can take your own containers, or they provide paper or plastic bags. They have all the basics (rice, pulses, nuts, herbs, muesli, oats, dried fruit, pasta) and coffee beans. They also do Ecover refills. And I was delighted to be able to buy dark chocolate coated brazil nuts (and other yummies) in a paper bag the other day! They also sell cardboard deodorant sticks, loose soaps, shampoo bars. They are increasing their range all the time and it is an absolutely amazing place, notwithstanding it is a small shop in a small village. It is family-owned and they are lovely people. Definitely worth supporting.”

Worcester
“Pack It In – Zero Waste Living in Worcester Pack It In – Zero Waste Living in Worcester
Pack It In
Unit 7,8,9
The Gallery
(The Old Market Hall)
The Shambles
Worcester
WR1 2RD”

XYZ
York

What Are Refill Stores?
Bulk buy or refill stores are places you can buy food loose.You take as much as you want/need from a larger container and you can usually use your own packaging.
Packaging
While these shops provide bags and they are almost always plastic ones. You will need to take your own plastic-free /reusable bags, tubs and bottles.

Tare

The weight of the container may make a difference at checkout. Some shops subtract the tare weight but other don’t. The tare weight is the weight of the empty container.

Shops

XYZ
York

Find other loose food stores here

Find A Milk Delivery Service With Glass Bottles Here

Supermarkets
Sometimes supermarkets can surprise you – check out the plastic-free and reduced packaging products here.

Help Me

Please add any shops you know of in the comments below and I will incorporate them into the post.
Links to reviews particularly welcome.
Dont have a blog? Love guest posts…

You can find a list of all other plastic free products over at the A to Z

You can find more loose food outlets here These shops provide bags and they are almost always plastic ones. You will need to take your own plastic-free /reusable bags. You can find a list of all plastic free products over at the A to Z

How To Make Personal Care Products

3 April 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 General & Homemade, 3.2 How To...plastic-free

It is so easy to make your own personal care products and the advantages are huge; you get to control what goes on your skin, be way more eco-friendly and save a whole load of cash. You can make almost anything the cosmetic companies sell but without the palm oil, dodgy chemicals and weird colors. Though you can have all those too if you want.

In the U.K.. you can buy some ingredients locally, (mainly coconut oil), but for most of them you will need to go online. And almost certainly they will come packed in plastic. BUT you will get so much product from one bag that this will represent a massive cut in your overall plastic waste creation.

Disclaimer
Be aware of the risks of listening to someone who
a) doesn’t have any training in this field,
b) most of what they know comes from Google,
That’s me I mean.

I am telling you of my own experiences for your information only. You should do a lot more research before proceeding. None of the following have been tested on anyone other than me, my husband and my mum.

Check out the links below for suppliers and recipes.