By Hand…Sigh
Washing up liquid and I use Ecover in a refillable plastic bottle. I know the bottle is plastic but kitchen? glass? This is a case for reusable plastic if ever there was one and I have been using mine for YEARS now.If you wanted to be a purist you could use a metal bottle I guess. Check out where you can find a refill service here .
Cotton dishcloth. You can usually find the old style cotton knitted dishcloth in local shops and hardware stores such as Wilkinsons. Or you can knit your own. If you cant knit you can buy hand knitted from Etsy and lie.
Bristle brushes are useful for scrubbing away burnt on gunk. They can bought on-line here or from the delightful kitchen ware shops at Saltaire Mill.
You can find a range of scouring pads here from the butch knitted metal to the soft and natural luffa.
Washing up gloves. - biodegradable Fairtrade rubber gloves - guaranteed to compost down.
Cotton tea towel.
Now all you need is someone to actually wash the dishes. Come on Grandma….
Dishwasher
Or you can get an dishwasher and use this plastic free dish wash powder from Sainsburys and other supermarkets.. Goodbye Grandma…
For anyone living within easy reach of Brighton, Utility is a wonderful shop which sells all manner of old fashioned household cleaning tools. They have copper cloths for scouring which are biodegradable and last for ages. When they finally look as if I don’t want to use them any more I cut them up and use them as slug deterrent in my plant pots. They also have the wooden dishwashing brushes mentioned elsewhere plus all sorts of other wooden scrubbing and cleaning brushes, metal dustpans, cotton cleaning and dish cloths, etc. It’s in North Road, Brighton, next door to the Dorset pub. They also sell glass storage jars and metal storage containers and they have an online shop: https://utilitygreatbritain.co.uk/ .
Yay
Unicorn grocery store, Chorlton (UK, Manchester) sells wooden dishwashing brushes with replaceable bristle heads.
Ecover works fine for me but home made dish wash powder didn’t. I have not tried the sainsbury’s powder as I am washing up by hand at the moment. Thanks for the input.
I tried Ecover washing up liquid and I wasn’t that impressed, plus I was getting through it at least 3x as fast as Fairy, so I’ve gone back to Fairy. I figure that recycling 1 giant plastic bottle per year is fairly OK- I buy the absolute biggest bottle I can find. Likewise, I tried Sainsbury’s loose dishwasher powder in a cardboard box and it was TERRIBLE. I then had to take everything out the dishwasher and wash it by hand. Pointless. I’ve heard equally bad things about Ecover too. I should try making my own, as I have a recipe- just to see how it fares. These eco- friendly options are all well and good, but pointless if they’re not up to the job.