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Plastic-Free July: Sustainable Household Swaps

Sustainable Household Swaps for Plastic-Free July and beyond

Plastic-Free July is the perfect opportunity to start making plastic-free swaps that will last a lifetime. Some of the biggest plastic-free changes you can make are to your household. Simple things like switching to dissolvable cleaning products and adding in a Guppyfriend to your laundry cycle, which catch microplastics, can really make a difference to your environmental impact.

What changes can you make in your home and why should you bother?

Laundry

Polyester, nylon, acrylic and polyamide. The majority of clothes contain one or more of these materials, which are all a type of plastic. In fact, over 60% of new fabrics are made of plastic and that means one thing: microplastics.

Microplastics from clothes are microfibres, tiny threads that drain out of our washing machine, into treatment plants and through to the ocean. These fibres are so small that they are eaten by tiny creatures and make their way up the food chain. We're all likely to have these microfibres inside of our bodies.

How can you stop this from happening? One way is the Guppyfriend. The Guppyfriend is a laundry bag that catches the microfibres as you wash your clothes, stopping microfibres from entering our waters.

Take a look at the Guppyfriend laundry bag.

Cleaning sprays

In the UK, on average, we spend £100 on cleaning products a year. That’s a lot of spray bottles. These bottles, depending on the plastic they contain and where you live, aren’t recyclable in all councils.

It’s not just the plastic though. Many popular cleaning solutions contain toxic ingredients. There are some ingredients in a lot of common household products that have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems, neurological problems and hormone disruption. 

It’s crazy that we choose to have toxic ingredients like that in our houses, especially when we could pick a non-toxic alternative that’s also plastic free.

Here are some dissolvable cleaning solutions that are non toxic.

Iron & Velvet dissolvable cleaning spray

Poo bags

Poo bags end up everywhere. I’ve even seen them in bushes, hanging on the side of fences, and next to park benches and bins. There are lots of biodegradable poo bags out there on the market, but this actually might not be a good thing.

Biodegradable poo bags can take years to biodegrade and they break down into small bits of plastic… not ideal when we know the problems that microplastics cause.

But there is an alternative, which comes in the form of compostable poo bags. As these bags are plant based, they’ll break down in a mater of weeks, as they decompose into non-toxic organic matter.

Give your pup the eco-friendly treatment: compostable poo bags.

Candles  

Most traditional candles are made using paraffin wax. The problem with this is that paraffin is a by-product of crude oil refining, which means they just aren’t sustainable.

The nature of their production means that burning a paraffin wax candle is essentially the burning of fuel. Paraffin wax releases fumes into the air, which is bad for our health if exposed to too much.

Paraffin wax candles produce various emissions including toluene, alkanes and alkenes. These are linked to harmful impact on humans and compromise the air quality in your home. 

There’s a much better alternative out there. Renewable soybean crops are used to make soy wax, which doesn’t produce these emissions. Better origins and better burning.

Make the switch to soy wax candles.

Fireside Soy Wax Candle - Tiger & Co

Conclusion

There are some really easy swaps for your household that you may not have thought about. Not only adding a Guppyfriend laundry bag to catch the microfibres in your washing machine, but making the conscious decision to use eco-friendly laundry liquid or even making your own from Marseille soap!

Little changes can sometimes make the biggest impact without taking too much effort. Switch to compostable poo bags on your dog walk and you won’t even notice the change. 

We’re here to give you all the advice you need when it comes to making sustainable changes to your lifestyle. Take a look at our full range of eco household products and drop us a message if you want a hand in choosing what’s best for you.

 

How has Plastic-Free July been for you this year? What has been your favourite eco-friendly swap? Let us know in the comments.

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