1.) Reusable Dish Towels
This swap is one of the easiest choices to make in our list by far. Believe it or not, simply cutting up your old towels into smaller, napkin sized pieces is a remarkably efficient (and inexpensive) way to eliminate paper towels from your grocery list forever. Swap into the habit of grabbing your homemade dishcloths instead of your paper towel- and you will find it not only cleans more effectively- but saves you hundreds of dollars over the course of a year. Most importantly, this swap saves you an outstanding amount of trees and carbon dioxide emissions spared throughout the course of your lifetime! Who invented paper towels anyway? Trust us when we say you will never go back to repurchasing paper towel ever again! Try it yourself- and let us know what you think in the comments below!
2.) Who uses Keurig® anymore? K-Cups® is a well-known trademark of American plastic trash culture. Keurig® K-Cups® are seen littering our oceans & polluting ecosystems all over the planet, yet despite this fact- Keurig® continues to mass-produce them at cheaper rates than ever before. For those of us that respect our health, lives, the environment, and the future, we present our coffee fanatic favorite: The French Press. The French Press has been around for hundreds of years and is the natural way to brew coffee in just a few steps. Grab a bag of your favorite coffee grounds and add hot water. This ancient tool presses and releases the natural oils and flavors right out of your coffee bean and eliminates the need for added sugars and flavoring, producing zero plastic waste and saving you hundreds of dollars in plastic K-Cup® expense over the course of a year. Ditch the trashy alternative, and see why coffee connoisseurs prefer the French Press over Keurig® by a long shot. Please give us your french press favorites in the comments below!
3.) Metal Straws, Compostable Cutlery, and Saying NO to Styrofoam Shockingly enough, a majority of restaurants & American corporations resist making the switch to biodegradable straws, recyclable cups, or compostable eco-plastic cutlery, opting instead for Styrofoam alternatives and cheap oil-based plastic solutions. These multi-million dollar corporations leave it to their employees to carry out the responsibility of investing in sustainable options, which means bringing in their own metal straws, compostable cutlery, or water canteens and coffee tumblers. This is a major red flag because straw pollution is a well-known extinction driver for numerous vulnerable species. Plastic cutlery is a proven source of micro-plastic pollution that bio-accumulates throughout the food chain. Also, Styrofoam pollution contains CFCs, is energy extensive to clean, uses oil to produce, and polystyrene never biodegrades. Styrofoam is often cited as a source of air pollution in densely populated cities. So why are our multi-billion dollar corporations turning this blind eye in their part to contribute to global warming and climate change, and choosing to continue investing in products that pollute our environment and threaten the health of the people in our communities? Speak up, and start the conversation at your company about climate change. Ask how your company values its choices against the upcoming generations of its employees and the surrounding communities? 4.) Silicone Sandwich Bags are the new Ziplock Bags An up-and-coming *stylish* alternative for a much-needed solution to food storage, we present to you: the silicone sandwich bag. This washable, durable alternative to the sandwich bag outlives the standard plastic sandwich bag by 100 daily uses, and many can withstand -58° Fahrenheit while maintaining food quality and leak-proof guarantees. With various options to choose from, the amount of plastic that could be eliminated from busy family households will considerably reduce future waste and pollution with it's growing popularity. Silicone is recyclable at select recycling facilities near you (click here to find one near you). So spread the word! See below for our favorites:
5.) Beeswax Food Wrap & Supporting Bee Colonies Plastic wrap is another staple of American kitchens that lives a short useful life span but remains forever in unfortunate existence. In addition to silicone food wraps, Beeswax wrap is a sustainable solution to food storage that offers the quality of cling-wrap while also supporting and maintaining beehives and bee colonies across the country. Beeswax wrap lasts up to a year and can be washed and used frequently. Learn more about this product here, and shop their website for further details!
6.) Natural Sponges > Plastic Loofahs
While plastic loofahs look tempting with their cheap $1 price tag & flashy assorted colors, these plastic breeding grounds for bacteria leak formaldehyde, petroleum, sulfates & dioxins into the environment and aquatic ecosystems long after they’ve been discarded of use. Natural bath and shower sponges made from plant fibers minimize bacteria growth. They dry faster while offering a useful life span equal to plastic alternatives and reused & rewashed indefinitely upon the design. They release no harmful chemicals into the environment (all-natural), are made to be compostable, biodegradable, or recyclable; and pose no harmful or negative effects on the environment after use. See below for our favorites:
7.) No excuses for not using Reusable Grocery Bags in 2020 Imagine a world where any person who forgot their reusable/cloth grocery bag at home would have to walk their cart full of food items to their car through unloading one-by-one and driving their items home to finally load them into reusable grocery bags once they arrive where they left their reusable grocery bags the first place- to successfully transport their groceries into their house and unload accordingly, as usual. Moral of the story: There is absolutely no excuse for using plastic bags anymore. Each summer, countless whales and whale colonies are found beached along coastlines with 100's of plastic bags in their stomach, driving the scale of extinction to unprecedented rates. If you haven't heard this story from 2019: "Mariana Trench: Deepest-ever sub dive finds plastic bag," then there's a good chance you are very likely part of the problem. Its time to wake up people; our time is running out.
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