I am slowly making my way through each room in my house, doing everything I can to make each room be more sustainable by eliminating potential waste. For some reason, I have been avoiding doing this to my bathroom. I think I am scared. I am scared that I will need to start making all of my own beauty and bath products and let’s get real – between my triathlon training and water polo practices (hey hey masters teammates!) along with summer weekends away, work, and regular ol’ life, I simply don’t have time to do those things.
Once I acknowledged my fear I took a deep breath and went through my bathroom trashcan (you can watch a video of me doing this same exercise with my kitchen trash on my video page). I realized that my trash was full of dental floss, cotton rounds, the occasional toothbrush, and plastic wrap from my birth control pills. It wasn’t filled with health and beauty products because I simply don’t go through them very fast. I decided the best way to approach the bathroom would be to start by swapping out as many of these disposable items as possible. Later, I would tackle all of my health and beauty products.
Here are three swaps I made to move towards a zero waste bathroom. Just these three easy swaps have eliminated 90% of my waste.
Tip #1: Swap out your plastic toothbrush for bamboo
I purchased a four-pack of Brush with Bamboo toothbrushes and I love them! I saw my dentist after using one for almost two months and he gave me his seal or approval. In a few months, I plan to compost the toothbrush in my backyard composting system.
Tip #2: Use reusable cotton rounds instead of disposable ones
My trash can was filled with single-use cotton rounds. It turns out using one a day everyday generates a lot of trash. Switching over to a reusable cotton round is so easy. I like these ones from Cute and Funky. To clean them, I put the dirty ones in a little bag and put them in the wash. They are made of bamboo and so soft!
Tip #3: Use compostable dental floss
I highly recommend Dental Lace. It’s an amazing dental floss (feels just like any other floss) that is completely compostable and is sold in GLASS. I mean, hell yes! I actually like to order just the refills, so that I don’t even use the glass container. But each glass container is refillable if that’s your style. I throw my used dental floss in my City of Minneapolis Organics bin, but you can add it to your own backyard composting system if you want.
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More to come about easy bathroom swaps, but I hope these recommendations get you started on decreasing your waste!