Mystic Polly

This is my blog about living kindly, being kind to myself, kind to the planet and kind to others. Life is a journey and I do not always get it right!

One of my goals in my "year of living kindly' was to be more eco aware and to cut down on the amount of plastic packaging that I use and also incidentally on the number of plastic products that I purchase. We all know by now that the oceans are filling up with plastic, plastic does not bio degrade or it takes 1000 years to break down so our plastic use is not sustainable.

Step one is to use re-useable bags when shopping, I am at about 50% on this one. I wish that the US had a law that makes shops charge for plastic bags like the one in the UK, I know everyone would be more motivated to bring bags along. When I first moved over here there were paper bags at the checkout but everyone preferred plastic, so the stores stopped using paper. Please bring them back!

Step two - look around the home and see which products are packaged in plastic, next time you go shopping, try to buy the products in non plastic containers. I am currently working on this, this week I needed toothpaste, I like natural fluoride free products but there are no toothpastes in my local stores that are not in plastic tubes. I visited one of my favourite websites: My Plastic Free Life for ideas and decided to look online. I found a couple of options on Amazon and ordered Taylors Tooth Powder , it is made from charcoal so I will see if it works for me.

I also needed some dish soap and after researching found that baking soda and vinegar are supposed to work well, baking soda comes in a nice cardboard box but the vinegar I have is in a huge plastic bottle, so next time I will hunt for a glass one. I tried using this yesterday and it seemed to clean well.

Laundry soap - I decided to try something natural and opted for Eco Nuts Soap, I have to wait for this to be delivered but I will update you on how well if works. The Eco Nuts are natural berries that produce soap, you place them in a bag in the washing machine and voila you have soap!

I hope my purchases this week, will work well and become a habit saving the earth from many more plastic bottles and tubes. We can change what manufacturers produce and sell by voting with our dollars and supporting smaller businesses that do care about the environment. If we choose natural packaging with minimal printing, recycled paper, burlap sacks, recycled card or tins, we are making a start. If we choose products that are more natural we are saving our bodies from an onslaught of toxic chemicals.

Here are some similar posts: Natural Hair Dye, Hand Wash Dishes, Healthy Food, Introduction

Pauline Courchene Life Coach email me at [email protected]

Surround yourself with the beauty of natural things.