Eco-Friendly Home Basics Guide

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By Tori Kiss

Every day, tens of thousands of trees worth of toilet paper are flushed down toilets. Cloud Paper’s toilet paper is made from 100% bamboo. As the fastest growing plant in the world, bamboo is an ultra-renewable alternative to using trees for our single-use paper products. Keeping trees in the ground protects our earth’s climate and biodiversity. Plus, Cloud Paper’s bamboo toilet paper is soft, so you don’t have to sacrifice comfort for sustainability!

The solid shampoo and conditioner bars are a great alternative to clunky plastic bottles most shower products come in. The hair bars are easy to use, lathering into your hair just like shampoo and conditioner. HiBAR is also shipped in plastic-free packaging directly to your home, so you can completely eliminate plastic from your shower’s hair routine.

These are wonderful alternatives to traditional plastic-bottled cleaning products. With Blueland’s reusable (chic!) bottles and cleaning tablets that you dissolve with water, you now have replenishable and affordable cleaning products for your kitchen, bathroom, and rest of home. Even more, it’s way more efficient to ship cleaning tablets than it is to ship bulkier, single-use cleaning products, helping to reduce carbon emissions.

The plastic waste generated by the period industry is staggering — billions of tampons are purchased in the U.S. every year, and most packaging and applicators end up in landfills. Reusable menstrual cups eliminate that waste. The amount of single-use plastic & cotton (and money!) saved from making this switch really does add up very quickly. As menstrual cups continue to grow in popularity, there are tons of great options out there!

Say no more to plastic-wrap and zip lock bags from your food storage routine. The reusable silicone bags come in different shapes, sizes, and colors, and look great in the kitchen or on the go.

Buy your fresh produce at the grocery store without the wasteful plastic-bags. Urban Noon offers a variety of bags for when you pick up your fruits and veggies. Better yet, if your grocery store offers bulk grains, nuts, seeds, etc., Urban Noon offers bags that work for storing those as well!

It is estimated that 30% of all food produced in the U.S. goes to waste, which has harmful implications for our landfills as well as the energy & resources we use in producing this food. Imperfect Foods is tackling this problem by sourcing foods that otherwise would have gone to waste, and their home subscription model makes it super easy to get your groceries delivered to your door weekly. Even better, they now pick up the insulated liners & cool gel packs from prior deliveries (for re-use!), so there is little to no waste involved in the deliveries.

One of the highest impact ways we can reduce our carbon footprint is to eat less meat (it is estimated that 18% of all greenhouse gases come from livestock farming). If you're not able to give up meat completely, you might consider becoming more "meat conscious", that is, being more mindful about how much meat you're eating and reducing that where you can! For example, I opt for vegetarian meals during the week, and I might enjoy a meat-based meal over the weekend — which I've found to be a more manageable way to reduce my meat-consumption.

Native is a consumer favorite deodorant known for its clean ingredients (aluminum, paraben, and sulfate-free). They recently launched their plastic-free deodorant line. Native offers variety of great scents to choose from, and you can subscribe and save through their website!