Bar soap is often plastic free, less expensive than liquid soap, and usually has safer ingredients. Photo by silviarita on Pixabay.
Bar Soap is usually plastic-free
Switching to bar soap is one big change you can make right away to avoid plastic waste. It also embraces the zero-waste effort! Stop buying liquid soap that comes in plastic bottles, even the large refill bottles. Those bottles are recyclable but please know that recycling isn’t what we think it is. If those items make it to the recycling center, they will be down-cycled (the chemical composition of plastic changes when heated) and cannot be a soap bottle again. Also, only about 9% of plastics are actually recycled. So the answer is almost always to refuse plastic. Just stay away from it.
Unfortunately, many soaps at local supermarkets are plastic wrapped. I try to only buy brands that have no plastic packaging for hand soap, body bars, and shampoo. Plastic packaging for these just isn’t necessary.
There are many bar soap choices, but most are wrapped in plastic. There’s really no need for this. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Photos by Marie Cullis.
Microbeads in body wash (liquid soap)
If you are or were using body wash with “exfoliating” features, please know that what you were most likely using to scrub your skin was little, tiny plastic beads. And those beads are now found in the ocean and the Great Lakes.1 When microbeads go down the drain, they pass unfiltered through sewage treatment plants and end up in rivers and canals, and eventually the ocean. The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 was passed in December 2015, and it amended the “Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to ban rinse-off cosmetics that contain intentionally-added plastic microbeads beginning on January 1, 2018, and to ban the manufacturing of these cosmetics beginning on July 1, 2017. These bans are delayed by one year for cosmetics that are over-the-counter drugs.”2 It was a fight to get rid of them, so congrats to everyone who contributed to that cause!
Is bar soap hygienic?
Yes.
Some believe that bar soap is less hygienic than liquid soap. Large companies have promoted this myth to consumers in order to make a higher profit. But bar soap is clean and safe. The fact is, most liquid soap dispensers, in the places your fingers and hands touch, are not clean. Think about that – do you sanitize your dispensers? If you do, congratulations on being so hygienic! But public restroom soap dispensers are often not sanitary. Have you ever noticed that most hotels provide bar soap and not liquid soap in the rooms? I imagine that has a lot more to do with cost than sanitation, but I’ll give them credit for both! I’ve also read that hotels take the leftover bar soap and melt it down to remake it into new soap bars.
The questions about germs on bar soap are common, but most articles I’ve found indicate that the risk is low, and perhaps lower than liquid soap in a dispenser. Many articles and posts cite a 1988 study done by the Dial Corporation, which found that bacteria did not spread through washing with bar soap.3 But sometimes companies drive profit up through fear. Regardless of that study, many companies encouraged the idea that using liquid soap was more hygienic and sanitary, and the idea stuck.
“Liquid soap requires about five times more energy to produce than a bar of soap, and it is almost always sold in a plastic bottle.” -Brigette Allen and Christine Wong, authors of Living Without Plastic: More Than 100 Easy Swaps for Home4
Take care of your bar soap
So make the switch. But take care of your bar soap. First, let your bar soap dry in the open (as opposed to a closed soap dish). Second, if the soap is moist, run the bar under the water for a few seconds to rinse off the outside “slime.” Third, if you are sharing bar soap, you’re likely only sharing it with family members, and you share many microorganisms with them anyway. Last, if you are washing your hands the right way and for the amount of time you’re supposed to, you’re washing any residual germs away anyway.
Photo by Paul Gaudriault on Unsplash.
Cost
Bar soap is significantly less expensive when compared to liquid soap because the amount of uses from bar soap is higher than with liquid soap. It just lasts longer. With liquid soap, you’re paying for the water in it, and you get less use than with a bar. We have saved money by switching to bar soap.
Safe Ingredients
There are many bad ingredients in soaps, both bar and liquid. But they seem to be more prevalent in liquid soaps. Always check products through the Environmental Working Group‘s (EWG) website. They are a non-profit dedicated to being a consumer advocate, testing and reviewing products so that people can look up and understand what’s really in their products. They have guides to cosmetics, sunscreens, cleaners, food, personal care products, and even tap water! They’ll be able to show you what ingredients are really in many major products.
DIY
You can even make your own bar soap, any shape or color you want! Photo by pixel2013 on Pixabay.
Although I have not ventured into soap-making much, there are hundreds of ideas online for DIY soap. Making your own soap could be a new hobby, a family project, or a challenge among friends to see who makes the best soaps. Get your creativity on with different shapes, scents, and colors. I imagine Pinterest is bursting with ideas on soap-making!
I hope this post has been helpful to you. If you have questions or ideas, I’d love to hear them! Please leave me a comment below! Thank you for reading and please share and subscribe!
Additional Resource:
Article, “Solid Plastic-Free Shower Gel and Body Wash? What Do You Think?’ myplasticfreelife.com, June 3, 2018.
Is your Jack-O’-Lantern still around? Do you still have fall pumpkins around your home? Please read this before you dispose of them!
Don’t you just love fall and pumpkins? The colors, the smells, the flavors?
Fall includes fun holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving. Pumpkins, of course, are one of the main natural items we associate with Fall. We use pumpkins to decorate and make food. Some use squash or gourds for decorations. I think it’s awesome if you’re using nature’s creations instead of plastic decorations! But what do you do with those items after their prime?
Compost them. That is the simplest answer.
Decorating Pumpkins/Jack-O’-Lanterns
Carving pumpkins is a fun and creative tradition. But it’s best to keep it simple. Try to avoid using paint, plastic decorations, glitter, and glue on the pumpkins, as those things can have toxins and will not break down. They could also harm wildlife down the line. I have read that some use petroleum jelly to prevent spoilage, and I think I’ve even tried that in the past. But petroleum jelly is a by-product of crude oil waste and therefore not environmentally friendly.
Photo by Bekir Dönmez on Unsplash.
Please don’t put them in a landfill!
The U.S. Department of Energy has indicated that approximately 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins are thrown in landfills. Since nothing breaks down in a landfill, the pumpkins release methane, a harmful greenhouse gas, which contributes to global warming.The Department of Energy someday hopes to convert greenhouse gas emissions from landfills into energy, but until that infrastructure exists, avoid the landfills.5
If you compost already, just toss your pumpkin in! Feel free to chop it into smaller chunks first, but it will do fine whole. If you’re not composting, I have some other options for the pumpkins. If you want to know how I compost and learn how easy it is, please read my article.
My son placing a tea light inside his jack-o’-lantern. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Other options
If you cannot compost your carved pumpkins or squash decorations, one option is that you can feed these items to livestock. Does a family member or friend own a farm? If not, maybe try offering them to a farm nearby for their animals. The local food bank or urban garden may have a compost bin, to which you may donate your pumpkin. Again, make sure they are free of plastic, glue, paint, etc.
Our Jack O’ Lanterns from last Halloween. Photos by Marie Cullis.
Another option is to let your pumpkin rot, preferably in the woods somewhere, where animals, insects, and birds can ingest it. I’m not suggesting trespassing into National Forests or other protected areas to do this. But if you live near a small forest or wooded area and no one would notice or care if you left your pumpkin, it will break down naturally. It’s certainly better than putting it in a landfill!
Food Waste
Last, there are lots of people who are concerned about food waste with pumpkins, and that is a valid point. I advocate using natural items over plastic items for decoration in nearly every situation. Perhaps we should use pumpkins for decoration, not carve them, and then make a pumpkin recipe from them! This would reduce food waste nationwide.6
Pumpkin soup, image by congerdesign from Pixabay.
I’d love to know what you plan to do with your pumpkin, and what your ideas are! Thanks for reading, please share and subscribe!
Trick-or-treating on Halloween is a tradition. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash.
Did you know that Americans spent a record-setting $12.2 billionon Halloween in 2023? Or that we spent $3.6 billion on candy that is individually wrapped and thrown away?1 And that most of it’s not recyclable and just ends up in landfills (or bodies of water)?
Don’t have guilt. Get inspired!
I don’t want to make you feel bad about it. That’s not why I’m here. And I do recognize the importance of individually-wrapped items since the Covid-19 pandemic. But I want to inspire you to be forward-thinking. I want to get you thinking about next year, and what we can do to eliminate some of the wastefulness.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I absolutely participate! Especially because I have a young son and I want to share all of the Halloween traditions with him. Surely, I can reduce waste from this holiday and still have a silly great time!
So what can we do going forward?
Start thinking about the big picture and ask questions: How many candy wrappers do we throw away, just in the United States? How many costumes are tossed in a landfill instead of reused or donated? What is the total amount of decorations made of cheap plastic that get used for only one Halloween before they end up in a landfill? Do many pumpkins go into a landfill instead of being used as food or composted? How many resources are wasted on this one holiday?
I’m actually not sure. I couldn’t find exact data for any of those things. But today I’m focusing on candy.
Bowl of Halloween candy from a trunk-or-treat event. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Candy & Their Wrappers
Recycle Nation calls Halloween candy “Halloween’s Environmental Nightmare.” Putting plastic wrappers into regular recycling is not possible.2 They aren’t made of materials that are collected by recycling facilities. Hershey’s Kisses, gold chocolate coins, and other types of candies are wrapped in aluminum foil, which is great if you live in a town or city that accepts aluminum foil through the recycling system. Unfortunately, where I live in the Southeast, it is not accepted. Even so, foil-wrapped candies would be better than plastic!
Sometimes candy wrappers can be upcycled. TerraCycle and lots of artists on Etsy.com make upcycled candy wrapper bags, purses, and many other items. TerraCycle sells zero-waste boxes for candy and snack wrappers, and they take the collected materials and make them into new products.3 But they are expensive, and not everyone can afford this option. Realistically, recycling candy wrappers is not the solution.
So what is the solution? There are a few ways to drastically reduce plastic waste.
Plastic Halloween candy wrappers from a Halloween event. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Trick-or-treaters at your house
If you purchase candy to give out to trick-or-treaters, think about candy that comes in fully recyclable packaging, such as cardboard or paper.4 Think Nerds, Junior Mints, Pixie Sticks, Dots, or Milk Duds. Find lollipops that are paper-wrapped and not plastic-wrapped. Maybe small boxes of raisins or paper-wrapped truffles. Another great idea is to buy individually wrapped candies in bulk, such as chocolate candies wrapped in aluminum foil.
Another idea I’ve found online is giving out coins for trick-or-treating. I remember finding quarters in my Halloween bag when I was a kid. Have kids close their eyes, reach into a bowl, and grab a handful. Child obesity is very high these days, so this could be a good option!
Photo by Michael Longmire on Unsplash.
Think outside the box! Maybe seed packets or small wooden toys? Pencils or crayons? Drinks in aluminum cans, which might be quite refreshing after running from house to house all evening. Anything to stop this huge plastic waste stream. Others suggest different types of fruit, such as oranges and tangerines, but the fear of poisoned foods will likely result in the fruit being thrown away.
If you are having a Halloween party, purchase candy in bulk using your own jars or cloth bags to avoid the candy wrapper dilemma altogether. Wrap candies in small paper bags and decorate them!
Individually wrapped candies create a litter and plastic problem. Photo by Tucker Good on Unsplash.
Taking your children trick-or-treating
How about reducing the amount of trick-or-treating you participate in? It’s fun to go house to house (or trunk to trunk), and kids love the reward of candy. But you, as a parent, know how much candy is enough for your household – so stop there. This is how our family does it. We try to focus on the experience and fun, not the candy gathering. Encourage the fun by just walking the neighborhood, and shifting the focus from obtaining an excessive amount of candy. Maybe just stop at every other house on your route. Your whole family will still have a great time!
My son trick-or-treating in a neighborhood with lots of costuming and decorations. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Trash Art?
Last, how about using the candy wrappers for art? There are hundreds of art project ideas out there, just search “upcycle candy wrappers” online and you’ll find them. Anything from vases to handbags, hair bows to dresses. This is one of my favorites that I’d like to try someday:
Upcycled candy wrapper vase, found on Pinterest.
Trash & Litter
The last thing I want to say about candy wrappers is the amount of litter they create on Halloween. Kids don’t necessarily mean to drop things, they just do – even the environmentally-conscious ones. I’m part of the Litterati, and I plan to photograph and pick up every piece of litter that I see while taking my son trick-or-treating. It will be mostly candy wrappers, but we live in a city that has the Tennessee River flowing right through the center of it. So I feel compelled to pick up those wrappers!
Can you do the same thing, pick up the candy wrappers and trash? Can you join the Litterati? Will you be the change?
As always, thanks for reading. I’d love to know if you have any out-of-the-box ideas about reducing waste from Halloween. Please leave me a comment below!
Footnotes:
Article, “How Much Americans Spend on Halloween,” Investopedia, Updated October 17, 2024. ↩︎
Sea turtles are endangered, which is probably not news to you, but you may not know why they are endangered. They are keystone species, meaning they play a crucial role in the way an ecosystem functions. According to Oceana.org,sea turtles “play an important role in ocean ecosystems by maintaining healthy seagrass beds and coral reefs, providing key habitat for other marine life, helping to balance marine food webs and facilitating nutrient cycling from water to land.”7 I want to help people understand what we can do right NOW to help.
Sea turtles have been on the Earth for at least 110 million years, and maybe as long as 210 million years. Now human activities are to blame for their decline and endangerment. All seven sea turtle species are vulnerable, threatened, or endangered due to human behaviors and activities.8 Following are the biggest threats:
Entanglement and Bycatch
Coastal development
Artificial Light
Coastal Armoring
Plastics
Beach (and Ocean) Litter
Ocean pollution
Climate Change
Poaching and illegal trade of eggs, meat, and shells
Turtle Shell Trade
Let’s examine each of those further.
“A protected green turtle entangled in derelict fishing gear at Pearl and Hermes Atoll. Three green sea turtles were freed during the mission.” Photo by NOAA Photo Library on Flickr (NOAA News 2014 October 28), Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
Entanglement and Bycatch
Entanglement is exactly what it sounds like, that is, entanglement in fishing nets and gear. Up to 40% of all animals caught in fisheries are discarded as waste. Bycatch refers to animals that were not the target catch – for example, dolphins getting caught in tuna nets. “Despite ‘Dolphin Safe Tuna’ labeling, approximately 1000 dolphins die as bycatch in the Eastern Tropical Pacific tuna fishery each year,” according to seeturtles.org. The World Wildlife Fund explains that “modern fishing gear, often undetectable by sight and extremely strong, is very efficient at catching the desired fish species—as well as anything else in its path.”9 Most often the animals die.
There are some protections for certain species, such as the dolphins mentioned above, but it is not a perfect system and the whole industry needs to find more solutions. “Each year hundreds of thousands of adult and immature sea turtles are accidentally captured in fisheries ranging from highly mechanized operations to small-scale fishermen around the world.”10
In the early 1980s, the federal government’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) developed a cagelike trapdoor device that allowed the escape of 97 percent of turtles and zero percent of shrimp. It seemed like a great solution, but it was cumbersome, and shrimpers hated the device and government regulations. NMFS made it voluntary, and only about 2% of shrimp boats participated. In December 1994, twenty-four years after the Kemp’s Ridley Turtle received the endangered status, the federal government finally mandated that all shrimp trawls from the Carolinas to Texas have turtle-escape devices (TEDs). “Not until August 2003 did the federal government require Leatherback-sized turtle-escape devices in shrimp nets along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. That this quarter-century delay was utterly needless would be proven later, when many shrimpers grew devoted to TEDs because of the work they save by keeping not only turtles but a lot of trash and other unwanted things out of the catch.”11
Sustainable, responsible companies that use TEDs are following best practices and have reduced sea turtle deaths.
What can you do? Try to only buy responsibly caught seafood. Inform and encourage your family and friends to purchase seafood only from responsible fisheries.
Photo by NOAA Photo Library on Flickr (NOAA/NMFS/Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Blog), Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
Coastal Development
Coastal development is exactly what it sounds like. “Half of the world’s population lives on or within 100 miles of a coastline and this number will likely increase dramatically in the next decade.”12 Human presence deters turtles from nesting where they would normally. Additionally, humans create pollution and waste – whether it’s litter or waste-water runoff, light pollution, or danger from vehicles driving on beaches.
What can you do? Whether you’re just vacationing at a beach or residing there, educate yourself about habitats in that area. First, follow the scout rule of “leave it cleaner than you found it.” That means leaving no trace! And pick up after other people too, because it’s the right thing to do.
Second, always limit light on beaches (this will allow you to see the stars, too!). Are there conservation efforts ongoing? Are there laws prohibiting certain practices to protect turtles? If so, make sure you follow the laws or best practices. You’ll be making a difference. If you’re going to live coastal, this is even more important – search the internet for where you live so that you can do the right thing, and be the change.
No laws or conservation efforts where you live? How about starting those efforts? You can partner with a local aquarium; lobby city or town council to get signs posted near the beach access points; even host a local seminar at the library and invite residents!
Turn Off The Lights
As mentioned above, artificial light from human presence is a big problem for turtle nests. Sea turtles depend on a dark and quiet beach for nesting. If there is too much light, turtles will choose a less optimal nest site, which reduces the chances of the baby sea turtles surviving. Also, hatchlings have an instinct that leads them in the brightest direction which is normally moonlight reflecting off of the ocean. Excess lighting from the nearby buildings and streets draws hatchlings toward land instead, where they will likely die from predators, humans, or even swimming pools.
What can you do? Eliminate light whether you’re a property or homeowner, tourist, or beach walker. Make your property low light and encourage others to do the same – especially during nesting season!
If you’re walking on the beach at night, don’t use flashlights and phone lights during nesting season. Download a red flashlight app if you must have some light. If you live in a beach-front residence, turn your lights off. I’ve listed an article about turtle-friendly lighting under Additional Resources.
Here is a video from the Sea Turtle Conservancy about how to eliminate artificial beach lighting:
Coastal Armoring
Beaches are beautiful and the place many people want to be, myself included, someday. Coastal areas are prime real estate and many beaches in the world have been heavily developed. Coastal armoring refers to sea walls and similar structures that protect real estate property, but they are harmful to sea turtles. The Sea Turtle Conservancy explains: “Sea walls directly threaten sea turtles by reducing or degrading suitable nesting habitat. They block turtles from reaching the upper portion of the beach, causing turtles to nest in less-than-optimal nesting areas lower on the beach where their nests are more susceptible to wave action and more likely to be covered with water.”13
What can you do?If you’re a developer or building a home for yourself, please always first check with local legislation. Many coastal places in the United States already have existing legislation sometimes called Coastal Zone Protection, Dune Protection, or Dune Management. You can search the internet for the area you are residing in or visiting for information. If your area of interest has no protections or current legislation, how about proposing it to the local council or government? Please don’t build anything without first doing careful research – there are a ton of organizations out there that can advise or point you in the right direction. Do your homework, and the turtles (as well as other wildlife, humans, and the environment) will reap the benefits. Be the change.
Plastics
Well, this topic is what my blog is all about: plastics and other human-made waste. Hundreds of thousands of marine animals and fish, as well as over 1 million seabirds, die each year from ocean pollution and ingestion or entanglement in marine debris. This includes turtles. Most plastic waste reaches the ocean via rivers, and up to 80% of this waste comes from landfill-bound trash. How does that happen!?!? I’ll get into that in another post.
Plastic bags are a huge factor when it comes to sea turtles. Why? Because turtles eat plastic bags. They mistake them for jellyfish. Many species of turtles do not have taste buds, in case you’re wondering why they can’t tell by taste. See the videos below. The first one shows you the difference between a jellyfish and a plastic bag floating in the water.
The next video shows you turtles eating a jellyfish, to give you visual context.
What can you do? My number one recommendation for the first thing you should change to make a difference: use reusable bags only, and don’t accept plastic bags from anywhere! Getting rid of plastic bags does and will keep making a big difference on so many fronts, so I can’t stress this enough!
After plastic bags, start eliminating all plastics from your life, especially single-use disposable plastics. Recycle, or better yet, don’t buy plastic as much as possible. “Over 1 million marine animals (including mammals, fish, sharks, turtles, and birds) are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean. More than 80% of this plastic comes from land. It washes out from our beaches and streets. Plastic travels through storm drains into streams and rivers. It flies away from landfills into our seas. As a result, thousands of sea turtles accidentally swallow these plastics, mistaking them for food.”14
Plastic bag from Walmart lying on the beach. I collected and disposed of it. At high tide that afternoon, it would’ve washed into the ocean and potentially harmed a sea turtle. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Stop using disposable plastic straws and decline them at restaurants. Besides plastic breaking down into smaller pieces and polluting beaches and the ocean, these get stuck in turtles’ nostrils and airways. You don’t need a straw to drink most beverages. If you really must have one, carry a metal or glass straw with you.
Don’t release helium balloons! They burst and fall to the Earth or the sea, and sea turtles mistakenly eat the balloons and die. Or stop using balloons altogether.
“100 Balloons Collected at a Clean-up at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge on the New Jersey coast.” Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
Beach (and Ocean) Litter
Besides trash flowing into the ocean, litter on beaches prevents hatchlings from reaching the sea.
What can you do? Keep beaches clean. Don’t leave behind litter or beach toys when visiting the beach. I try to leave the beach a little cleaner than I found it, picking up trash that is about to wash into the sea with the changing tides. Participate in beach clean-up events or clean up with your friends or family.
Use coral reef-friendly sunscreen. Many of your average sunscreens have chemicals in them that are not only harmful to the ocean, but also to the human body. Look at the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Sunscreen Guide (see Additional Resources for the link).
Ocean Pollution
Although trash and plastics are one component, there are many, many other ways in which human activities pollute the ocean. Waste and by-products, like toxic metals, PCBs, petroleum products, agricultural and industrial runoff of contaminants such as fertilizers, chemicals, nutrients, and untreated waste; are all major problems for ocean and land dwellers. These are also causing major human health problems (many major diseases can be tied to these chemicals – again, another topic for another day). Oil companies are a big contributor to pollution, above and beyond oil spills.
What can you do? Buy less and consume less overall. Reduce how much meat you eat and how many animal products you use, because agriculture creates a lot of waste, methane, and chemicals. These chemicals make it into waterways and then the ocean, which poisons wildlife throughout the food chain. Buying from a farmer’s market locally or even growing your own food can reduce the amount of fertilizer and pesticide chemicals that make it into our water (because smaller farms don’t always use such harsh chemicals, and I doubt you do in your own garden). Reduce the chemicals you use in your yard and dispose of others properly through the hazardous waste collection in your area.
Climate Change
Climate change is real and happening, at an accelerated rate, which means many species will not be able to adapt quickly enough. This means the possible extinction of plants and animals and fish that are necessary to Earth’s balance.
What can you do?Reduce how much you drive. Perhaps try carpooling or using mass transportation. Ride a bike. Buy an electric car. Tell the oil companies to go to hell. Reduce the amount of energy you use. Avoid using fossil fuel energy whenever possible. Eat less meat and reduce your water use. Those are the first steps – start there!
Photo by Olga Tsai on Unsplash.
Poaching and Illegal Trade
In some countries, turtle meat and turtle eggs are a food source; in others, turtle eggs are collected by people for income in order to feed their families. Sometimes during nesting season, hunters will watch for nesting females. Once located, they will wait until the female turtle has finished laying her eggs, then kill her for the meat and take the eggs as well.
What can you do? If you travel, don’t buy food or products that use turtle, as that supports the practice. Organizations and governments are educating tourists and local inhabitants about the endangered turtles around the world. You can help by supporting the causes that protect and monitor sea turtle nests. You can help by spreading the information and helping to educate others about the problems. Participate in eco-tourism!
“While poaching, over-exploitation and bycatch are key threats to these ancient reptiles, they are also especially vulnerable to pollution and changes to their habitats, including nesting beaches, where even changes in sand temperature can threaten hatchlings.” -Stephen Larder15
Turtle Shell Trade
This relates to poaching and illegal trade but is specific in regards to products made from turtle shells, aka tortoiseshell; and is usually specific to the Hawksbill sea turtles. The Sea Turtle Conservancy indicates that “scientists estimate that hawksbill populations have declined by 90 percent during the past 100 years.”16 This has been outlawed by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) which is an international agreement signed by 173 governments. However, the black market demand for turtle shells is still high.
What can you do? Don’t buy items that might be made from turtle shells or other turtle parts (including skin). Of course, those products likely won’t be labeled “turtle shell” or “hawksbill shell” but if you suspect, just say no and walk away. Unfortunately, the alternative is plastic, which I am trying to eliminate from my life. So be more minimalist and don’t buy either! You’ll remember your trip or vacation without a bunch of souvenirs anyway. Here’s a handy infographic put out by Travel For Wildlife to help you avoid turtle shell products:
They also made this very informative video, so please share it on social media with your friends and family!
You can join me in signing the pledge to avoid turtle shells with the See Turtles Organization17. They, too, have wonderful resources about how to identify real turtle shell vs. fake.18 Again, maybe just don’t buy either – it’s not worth the risk!
Adopt-A-Sea Turtle!
You can symbolically adopt a sea turtle or a sea turtle nest. There are many of these, you’ll find many just by searching online but look for a reliable organization. Most of the programs fund education about sea turtle nests, protect nests, and/or track sea turtles.
Photo by Isabella Jusková on Unsplash.
What other ideas do you have? Please feel free to leave a comment or question or idea! Thanks so much for reading. Please share and subscribe!
Toilet paper is one of those things that we all buy and use. But have you ever noticed that the vast majority of brands wrap it in plastic? We throw that plastic in the trash because it’s not recyclable. For years, my family used Quilted Northern (or other brands if they were on sale) and threw away the plastic packaging every week. Some, like the Charmin brand, have packs of 4 wrapped in plastic, and then 3 or 4 of those packs grouped and wrapped in plastic, again, to make a 12 or 16-pack. Plastic wrapped in plastic.
I’ve looked almost everywhere locally, and the majority of toilet paper is plastic-wrapped, sadly.
“It turns out that regular toilet paper—at 1.5 pounds of wood and thirty-seven gallons of water per roll—is surprisingly wasteful.” -Eve O. Schaub, author of Year Of No Garbage1
Plastic-Free Toilet Paper
I discovered a company called Who Gives a Crap, which makes toilet paper from recycled paper and bamboo, meaning they use no virgin paper and don’t cut down any trees to make their products. Their products are plastic-free and they don’t use inks, dyes, or scents. The company also gives back: “We donate 50% of our profits to ensure everyone has access to clean water and a toilet within our lifetime.”2 So plastic-free and toxin-free, and the company does good for the world? I don’t normally buy anything in bulk, but I had to give them a try.
My Who Gives A Crap toilet paper order. Photo by Marie Cullis.
As a result, we’ve been using this toilet paper exclusively since 2018. The company makes recycled toilet paper from “post-consumer waste paper (things like textbooks, workbooks, office paper, etc) and a small percentage (around 5%) of post-industrial paper.” Using recycled paper allows them to reduce their carbon dioxide and particulate matter emissions, and it also saves water. It is also free of BPA because they use recycled paper that is free from BPA.
Who Gives A Crap’s bamboo toilet paper is the one I prefer. Bamboo, a grass, is a sustainable option because it grows fast, is very renewable, and needs no irrigation or fertilization. Their bamboo is mainly grown in remote areas of Sichuan Province in China by farmers who plant bamboo on the outskirts of their family farms to supplement their income.
For extra fun, you can reuse the paper from the rolls to make gift-wrapping paper! Who Gives A Crap also offers blog posts about other crafts you can make with their paper wrappers.3
Who Gives A Crap’s Mission
When the founders discovered that 2.4 billion people don’t have access to a toilet and that contaminated water from lack of toilets contributes to over 1 million deaths per year, they wanted to do something about it. Here’s how they describe it:
“A toilet could make all the difference, but billions of people worldwide still live without one. Without a loo, waste ends up in local waterways – the same place people collect water for drinking, cleaning and bathing. That’s why toilets are an integral part of a bigger health initiative called WASH, which stands for water, sanitation and hygiene. Together, these three elements strengthen communities and save millions of lives.“4
This is a really great cause and one we don’t think of much in the U.S. We take toilet access for granted!
Affordability
Who Gives A Crap’s bamboo rolls cost $68 for 48 rolls, which equals about $1.42 per roll. Their recycled rolls are about $1.29 each. Their rolls are double length, so I’m comparing ‘mega” sized toilet paper rolls in the other brands:
Great Value brand is $21.84 for 24 mega rolls, or $0.91 per roll
Angel Soft 24 mega rolls at $15.46, or $0.64 per roll
Quilted Northern $20.98 for 24 mega rolls, or $0.87 per roll
Charmin 30 mega rolls $32.98, or $1.10 per roll
Target brand 30 mega rolls for $20.49, or $0.68 per roll
So the average cost for Who Gives A Crap is slightly higher than regular store brands, but their products are forest friendly, plastic-free, toxic-free, delivered to my door, and half of the company’s profits go to help others across the globe!
UPDATE, June 13, 2024: Whole Foods recently started carrying Who Gives A Crap recycled toilet paper. It is sold in much smaller quantities than it is online, so it costs more per roll to buy it in person (4 rolls at $1.75 per or 8 rolls at $1.69 per). But, this is still a step in the right direction!
Who Gives A Crap is now sold at Whole Foods. Photo by Marie Cullis.
“Throwaway tissue products don’t have to destroy forests…tissue products made from 100 percent recycled content have one-third the carbon footprint of those made from 100 percent virgin forest fiber.” -filmmakers and authors, Laurie David and Heather Reisman5
Sustainable Toilet Paper
Many toilet paper brands are damaging to forests and the environment. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) issues an annual report rating toilet paper brands by sustainability called Issue with Tissue. They are rated with a grade between A-F. In 2023, Who Gives a Crap recycled toilet paper got an A, while Whole Foods’ 365 brand received an A+. Among the companies that received the worst rating, an F, were brands by ALDI, Target, Publix, and Wegmans.6
There are 4 rated A+, but all but one are packaged in plastic, which is also harmful to the environment. The exception, Natural Value, is packaged in paper but costs much more than Who Gives A Crap brand. So I’m going to stick with Who Gives A Crap for now. Unfortunately, I may have to switch from their bamboo toilet paper to their recycled toilet paper, since the former only received a B rating with the NRDC.
I’ve linked the NRDC scorecard under Additional Resources below. For those of you who cannot buy 48 or 60 rolls at a time, try to buy a brand rated well – avoid all of those brands that received a C, D, or F. There are still plenty of budget or storage-friendly products rated A and B to choose from.
“Toilet paper may represent one of the most egregious and wasteful causes of forest loss. The largest US toilet paper brands drive a dangerous tree-to-toilet ‘pipeline’ that is contributing to an unsustainable loss of trees, including the boreal forest in Canada.” -filmmakers and authors, Laurie David and Heather Reisman7
Storage
My most recent order of Who Gives a Crap toilet paper, the “Gnome on the Throne Limited Edition” pack. I’ll also use the colorful paper for gift wrap for holiday gift wrapping! Photo by Marie Cullis.
One concern people have is storage, as you need to purchase 24-48 rolls at once. While it may seem like a lot, remember that receiving such a large shipment at once helps minimize your carbon footprint. I’m fortunate to have a spacious linen closet in my bathroom. However, since we embrace minimalism and Project 333, we store our linens in a dresser in the bedroom since our clothing collection is small. As a result, I use a large shelf in the linen closet to store the toilet paper and paper towels.
But other people have to get more creative! You can store it in the laundry room, foyer closet, under the bed, or in those extra-high kitchen cabinets!
Other Ideas?
Photo by Vlada Karpovich.
Have you found other brands of plastic-free toilet paper? Or have you tried Who Gives a Crap? What about trying alternatives to toilet paper? Please leave me a comment! Thank you for reading and please share and subscribe.
I did not get paid or receive gifts to write about Who Gives A Crap’s products. The opinions in this article are honest and mine.
Book, Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems, and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste, by Eve O. Schaub, Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2023.↩︎
Page, “Impact,” Who Gives A Crap’s website, accessed September 25, 2022.↩︎
Article, “Good Crafts,” Who Gives A Crap’s blog, accessed September 25, 2022.↩︎
Page, “Impact,” Who Gives A Crap’s website, accessed September 25, 2022.↩︎
Book, Imagine It!: A Handbook for a Happier Planet, by Laurie David and Heather Reisman, Rodale Books, New York, 2021. They cited the Environmental Paper Network Paper Calculator 4.0.↩︎
Article, “The Best and Worst Toilet Paper, Paper Towel, and Facial Tissue Brands,” by Courtney Lindwall, nrdc.org, September 19, 2023. ↩︎
Book, Imagine It!: A Handbook for a Happier Planet, by Laurie David and Heather Reisman, Rodale Books, New York, 2021.↩︎
Our family loves Hilton Head Island (HHI) for a variety of reasons. First, my husband and I got married there. What drew us there before marriage was the island’s dog-friendliness. But then we discovered some other things about the island, besides its natural beauty, cleanliness, and great restaurants.
There are no billboards or neon signs littering the landscape because ordinances keep signs low and unobtrusive. No building can be taller than the trees. Hilton Head also has a sea turtle protection project. The town requires light structures visible from the beach to be covered or turned off between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am during nesting and hatching season, which spans from May through October.
Full rainbow! Panoramic photo with error, by Marie Cullis.
We’ve taken many trips to HHI, including this past weekend, and we had a wonderful and relaxing time. Of course, we saw beautiful sunsets and sunrises. We witnessed a full rainbow, which was my first time seeing one (see my pitiful attempt at a panoramic image above). We saw a stingray trapped in a tidal pool, which was cool to see up close. We alerted someone who was able to move it back to the ocean. And we saw a ghost crab up close – so cool!
Sunset. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Stingray. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Ghost crab. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Sunrise. Photo by Marie Cullis.
A Clean Beach
I mentioned that Hilton Head Island is very clean, especially compared to other beaches we’ve visited. Since we are a family that cleans up litter and trash, we pay attention. So for a clean beach, here’s some of the trash we picked up and posted on the Litterati app:
Seems like a lot, doesn’t it? It wasn’t compared to other litter pick-ups I’ve seen or been involved with. We found straws which I’ve determined to be the evilest single-use disposable plastic thing in use! We found cigarette butts, pieces of Styrofoam, and microplastics. The image of the bag of trash was from a garbage can that blew over during high winds and the trash scattered. We collected all we could but it was far too windy to try and photograph each piece. The contents of it were mainly single-use disposable drink bottles. We found some beach toys, as we usually do. I promise we didn’t take these from someone! They sat abandoned for a long time, and I didn’t want them to wash out to sea during high tide!
Plastic Bag Ban!
On our last evening, we stopped at the ice cream shop. As I was paying, I saw a sign posted by the register, and I think I startled the clerk with my excited reaction!
Plastic bag ban ordinance! Photo by Marie Cullis.
The Town of Hilton Head Island passed this ordinance in January 2018. It does not ban all plastic bags, such as produce and meat bags; however, it is a huge, progressive step in the right direction. Eating my ice cream, I felt inspired – could I get that ordinance passed in my city? What a huge task that would be…but maybe I could do it.
This plastic shower curtain liner is beyond repair. Photo by Marie Cullis.
Recently, my plastic shower curtain bit the dust – it’s beyond repair now. My family moved into our house about 3 years ago, and at the time, although I’d always been a huge recycler and I was environmentally conscious, I didn’t really KNOW about the scale of the plastic problem yet. So this was the plastic shower curtain liner we purchased – a standard PEVA (polyethylene vinyl acetate) liner that is found in many homes because of its low cost and effectiveness. It had that new plastic smell that we have all come to associate with new and clean. This was before I knew that that smell was actually the off-gassing of toxins, such as phthalates, toluene, ethylbenzene, phenol, methyl isobutyl ketone, xylene, acetophenone, and cumene. Yuck, what are all of those things? At the time, I didn’t understand what those chemicals were, but I found that research indicated that they are harmful to human health.
“That smell, the one that comes pouring out of the package when you open it, is a plume of toxic gases that have built up while the item was sitting on the shelf.”-Michael SanClements, author of Plastic Purge14
Mold and repairs
This plastic shower curtain grew mildew and mold consistently! Gross. We have an old house and there is no ventilation in the bathroom, so that’s part of the problem. Over the years, I cleaned it with bleach, Comet, vinegar, Borax, and laundry detergents. All of those worked to clean the curtain temporarily. I’ve even put the whole thing in the washing machine on a casual cycle. But the mildew/mold always came back.
Plastic shower curtains split and break too, and we repaired it over and over again (Beth Terry at myplasticfreelife.com always writes that repairing something as much as possible to extend the life of an item is a great way to reduce waste). The shower curtain had new hole punches, plastic tape, and even staples from different repairs over time. So last week, I put it in the washing machine to clean it again…and it fell apart. It had such large holes and tears that I could no longer tape it together. It is a dead shower curtain. Frankly, I’m ready to get something plastic-free anyway.
Chemicals in Plastic/Vinyl Shower Curtains
In 2008, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice released a study after testing PVC shower curtains purchased at big box retailers. “All of the curtains contained cancer-causing volatile organic compounds [VOCs], phthalates, organotins (nervous system toxicants) and one or more of the heavy metals lead, cadmium, mercury and chromium.”19 As many as 108 VOCs can be emitted from a PVC shower curtain.
Though newer plastic shower curtain liners are supposedly less toxic, because of reports like that, there are still two major problems with them. First, I can still smell that SMELL. Since I don’t really know what my family is breathing and smelling from a potentially new plastic/vinyl shower curtain, I’d just rather avoid it. Second, it is made of PLASTIC! Call it vinyl, call it PEVA, call it whatever you’d like – but the fact is, is that it is a plastic product with no recyclability or afterlife use. [Side note: an undamaged old shower curtain could potentially be used as a drop cloth when painting or doing other tasks where you don’t want to damage or litter the floor. But then it still will have to be discarded at some point.]
Photo by House Method on Unsplash.
So what are the alternatives?
The alternatives are organic cotton, hemp, and linen – all cloth materials. Hemp is evidently mold-resistant, so that’s the type I will most likely buy someday. On a discussion board at myplasticfreelife.com, a guest suggested rubbing beeswax on a cloth curtain to repel water and mold.20 I’ve also seen shower curtains made out of recycled sailcloth on sites like Etsy and Second Wind Sails. These are cool and something I’d like to try someday, but they are expensive.
Since the dead shower curtain liner was actually just a liner for us, I’m going to simply keep using the fabric shower curtain that I already have and hope that it doesn’t get ruined. I am seriously considering trying the beeswax method. If I do, I promise to update this article! (Please read my update here.)
What are your ideas to replace a plastic shower curtain, or what have you tried? I would love to know – please leave me a comment below!
Additional Resource:
Article, Volatile Vinyl: The New Shower Curtain’s Chemical Smell,” Center for Health, Environment and Justice, June 2008.
