3rd July 2019

Today I'd like to talk about laundry and cleaning. For many years I was a fan of the sponge scourers. I'd happily buy a six pack and work my way through them, throwing each one in the bin when it reached the end of its life, or I'd used it to clean something particularly manky and cut it off in its prime.

Then I became aware of microplastics.

We all get the plastic packaging issues and have seen the iconic pictures of the plastic bags floating in the water, but what about do these break down into? Microplastics. I suddenly realised that each time my scourer was used and particularly as it was disintegrating towards the end of its life, it was happily shedding microplastics directly into our water systems. It wasn't even having to escape from the bin bag I'd put it in to do its damage and so I decided I needed to find an alternative.

Quite some time back, despite its convenience, I decided to stop using paper towels and bought myself a roll of bamboo paper towels. Again they weren't cheap, I think I paid around £9 for the roll.

But I now use these for washing up with too. They just go in the washing machine when they're dirty. There are 20 on the roll and so far I've used about 8 (in around 9 months), and I haven't had to dispose of any of them yet; they're all still in use. When I do, they'll compost down. They are quite stiff when you first use them but they go super soft after being in the washing machine. It's recommended not to use fabric conditioner but I rarely do a wash without it so mine get fabric conditionered too!

Sometimes though you just need a bit more oomph and a cloth isn't enough. So I decided to try out loofahs. Yep, those things we also used to use in the shower.

It was weird at first and the one I bought ballooned in the water to be huge! So I just cut it down to the size I wanted and I now have 4 to use. I bought it at the beginning of November and the first piece is only just starting to look a little sorry for itself now. There's still some life in it yet though. The worst part of this was the packaging it came in. The loofah was about 10cm x 8cm x 2cm why dry. But it got delivered in a box that was about 30cm x 25cm x 25cm and with loads of paper packaging and covered in packing tape. I did for a while think all my efforts had been offset in one fell swoop!

...and then there's the times where even the loofah won't work. And for that, fortunately I had a stash of those curly metal scourers which I think I can recycle with my tin cans. I have been using fairy washing up liquid but you need so very little of this, a bottle can easily last me 6 months.

For laundry and cleaning my lovely little Zero shop comes to the rescue again. They sell Ecover products so I just take my old washing liquid and fabric conditioner bottles and get them refilled. You can see on the bottles their weights so I only pay for the product not the packaging too. I also used an old Simple bottle to buy my all purpose cleaner in as well!

The all purpose cleaner you dilute and so when it was finished I kept the spray bottle from the last lot of cleaner I purchased and I dilute it straight in the bottle to use. I did find it's not so great on limescale but I'm going to experiment with white wine vinegar for that when I get round to buying some!

I've been really impressed with the laundry detergent and fabric conditioner, they get my my clothes clean and smell nice but not overpowering.

My parents will be coming to visit me later today for a few days. I may disappear for a bit whilst they're here but I'll definitely be back at the weekend talking about avoiding single use plastics on days out and picnics!