Go green
How to replace household objects with more environmentally friendly and sustainable products
Hi everyone, this week’s article will be about how to replace household objects with more environmentally friendly and sustainable products. There are many different ways to replace items around your house with their eco-friendlier counterparts, and fortunately, many are super quick and easy. This week’s article will cover three steps you can take to create a more sustainable household!
Let’s begin by looking at how plastic grocery bags can be easily replaced by organic cotton, reusable bags. Reusable mesh produce bags replace the single-use plastic bags that you see when buying fresh fruit and veggies, bread, bulk food and more. If you wanted to continue using these bags, an environmentally friendly option is to keep them and reuse them when shopping in the future. These bags could also be used at a farmer’s market, fruit and veggie store, bakery, or any other food store. There are several places from which you could buy alternatives to single-use plastic bags – for example, a company called Biome sells reusable, mesh, organic cotton bags. Biome offers a wide variety of bags all at very low prices (and they also sell biodegradable trash bags)!
Cleaning products are some other household objects that can be replaced by more sustainable items. Cleaning products can lead to pollution and waste. Volatile organic compounds (VOC) in cleaning products can affect indoor air quality and contribute to outdoor smog. Another minor side effect of cleaning products is increasing carbon emissions due to transportation in trucks and other forms of transport. By replacing these cleaning products with natural, non-toxic products, we are able to efficiently clean bathrooms, kitchens and other areas of a house, whilst limiting pollution and waste. A company named Nourished Life sells cheap, environmentally friendly, cleaning products that can tackle nasty stains, calcium build-up, soap scum and limescale, but gentle enough to be used safely around young children. Alternatively, you can subscribe to a company like Zero Co. which makes the packaging for their cleaning products out of recycled plastic and will accept empty packaging to recycle, refill and send back to you.
Additionally, we wanted to bring your attention to reusable bread bags – another excellent way to replace household objects with eco-friendly substitutes. Reusable bread bags are designed to replace single use plastic or paper bread bags. Onya sells cheap bread bags that are made from up to 10 recycled plastic drink bottles. These bread bags eliminate the need for unnecessary single use plastic or paper when visiting a bakery or grocery store, when buying bread. This is a great way to utilise sustainable substitutes within a household!
Some other quick and easy ways to make your life more sustainable are:
- stop using plastic water bottles and start using reusable metal bottles
- buy LED lightbulbs to maximise energy efficiency (and minimise your electricity bills)
- buy a reusable coffee cup
- make your lunchbox more sustainable by buying a replacement for single-use plastic packaging (for example – beeswax wraps, which were covered in detail in last week’s Ma Nishma article)
Overall, the Sustainability Committee hopes this article provided some information and inspiration regarding replacing your household objects with more sustainable and eco-friendly substitutes.
Here are the links for more information about each initiative:
- Biome – reusable mesh grocery bags
- Nourished Life – natural cleaning products
- Zero Co. – recycled refillable cleaning products
- Onya – bread bags
For any extra information or help, feel free to contact us at:
By Max Kidman, Lara Fosbery, Ari Merten and Ruben
Please note, Emanuel School has no affiliation to the companies or products listed above – we just think they’re doing great things.