Should I stop using hotel toiletries and always take my own in mini bottles that I refill, or should I keep using them and bringing the remains home to use up and recycle the packaging?
These toiletries have a cost to hotels. It is much cheaper to buy in bulk and refill, and there is less waste to deal with. I like to support hotels that have refillable product dispensers, but often where I am staying is not down to me as my hotel stays are mostly work related. So do I take my own mini toiletries and snub the hotel supplies. Or do I continue doing what I am doing now knowing I am eating into their profit a tiny bit. I think the hotel trade have worse things to deal with.
- Plastic straws should just be ditched altogether (supplied only on request for health and accessibilty reasons).
- Disposable hot drinks cups, plastic cups for water, disposable plates or cutlery... again get rid. If that is what's on offer I take my money somewhere else.
- Bottled water... I try to always take my refillable water bottle and I ask at the bar to have it refilled.
So should I shun the mini shampoo?
When I cleared out my bathroom cabinets I felt I was overwhelmed by plastic.
When I sorted it all out I had one of those moments ... Do I really want to give all this away. I put back a few things I was given for Christmas but the rest is fair game.
While having my moment ... I thought back to when I decided to donate all my plastic bags to my local charity shop. I had been taking my own reusable bags shopping for years so I couldn't believe the number of plastic bags in my cupboard. They were clearly breeding in there.
But I took the decision one day to take every plastic bag to the charity shop. All of them gone. It felt great.
I have never been short of a plastic bag since. There is always someone who brings me something in a plastic bag and thinks it would be weird to take it home again!
I feel it is going to be the same with the toiletries. Judging by the collection I have now someone will leave something lovely behind for me to use up.
But that was yesterday's challenge. It just goes to show that sometimes you need to mull things over or sort things out. If Zero Waste Week expands to Zero Waste Month that's fine. Sometimes change, even if it is a small change, takes a while. You need to mull it over. Even by thinking about it that's a step in the right direction.
Onto today's challenge, and we are in the kitchen. We do quite well in the kitchen and are close to Zero Waste shopping with the help of my Zero Waste shopping kit below.
More on this tomorrow but my one more thing is going to be teabags.
I got fed up with trying to search for zero waste tea bags...no plastic wrap outside or unrecyclable silver plastic wrap inside and no plastic in the heat sealing. So now I'm going to switch to loose leaf tea which is a bit more expensive but much nicer. I am saving a bit of money over the summer by using mint and fennel straight from the garden and inspired by someone I overheard in a wine shop: "We are drinking less, but better".
That's my one more thing.
While having my moment ... I thought back to when I decided to donate all my plastic bags to my local charity shop. I had been taking my own reusable bags shopping for years so I couldn't believe the number of plastic bags in my cupboard. They were clearly breeding in there.
But I took the decision one day to take every plastic bag to the charity shop. All of them gone. It felt great.
I have never been short of a plastic bag since. There is always someone who brings me something in a plastic bag and thinks it would be weird to take it home again!
I feel it is going to be the same with the toiletries. Judging by the collection I have now someone will leave something lovely behind for me to use up.
But that was yesterday's challenge. It just goes to show that sometimes you need to mull things over or sort things out. If Zero Waste Week expands to Zero Waste Month that's fine. Sometimes change, even if it is a small change, takes a while. You need to mull it over. Even by thinking about it that's a step in the right direction.
Onto today's challenge, and we are in the kitchen. We do quite well in the kitchen and are close to Zero Waste shopping with the help of my Zero Waste shopping kit below.
I got fed up with trying to search for zero waste tea bags...no plastic wrap outside or unrecyclable silver plastic wrap inside and no plastic in the heat sealing. So now I'm going to switch to loose leaf tea which is a bit more expensive but much nicer. I am saving a bit of money over the summer by using mint and fennel straight from the garden and inspired by someone I overheard in a wine shop: "We are drinking less, but better".
That's my one more thing.
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