Reduce cleaning and laundry waste

Cleaning products are an area where the majority of people will just buy plastic bottles of mostly water from their supermarkets, but there are many alternatives with much lower plastic impacts.

Sponges

The go-to choice for washing dishes and wiping down surfaces for many people is probably the plastic sponge. They’re cheap and widely available from supermarkets. I’ve tried many alternatives to these and give some recommendations for and recommendations against below, along with links where to find the products (but mostly they can bought from many places online).

Recommendation: Compostable sponge These sponges made from renewable organic materials (wood pulp etc.) are an easy, direct swap-out for typical plastic-based sponges. Just compost when they’re worn out.

Recommendation: Coconut scourer I think these are great. Coconut fibres wound round a metal ring to make a ring doughnut-like product. This is my go-to for scrubbing/scouring dishes, does the job wonderfully. Not so good for wiping surfaces though, can’t recommend it for this. They last for a very long time, I’m still on my first one from at least a yeaer ago that I use every day. I bought four to begin with, and the other three are just taking up space! They may start to smell after you’ve used them for a while, but I put them in the dishwasher and they come out fine again.

Recommendation: Compostable cloth For anything you need a cloth for, these cloths are made from cotton, wood pulp and flax, will last a good long time – but will also compost easily just by leaving them out in the garden.

Recommend against: Coconut scrub pad These things are not abrasive enough to act as scourers, not flexible enough to act as cloths, and not absorbent enough to act as sponges. Terrible.

Recommend against: Silicone sponges These things are just useless. They don’t hold water, they’re too slippery to grip, and they stick to glass and ceramic so you can’t scrub easily with it. And they’re not even heatproof, so you can’t use them as hot pan grips.

Recommend against: E-cloth washing pad Ok this thing does have good reviews. I bought it thinking it would last forever, but actually after just a month or two it was horrible. Constantly felt slimey for some reason, despite repeatedly going through the dishwasher and washing machine. Had to bin it, so probably a worse impact than regular plastic sponges.

Laundry detergent

I’ve tried a couple of different detergents away from the regular liquid, powder or pods. The main issue with these is that they’re incredibly heavy and bulky because they’re not particularly concentrated, so they use a lot of energy to transport. Plus of course any plastic waste (tubs, jugs).

Top recommendation: Dissolvable detergent strips My top tip is these strips that look a bit like thick paper. They’re dissolvable detergent, you just put it in the detergent drawer and it works just like normal. Except 32 washes takes up the same room as a birthday card, rather than a big box or jug. They are currently quite expensive but if you have soft water you only need half a strip per wash, and there are more providers of them starting to emerge so I expect the price to come down.

I did also use Smol laundry pods for a bit. These are liquid so you’re paying to ship water around, but they come through the post in recycable/compostable cardboard packaging.

Recommend against: Soap nuts I did reach about using these special nut shells for detergent. Surprise surprise, they didn’t work. Don’t bother!

Fabric softener

The main thing to consider if you use fabric softener regularly is: Do you really need it? Does it make that much difference and if so, is it really worth it to you? Can you cut down its use just to towels?

If you do feel you need to continue using it, then Smol does a fabric conditioner where you can return the bottle for refill, so at least you’re not generating waste.

Surface cleaner and other cleaners

The first thing to say on surface cleansers is that you basically don’t need them most of the time. Some people like to use a lot of it, spraying work surfaces every time you wipe things down. This is totally unnecessary, unless perhaps you’ve been handling raw chicken or some other actually harmful contaminant. The majority of the time you can just use water and soap. There’s also research to suggest that using disinfectants like this helps to create “superbugs” and also potentially makes your immune system weaker by giving it less exposure to bacteria. So firstly, cut down on these if you do use them a lot.

But sometimes of course you do need it – the raw chicken scenario, or your pet has peed on the rug (or your toddler has done worse). However, you don’t need to buy a new spray bottle each time you run out, you can simply buy super concentrated refills – just dilute them and put them into the bottle you already have. Ocean Saver has a range of these, but other suppliers are also coming on stream so have a look around.

Washing-up liquid

Personally, I find that Fairy liquid is the best washing-up liquid by far, hands-down. However, it is something of a polluter in terms of adding soap the water system. To be honest I have no idea how much of a problem that is. But you might like to consider a “gentler” detergent like Ecover. I can’t say that I recommend this myself, but see what you think. It still comes in plastic bottles though.

A plastic-free option is a bar of dishwashing soap. I’ve not tried this myself so can’t comment.

Personally, I’m just sticking with buying extra large, 5 litre jugs of Fairy which reduces the amount of waste plastic per ML of product. I decant this into an old regular bottle of Fairy. You can do the same for Ecover, this is also sold in 5 litre jugs.

Rubber Gloves

Many rubber gloves really are made from natural rubber latex. This means that they are naturally biodegradable. However, they’re unlikely to degrade in the average person’s garden compost bin (unless it’s very hot and active), and your local council might advise against putting them in your food waste.

So the best way of responsibly disposing of these is perhaps to use the TerraCycle scheme paid for by Marigold.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash