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Project DIY: Upcycled Braided T-shirt Rug
I was converting a den into a bedroom on a budget and needed two bigger ticket items: a rug and an armoire. The armoire post will be coming at a later date! I had several criteria for a floor covering: 1) Fun and colourful2) Easy to clean3) Less than $504) No synthetic materials Did you know that synthetic carpet and rugs are made of plastic? This has implications for your health as well as the environment. According to this article in the New York Times: ‘The E.P.A. estimates that every year, about 5 billion pounds of carpeting go into landfills. That’s 1 to 2 percent of the total U.S. landfill…
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Reflections on Plastic and Plastic Free July
We started out Plastic Free July with a list of 50 Thoughts on Plastic. Here are a few more thoughts to round out the month’s experience. Overwhelming Reality of Plastic My approach to Plastic Free July this year (my first year participating) was to get a better understanding of the role plastic plays in my life. I wanted to try out some “plastic free swaps” like I talked about in my posts on A Plastic Free Period and a Plastic Free Bathroom, but I knew that eliminating all plastic for a month would be unlikely. I knew that there was a lot of plastic in my life, but it wasn’t…
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Plastic Free Kitchen DIY
Why Make Your Own? This month we’ve been focusing on ways to reduce plastics in our lives. We’ve come across some great ideas from our amazing community and wanted to try a couple out and share our experiences to wrap up the month! I decided to make some homemade dishwasher tabs when I ran out and I realized I had all of the ingredients to make my own. I had made dishwasher powder before but never tabs and as it turns out they work great! My other experiment came about as a result of reading “I Quit Plastics” by Kate Nelson, also known as the Plastic Free Mermaid. I was…
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Plastic Free Gift Wrap
There are so many areas in our homes that create waste where we may not even notice it! Wrapping paper is one of those. Every time we wrap a present–whether it’s popping an item in a gift bag or using wrapping paper–we’re creating waste. Here are some ideas on how to minimize that waste with some practical and reusable wrapping ideas. Wrapping Paper Alternatives Cloth–this could be anything from a tea towel wrapped around the gift and secured with a ribbon or a scarf clipped in place with a brooch. Newspaper–use newspaper just like wrapping paper. Any page can be interesting, but I particularly like to use the comics or…
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Plastic Free Laundry Routine
How did you develop your laundry routine? Is it something that you’ve thought about or do you maybe do what your family did growing up? Maybe you are drawn to certain scents and make your detergent and dryer sheet decisions around that? That was certainly me! I gave very little thought to what my laundry routine might be doing to the materials I wore right next to my skin or to the environment that we all live within. That all changed after reading Slow Death By Rubber Duck* about 10 years ago which caused me to start re-evaluating many of the products used in my home using the ThinkDirty app.…
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Plastic Free Bathroom
So Much Plastic Once you start looking, there is plastic everywhere! Shampoo and conditioner bottles, medicine bottles, make up containers, packaging, toilet paper packaging, toothpaste, toothbrushes… It can feel overwhelming to look at an extensive list of items that include plastic! My plastic free bathroom journey is still a work in progress. Things like pill or vitamin containers and even my hair comb are items that don’t look to be replaced in the short term. What matters most to me in this process is continuing to take steps forward. So here are some things I’ve been doing so far. Feminine Hygiene The Swap: Disposable Sanitary Pads for Reusable Cotton Pads…
