Time to Face the Plastic Waste

It’s durable, comes in every colour and hangs around for hundreds of years. That’s right, I’m talking about plastic. It’s everywhere we turn: wrapped around our food, encasing our clothes and and sitting in our bathroom cabinets. Sadly a lot of this plastic is often used once and then discarded.

According to the website EcoWatch we throw away enough of it each year to circle the earth 4 times. That’s crazy!

Plastic production uses 8% of the world’s oil, often ends up in landfill or polluting our oceans and harming the environment God created. If any of you watched the wonderful Blue Planet 2 you’ll know what I’m talking about. So maybe it’s time we ditched the plastic.

Don’t stress gals, I’m not saying we have to cut it out all together. But we can take small steps to reduce the plastic waste we create. Today I want to look at how we shop eco for our faces. Here are three easy ways we can start making a difference in the way we do our beauty routines:

Buy a bamboo toothbrush 

Even how we clean our teeth can make a difference. These plastic free brushes biodegrade rather than contributing to plastic pollution. And our bamboo friend will keep our pearly whites well…pearly and white. Win win!

Avoid microbeads like the plague

Microbeads are tiny bits of plastic often found in beauty products such as face scrubs. They slip down our drains and into rivers and seas contaminating the animals that live there. There are even concerns that eventually these toxic plastics could work their way up the food chain and be consumed by humans. By simply choosing to avoid products that use microbeads you can tackle the problem. Check out http://www.beatthemicrobead.org/product-lists/ for a ready made list of products that do and don’t contain them. Sorted.  

Think about the packaging

Apparently 40% of our plastic waste is packaging. It doesn’t take long to understand this when we look at our bins. But fear not, there are alternatives that will keep us and our planet feeling beautiful.

Thinking about how our beauty products are packaged is the first step, and there are brands that are totally on it. The heavenly smelling brand Lush have a scheme where you can recycle your used lush pots in store in return for a free face mask.

While browsing I also came across American company Meow Meow Tweet . They create super cool beauty products and in their own words they are “committed to using the least amount of plastic packaging. All (our) goods are either hand wrapped in PCW paper or housed in glass containers. Each of the colourful labels features whimsical illustrations by one of our co-founders, Jeff.” Go Jeff!   

So there are some simple ways to protect our planet while still looking gorgeous!