My Favorite Items That Reduce Plastic

Reducing plastic can be a big undertaking, but with these items, life is a little bit easier! Here are some ways I reduce plastic in our home.

I have been making 3 big goals in January to help guide me through the year, and in the last 2 years one of my focuses has been to reduce my carbon footprint and the amount of plastic / single use items that we use. This has led me to being an ambassador for Stop Trashing It; where I write a blog post monthly for them about our monthly theme.

Getting rid of single use plastic is hard, once you commit to stopping you start to see all the little places where plastic crops up. It’s around our food, cleaning products, packaging, takeout containers, hygiene products, etc.

I’ll admit that I definitely have not been perfect, but I have been more mindful so that is an improvement! Once you see where all the plastic is coming from then you can take steps to reduce it or stop it. Here are some of my favorite items that I use to reduce the amount of plastic that comes home with me:

Reusable Shopping Bag

Most people have a few of these by now. A lot of grocery stores are charging for plastic bags and have reusable bags for sale. We have quite a few now and a lot of them I have gotten for free from different events. I use small ones as a lunch bag to take to work. You don’t just have to use them for groceries though. I take one to the mall as well so that I don’t get a plastic bag when buying clothes, etc.

Cloth Produce Bags

These little bags replace the plastic produce bags that you find in grocery stores, or at bulk food stores. I bought mine from a local shop and they are great! They even have the tare weight written on them so that the cashier can deduct the weight of the bag from the price!

Paper Wrapped Toilet Paper

I discovered this toilet paper from Staples that has no plastic packaging! It was delivered in a cardboard box and all the individual rolls are wrapped in paper.

Glass Bowls

We have had plastic mixing bowls for a while and I was ready to replace them. We got these great Pyrex glass bowls that came with lids. They are a great size and will hopefully hold up for years to come.

Travel Cutlery

I bought 2 sets of travel cutlery for our trip to Disney in December to replace any plastic cutlery that we might have used during our trip. They are easy to carry around in our day bag, and we would just rinse them off in the bathroom after eating. We’ll be taking them on our next trip to Europe for sure!

Water Bottle and Travel Mug

I’m sure everybody has at least one of each of these! Some people don’t know that most coffee shops will actually fill up your travel mug so that you don’t need a take out cup. This is one of the easiest switches to make.

SodaStream

We have had a SodaStream for over a year and I love it. We haven’t bought carbonated water or pop (that’s soda, for some of you!) since. A CO2 canister lasts us a few months, so it’s not too expensive!

Final Thoughts

Do you have any favourite items that help reduce plastic in your home? I would love to hear about them since I am always trying to get better at being zero waste!