5 Zero Waste Kit to Overhaul Your Daily Routines
Zero waste kit and bundles to reduce your waste in your daily routine.
One of the first stages you experience after learning about the zero waste lifestyle is a shock. Taking a harder look at the waste you produce daily makes you realize how much of your life has been taken over by disposables, particularly plastics. From your bathroom to your grocery trips, plastic and excess packaging are everywhere.
We’ve all been there. Lucky for you, EcoRoots has got you covered.
These 5 "zero waste kit" will help you transform your day to day waste output without breaking a sweat.
1. Zero Waste Shaving Kit
For a lot of us, shaving is one of the things that start off the day.
But have you ever thought about the waste this daily ritual produces?
First is the shaving cream, foam, gel, or whatever product you happen to be using.
Most shaving foams come in pressurized cans which, despite being made of mostly recyclable materials—i.e. steel—can pose dangers to workers due to their pressurized nature. That being said around 70% of American recycling services will process these cans as long as they are fully emptied.
Next, you have your razor. The disposable version was patented back in 1903 by King C. Gillette but seems to have become increasingly more complicated since then.
More blades, more moisture strips, more clogging.
All of that wrapped in a difficult to recycle plastic casing, attached to a plastic handle.
That’s why we’ve got this zero waste kit to simplify your shaving experience.
This kit comes with:
- 1 x sturdy rose gold safety razor
- 1 x bar of our luxurious shaving soap
- 15 x replacement blades
While those other razors just keep getting more complex to try and hold the attention of an industry that is slowing down—a quarter of women 18-23 have no qualms about women with visible underarm hair—this safety razor’s design is timeless.
Personally, I only shave occasionally. This means I’ve had a lot of trouble with rust and build-up in between all those disposable blades.
Yuck!
Our safety razor won’t do you like that. The single blade design means it's easy to keep clean and will give you a nice smooth shave.
Now if you are used to shaving foam, a bar may sound like a pretty big change. But stick with me for a second.
Let me paint you a picture. It’s been a while since your last shave. Spring is coming and its time to shed that winter coat!
So, you break out the razor and the shaving cream and get to work.
Now you’re out with your friends in your best pair of shorts showing off your smooth legs.
And then you see it.
That rogue patch of hair. Like an island on a sea of smooth. So annoying! Right?
Now, I’m not saying that this will never happen using something like a shaving bar, but I will tell you from experience that being able to see what you’re shaving is extremely helpful.
On top of that, while a lot of shaving creams are admittedly fun to use, most of them don’t really do much to reduce friction between skin and blade.
With moisturizing ingredients like shea and cocoa butter, this bar will not only leave your skin feeling soft but will also help the blade slide across your skin.
Switch now to this zero waste shaving kit and reduce your waste now!
2. Zero Waste Market Kit
In so many of the homes I have lived in and visited, there is one thing you will probably find. Somewhere there is a bag full of plastic bags.
While many of these bags will likely find a second life as a bathroom garbage bag, a dog poop bag, containment for a wet swimsuit, and a million other uses, most of these bags will end up in the trash.
Designed for the often-short trip from cart, to car, to home, these bags are not made to last and are rarely accepted by curbside recycling services.
Paper bags, which are easier to recycle, are not available at all stores and often don’t work well for all our grocery needs such as produce which may be wet from misters.
The alternative may seem obvious, especially since many stores sell them or incentivize their use.
Reusable bags!
This zero waste kit will help you go from cart to car, to home without a single plastic bag.
Our market kit comes with:
- 1 x large cotton string bag
- 1 x medium, and 1 large, cotton bulk bag
- 1 x medium, and 1 large, cotton mesh bag
With this zero waste kit you’ll have everything you need for a quick grocery run.
The tight-knit of the bulk bags will make it easy to stock up on things like bulk quinoa without having to worry about losing a single grain.
The mesh bags are perfect for fresh greens while the cotton string bag will be just what you need for larger produce items or canned goods.
If you didn’t notice the theme with those bags, it's cotton. This is good news for a couple of reasons so let me clue you in:
First off:
Our bags are made with Global Organic Textile Standard cotton. This means they are held to a high ecological and sociological production standards.
This means that from the growing of the cotton itself to the final manufacturing of the bags, you can rest easy knowing they were made responsibly.
Secondly:
This means our bags are free of synthetic fibers. Microscopic fibers are released into the water we wash synthetics in.
Most local wastewater treatment plants are not equipped to filter out these tiny fibers allowing 40% of them to enter our natural waterways and eventually lakes and oceans, according to The Guardian. Plastic microfibers in our bodies of water is no laughing issue, scientists expect that these fibers will bioaccumulate, meaning the effects will travel up the food chain, right to us.
As the creator of the Cora ball—a laundry device designed to collect these fibers and prevent them from entering the waterways—puts it, we are eating our clothing.
Many reusable grocery bags and produce bags are made from cheap synthetic materials which may contribute to this issue.
With our zero waste kit you won’t have to worry about the ever-growing bag of bags, or increasing your microfiber output.
3. Zero Waste Cleaning Kit
Now that you’ve gotten home with all your groceries packed in your plastic-free bags, I’m sure you can’t wait to cook up something delicious! At the end of that tasty meal, however, comes the less fun part.
Dishes.
Now that you’ve started seeing how much plastic is in your daily life, let’s look at your dishwashing process.
Odds are the first thing you reach for to do your dishes is plastic. Whether it’s a scrub brush, a synthetic sponge, or the detergent bottle.
It doesn’t have to be that way! With this zero waste kit, you can do the dishes without plastic waste!
Our cleaning kit comes with:
1 x 7.5 oz zero waste dish soap block
1 x bamboo soap dish
Let’s start with perhaps the most important item in this kit, the soap. Our dishwashing bar from NoToxLife is dense.
In this case, that’s a good thing.
NoToxLife says you can expect the block to last a month in a single person home and it comes packaged plastic-free! Plus, you don’t have to worry about the bottle clutter up your kitchen counter.
Here’s the best part though:
Our dishwashing block is vegan. Plus, it’s SLS and Phosphate free!
But why should you care, you ask?
Well, to put it simply SLS is a harsh surfactant used in many detergents to give them that signature foaming action. Unfortunately, SLS is often manufactured using petroleum.
Phosphates are common in dish detergents because they help leave your dishes spot-free. The flip side of this is that an excess of phosphates when entering our natural bodies of water can cause algal blooms. Some algal blooms even contain toxic strains of bacteria.
Yuck!
Once you start washing with this zero waste kit you won’t need to worry that potentially harmful chemicals like these are a part of your dishwashing routine!
Next it’s time to think about storing that lovely little bar of soap that will now find its home on the side of your sink.
To preserve the longevity of your soap you’ll want a soap dish with good drainage. That’s where the bamboo soap dish comes in.
The ridges in the bamboo will help channel water away from your dishwashing block so you won’t have to worry about melting or wasting product.
Plus, the natural antimicrobial properties of bamboo will help keep everything nice and sanitary even in the presence of all that water.
Last, but definitely not least, is the wooden dish brush.
This may be one of my favorite products we carry! I love the simplistic look to it as well as how functional it is!
This brush is made of all biodegradable and recyclable materials, but that’s not even the best part.
Get this:
Once the sisal bristles have done there very last bit of scrubbing, and need to be retired, you can simply pop of the brush head and replace it with a brand new one.
You heard that right.
Not only is the brush nice to look at on the side of your sink, but it can have many lives with new brush heads!
4. Zero Waste Dental Kit
What’s the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?
Hopefully, the answer is ‘brush your teeth!’
If that was your answer, it's probably also true that you start and end your day with plastic.
The waste produced by things like toothbrushes is nothing to sneeze at.
NatGeo reported that in a typical beach clean up in Hawaii it isn’t uncommon to come across 20-100 toothbrushes washed ashore. And that’s just skimming the surface of the problem.
Since many toothbrushes are made from unrecyclable “composite plastics” their accumulation in our landfills and oceans is an ever-growing problem.
In addition to brushes, toothpaste is also often packaged in difficult to recycle tubes, and floss, which is basically plastic strips, comes in plastic dispensers.
Oof.
Now, the last thing we want is for you to feel guilty about keeping up with your dental hygiene.
That’s why this next zero waste kit is here to help you keep your teeth clean without contributing to plastic pollution.
Our dental kit comes with:
- 4 x bamboo toothbrushes
- 1 x tube of David’s Toothpaste
- 1 x jar of vegan floss
Our toothbrushes are made with fast growing, sustainable bamboo, and soft BPA free bristles.
Now I can hear you already:
Plastic bristles?
Yes, unfortunately, the bristles on our brushes are made with plastic, because we are a cruelty-free brand.
For some items it will take time before producing them completely without plastic will be feasible. Toothbrush bristles are one of those things.
Before nylon bristles, the natural products used included things like boar’s hair, which isn’t the easiest thing to mass produce without some major environmental consequences.
As more research is done, and better bristles come into the market, we will be on the lookout.
Until then, rest assured that the bristles are 100% recyclable and the handle can be fully composted.
This kit comes with four soft-bristled brushes. That could be a year’s worth of toothbrushes for you or a pack to split up amongst your household, whatever works best for you.
Of course, you’ll need something to put on that brush! David’s Toothpaste doesn’t come in your average tube, and it isn’t an average toothpaste either!
Now, I have already written quite a bit about David’s on this site so I’ll keep this short and sweet:
This natural toothpaste comes in a 100% recyclable aluminum tube and is made free of detergents like SLS, and is vegan and cruelty-free!
Like every tube of David’s, our kit also comes with one of their metal tube keys, which helps assure that none of this good stuff goes to waste.
Aluminum, like most metals, is endlessly recyclable with no loss in quality, which is a huge plus in my book.
Even the tube key is made of recyclable steel, but you can also keep it around to use on other metal tubes you may have around the house.
Finally, we get to the part of your dental hygiene routine your dentist is always reminding you about.
Floss.
It’s pretty likely that before being exposed to the zero-waste lifestyle, you never thought twice about floss.
If you were like me, you may have never even considered the fact that it was made from plastic!
Most flosses are made from nylon, but have I got news for you:
Our floss is plastic free!
Not only that, unlike many of the other alternatives out there, our floss is also vegan!
You heard that right.
No plastic, no animal products, happy gums, and—perhaps most importantly—a happy dentist.
5. Zero Waste Self-Care Kit
A relaxing moment to yourself is the last place you want to be worrying about waste.
That’s why this last zero waste kit is all about you taking care of you. How can you take on this tough waste-filled world without a little self-care, am I right?
Our Self Care Kit comes with:
- 1 x pack of ten reusable cotton rounds
- 1 x jar of face lotion
- 1 x body wash bar
- 1 x stick of natural deodorant
We handpicked each of these products to give you absolute peace of mind:
Our cotton rounds are made with GOTS certified cotton and bamboo and are easy to wash for reuse.
These reusable facial rounds are the perfect pair for all of your favorite face products from creams to cleansers.
Speaking of which:
This kit also comes with an indulgent daily, face moisturizer.
Whether you apply it first thing in the morning under your makeup and SPF or after a nightly face wash, this Yay For Earth face lotion will leave you glowing.
Yay For Earth was crafted for all skin types, even those of us on the sensitive side. With ingredients like antioxidant olive oil, to anti-aging pomegranate seed oil, this lotion is a treat for your skin.
Best of all? It comes in a reusable or recyclable glass jar with a metal lid.
We’re not done yet!
The next two items in this kit are from Meow Meow Tweet a small batch, vegan, skincare company. Find the Meow Meow Tweet collection here.
In this Self-Care kit, we’ve included their Grapefruit Mint Bodywash Bar.
The sweetness of pink grapefruit coupled with refreshing mint make for a pretty lovely bath.
The mint leaves in the bar also provide a gentle exfoliation while ingredients like coconut oil and castor seed oil provide great moisturizing properties for dry or sensitive skin.
To make that freshness last all day you’ll need a good quality deodorant. Luckily for you, we have a natural deodorant that works!
And, get this:
It works without giving you that icky baking soda rash.
Hallelujah!
You can pick from our three available scents for your plastic-free deo-grapefruit, rose geranium, or cedar spruce.
Find your favorite zero waste deodorant. It’s so important to give yourself a little love every now and again. And doesn’t it feel good to know there are ways to do that without worrying about plastics?
The Cold Hard Facts:
Sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves why we are doing this. It’d be so much easier to just go with the flow.
Even if that flow is becoming more plastic than water. Turning against the tide isn’t easy. You’ll get raised eyebrows from skeptical family members and friends who think you simply worry too much.
I like to have the knowledge on my side to be able to turn that skepticism the other direction. Maybe they aren’t worrying enough.
When we first started to utilize plastics in daily goods, the volume was small enough that we could responsibly dispose of the items we created with little environmental impact.
That’s not the case anymore.
With the production of plastics doing nothing but rise and our continued inability to manage the waste effectively, we’ve rapidly begun burying ourselves in the stuff.
As more and more corporations decided that the cheap and versatile plastic was the answer to every problem from gingivitis to beverage transportation: they chose to ignore the ever-growing waste problem for the sake of profit margins.
Plastic pollution is a problem that is not going away. We are at a point where the geologic indicator of our peak here on earth could be plastic in the soil.
As of 2018 the weight of plastic we produced per year was equivalent to the weight of the entire human population.
Studies done in Australia found that “85% of the human-made debris on shorelines around the world” were plastic microfibers.
Unfortunately, that’s not all:
According to the Plastic Pollution Coalition, plastic will not decompose but simply split up into increasingly smaller particulates, the effects of which we still do not fully understand.
What we do know, is that plastics are in the food chain, and moving up.
A variety of fish and shellfish populations, many of which we eat, have been tainted by microplastics.
Recycling, while helpful, isn’t the final answer to the plastic problem. As Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace put it: “If your home was flooding because you had left the faucet on, your first step wouldn’t be to start mopping.”
That’s why at EcoRoots we strive to provide you with products that cut plastics out from step one.
By supporting companies like us, who are proving that we don’t need disposable plastics to make great products, you send a message to the wider market.
"We don’t need your trash".
In fact, we don’t want your trash.
The good news is you really don’t have to sacrifice much in terms of variety to cut plastic out of your life, and you’ll often find products are better without it.
Whether you decide to purchase one of our kits or not, I urge you to take a look at the way you use plastics every day and make efforts step out of and contributing to the endless flow.
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