I'm sure you've all heard the obvious ones, like "don't take plastic shopping bags" or "use a reuseable water bottle," but there are some other areas that I've found where we can reduce the plastic in our lives.
Personal Care
You can get wood or bamboo personal care products, such as toothbrushes, combs, and hairbrushes. I've even been known to saw off the head of the toothbrush (the bristles are nylon) when I was done with it and put the handle in my compost. The bristles on the hairbrush in this photo are boar hair; I have another type of brush where the bristles and handle are all bamboo and the bed for the bristles is silicone (but I need to wash or replace it, because this happened, lol.
yes, that is a wasp in my hairbrush
Wood and bamboo combs and brushes are healthier for your hair as well as reducing your plastic, because they cause less static and breakage, and distribute your hair's natural oils more evenly. As someone with baby fine hair who lives in a high desert, the difference in static is noticeable.
This is more of a disposable-versus-reuseable tip as I think the disposables are made out of wood products, but you can also get a metal (the handle is either plastic or resin, I'm not sure) permanent nail file so you aren't always throwing them away. I've had this one for years and it's still going strong. On the less plastic front, note the wooden soap dish in the background on my sink - less plastic there, too!
Around the Home
Did you know metal fans still exist? It's true, and they're not necessarily more expensive than plastic ones. I bought this one years ago for under $20 as I recall, and it's almost all metal (I think the motor casing is plastic as well as those knobs on the sides). It works well and feels a lot more sturdy than the plastic one it replaced, which was top heavy as it had a hollow, light plastic base and blades but a metal cage around the fan blades (and yeah, I only replaced it when that one bit the dust). Also, those aluminum (I think, that's what they feel like to me) blades are bendable, so when one day it wasn't pushing air as well as it used to, I opened it up, cleaned it out, and bent the blades to a better angle, and viola, more of a breeze from the fan.
In the Kitchen
If you drink soda, you can buy it in metal cans or glass bottles - both of which generally come in cardboard boxes - instead of plastic bottles. Yes, glass bottled soda still exists, it's the most common thing that real sugar soda comes in in my experience (as opposed to HFCS soda or sugar free varieties). I am still collecting my bottle caps with a desire to tile a floor or something someday with them. :)
If you get real maple syrup instead of HFCS syrup, it generally comes in glass bottles instead of plastic. You can also get pasta in cardboard boxes instead of plastic bags (I was SO excited to find those allergen-free pastas above, I stocked up. I'm technically allergic to wheat, but in practice I only rash if it's whole wheat, so I do cheat with white flour a bit but I probably shouldn't. Most other alterna-pastas are made with other allergens like corn in them, so it's very rare to find a white rice and quinoa pasta - I've only found one once before - which they must have made with nickel allergy people in mind as those are the only two grains we are really supposed to have. The black bean one is new to me, too - I eat black bean chips, but haven't tried a pasta yet; again that's a nickel allergy thing because all beans and lentils are on the no-no list except black ones! So I'm in pasta heaven right now).
Another thing to consider in the kitchen is that a lot of tea bags are made with plastic! They seem like just natural fabric you could chuck in the compost bin, but alas, you have to research to find out what brands are plastic-free (or you could buy loose tea, as well). That's why that "garden hack" that goes around every year about putting tea bags in your garden beds is potentially not a great idea - either you have to make sure your tea bags are plastic-free ones, or you have to rip them open and dump the loose used tea leaves in the garden and throw the bag itself in the trash.
I hope these ideas helped you to think about some areas where you might make a switch, too. As I've said before, I don't think we should Swedish Death Clean all the plastic out of our homes at once; that just creates more waste and consumption. But we can, as things need replacing, make a point to look for better alternatives and slowly make new habits. :)
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