The phrase is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Too often I think of it in reverse and just assume that since something is recyclable that that is what I should go with. But the other day something really irked me. I realized I had 4 bottles of hand soap. 4. For just me and Sabrina part of the time and then guests. I also had some bar soap. My question to myself was, "why am I requiring more plastic bottles to be made for something I’m perfectly fine using in a solid form." I gotta admit I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about the soap I use. Liquid or bar doesn’t matter much to me.
I’ve thus decided to reduce the amount of things I buy in plastic bottles. I know I can’t wipe out plastics from my life altogether, that’s not my goal. It’s not realistic and quite frankly, plastics are useful. However, it’s my belief we as a society have come to use them far more than is needed. It’s convenience that has caused the rapid increase in the use of plastic packaging and product delivery. If plastic bottle costs went up like the cost of gasoline, you’d see a change. But for some of us, the change comes from realizing I don’t REQUIRE any more plastic bottles to be made for me.
If I am able to stop using plastic bottled soap and shampoo, I estimate that means a demand decrease for plastic bottles by about 5 a year. Not a huge impact you might think, but if half of the 17 regular readers of this blog did the same, that’s a total of 45 less bottles a year. Now that starts looking attractive.
Think about it this way; you want and pretty much need soap. There’s a factory that churns out soap. Now, if you want that in a bottle, there has to be a completely different factory made to make JUST THE BOTTLES. To me that seems a bit daft. If you don’t absolutely need the bottle, why require it be made? While buying in a bulk package and refilling your smaller hand soap dispenser is surely better than buying multiple small bottles and recycling them (reusing being better than recycling), you are still requiring a whole other factory just for the bottles.
I’d encourage you to take a look and see if you can reduce the number of plastic bottles you require. Some simply can’t be avoided, I agree. But make a change where you can. Myself, I still need to find a good, organic bar shampoo for Sabrina before our current bottled liquids run out (I’m not insane enough to just throw out the bottles with perfectly good liquid in them). If you come across such a product, please let me know!