There are lots of little changes that we can make in our everyday lives that have a big difference in the long run. One of these is reducing our consumption of single-use plastic. So, this Christmas, instead of giving gifts that will eventually end up in landfill, how about gifting your family and friends some products that won’t have a negative long-term impact?
I’ve recently partnered with Non Plastic Beach, an Oxfordshire-based online business that manufactures and retails a range of alternatives to single-use and disposable plastic. The company has a huge range of lower impact bathroom and kitchen products on offer, including starter kits for people new to such gear, and gifts as well. Not only that, but all the packaging it uses is entirely recyclable or compostable, including the paper tape.
Gareth and Nicola who run Non Plastic Beach have been kind enough to gift me some products to help me reduce my consumption of single-use products day-to-day, as well as on my travels, so I thought I’d run through my favourites. Some of these would make great gifts for Christmas… but perhaps not the bin bags!
My favourites so far:
- Toothpaste tablets
Top of my list are the toothpaste tablets. I’ve been really impressed by these. They’re really easy to use, great to travel with, and most importantly do a fantastic job of cleaning my teeth. They’re a little different to regular tubed toothpaste as they don’t foam as much in your mouth, but I was soon used to that after a couple of days. I now use them every morning and evening – I’m completely converted!
- Shampoo and conditioner bars
I’ve used similar products before, but these are particularly good. I like the ‘Seas the Day’ ones, which contain sandalwood, bergamot, lavender and vanilla essential oils. There’s no compromise on quality when compared to standard bottled products – they clean and condition your hair well, and smell great too. What’s more, the sealable soap travel tin also makes them easy to transport when I’m away testing or racing.
- Compostable bin liners
So, these certainly shouldn’t go under the Christmas tree, but they definitely feature in my top products. They’re made from potato starch blended with a certified, fully compostable polymer. We all still have some rubbish that we throw away, but these bin liners mean that we’re disposing of it in something that’s not adding to the problem.
- Maui Metal Safety Razor
Non Plastic Beach introduced me to this fantastic product. Disposable razor blades typically have plastic casing, but with these metal razors you just replace the blades, so produce very little waste. The blades are nice and sharp and give a good clean shave. I enjoyed using them earlier in the year, but am currently cutting down on waste even more by sporting a beard! When I go back to shaving, it will certainly be with this product.
See Non Plastic Beach’s full product range at nonplasticbeach.com.
