To me really, this is a no brainer!  You can find wool dryer balls almost everywhere.  They all come in natural packaging- no plastic AND there are no harmful side effects from using them.  Nor will you be overpowering your neighbours with your dryer sheet "fragrance".  

Most dryer sheets contain some form of QUATS - quaternary ammonium chloride.  I can't find anything good about them and lots of bad.  You can read further for yourself if you wish by clicking the Quats button below - or Google it.  Dryer sheets are not biodegradeable nor recylable.

There is considerable difference in pricing for the wool balls, so check around. My bag had 6 so I thought I'd share, but it turns out you might need all 6 if you do a lot of laundry in a day or do really BIG loads. I'll be fine! I've had no static cling issues at all and it does say you can do a little drop of an essential oil into the wool if you are missing a fragrance. I haven't done any research on that, so make sure any oil you use is not heat sensitive.

While wandering about in Sidney I saw a sign that said “ Soap Refill Centre Here”. This idea had been one of the things I’d been seeing popping up in Tweets in the UK almost daily. It’s an excellent way to reduce and reuse by bringing your containers back for refilling. Into Ecotopia I went and had a lovely conversation with owner Lisa Pedersen. While checking out the soap refills I discovered that they also carried TruEarth Laundry Detergent, a zero plastic alternative. I’ve purchased a package at $17.99 and will be trying it out. I have seen ads on Facebook before, but I don’t like to buy anything through Facebook. On their website it’s $19.95 and if you subscribe you save 35% bringing it down to $12.95 and free shipping. The company is Canadian. I’m happy to have the opportunity to try it out this way through Ecotopia!

My goal is to be able to replace each product I use with a plastic free product. In some cases I’ve been making these myself, but it is daunting and expensive to gather all the ingredients you need to begin. Soaps was a big one that I wasn’t going to be happy to tackle in the kitchen. I’m so glad to have found the gems inside Ecotopia. 😀💚

The single, simplest, easiest thing to do, is switch to a stainless drink bottle for on the go.  It can be used for both cold and hot drinks.  Fill up with coffee or tea in the morning and water during the day.  If you've ever hiked in the desert and put ice in your water, the cubes will still be jingling several hours later.  If you have concerns with the quality of your drinking water, consider switching to a filtered alternative.  

​Did you know that you burn more calories drinking cold water, so add some ice! Yup!

Many places have special fountains designed for water bottle filling and you can even get a pop at a soda fountain.  There's no problem having your stainless bottle filled with a cappuccino or coffee at your fave cafe.  Make the switch and take it with you whenever you head out.    

I've been searching for recipes for body lotions as I was nearing the end of my current plastic encased product.  There are lots of recipes to choose from out there, but my criteria is simple...easy!

I wanted to limit the ingredients and choose a recipe that had ingredients that I could use for multiple products because, quite honestly...the costs were adding up.  Once you start down the road of Essential Oils...ooh la la!  So here it is - I will bold the choices that I made - but there are options with how you make it. 

Place close attention to Step #5 - make sure to warm up your rose water, distilled water or aloe vera juice.  I didn't do this well enough and the melted part of my lotion hardened pretty quick midstream. :(  My lotion therefore has lumps that might not be there if you follow the instructions correctly!  However, I can say that it is extremely effective and keeps my hands and body better moisturized than my store bought plastic encased brand.  My yield was 2 small mason jars and I would call it more of a body butter than a lotion, but it works well!  Cost was about $9 and yes I would make it again. 

Less Oily Homemade Lotion
Ingredients:
• 1 cup rose water (You can also use distilled water or aloe vera juice)
• 1/2 cup beeswax
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 cup jojoba (You can also use sweet almond oil, olive oil or avocado oil)
• 1 tsp vitamin E oil (Optional)
• Essential oils ( I chose Frankincense and Sweet Orange) 

Instructions:

1. Pour the beeswax, coconut oil, jojoba oil, vitamin E and essential oils into a container that can be used as a double boiler (I always use a large mason jar).
2. Fill a medium sized sauce pan with a few inches of water.
3. Place the container into the sauce pan and bring the water to a gentle boil.
4. As the ingredients start to melt, stir them together (I use a chopstick for this! You can use a popsicle stick as well).
5. Warm up the rose water. I do this in another jar in the same sauce pan. You want these to be right around the same temperature.
6. Pour the heated rose water and melted oil/wax mixture into a food processor (I use a large bowl and a hand blender which I think is far easier to clean!)
7. Let this cool until it starts to harden (usually about 20 minutes).
8. Blend the ingredients to combine!
9. Use a spatula to move your new lotion into your desired container (I like mason jars for this too!)

Recipe source: Delicious Obsessions

April 3, 2020 - Update - it's a great lotion, I would make again and pay closer attention to the heated rose water part and I think I probably didn't whip it long enough.  But it is not a pump'able lotion! 

I am the first to admit that I am a bit of a consumer.  When it comes to my granddaughters...I can get a bit carried away with presents, especially at Christmas.  As the presents were piled by the tree with such care, when thoughts of St. Nicholas arose in the air...I thought - OMG this is way too much! The aftermath of all the wrapping and trimmings and ribbons all to the garbage.  You can separate the plastic and paper and styrofoam, but it is still a mountain of debris to be dealt with.  If the paper has foil or sparkles, not recylable. :(

Not to be Scroogie or anything mean, I thought, why don't we use Christmas sacks to be reused each year.  Just think how much wasted paper we would save!  Talking to a friend, she said they use gift bags now and reuse them each year, saving all the tissue.  Brilliant! 

So a couple of quick searches and here's one company (livingethos.com) that makes cloth bags.  I'm sure there are others or it would be quite easy to do if you had the ability to sew.   While stepping ever so slightly into the sewing sea, we are collecting 100% old cotton shirts for beeswax wrappers, so why not recycle worn clothing into cloth gift bags!  Discarded clothing is one of the biggest rising landfill problems.  We can resolve the problem of fashion and wrapping paper wastes with a single sewn up solution.    Awesome!