Your Eco Friendly Bathroom in 5 Easy Steps

Your bathroom is most likely the smallest room in your home, but chances are it is also one of the two most wasteful rooms. Together with the waste created in your kitchen, your bathroom is responsible for a huge chunk of your household waste. Making some small swaps in your bathroom will have an enormous impact on your carbon footprint and the amount of waste you send to landfill/incineration (most Irish waste is now incinerated). And since most toiletries and hygiene products are used directly on your body, less chemical and more natural alternatives will also have a positive effect on your body and your overall health – a true win/win situation!

To get you started, we have 5 easy and straight forward steps towards your greener, more eco friendly bathroom!

Eco Friendly Bathroom Step 1: Soap, Shampoo and Conditioner

In recent years, we have become very accustomed to soaps and shampoos being sold as liquids in shiny plastic bottles. A few decades ago though, it wasn’t the case. In fact, liquid soap is only around since the end of the 19th century and has quickly become the new “normal”. However, it's a wasteful way of cleaning ourselves. Not only is the plastic packaging going to pollute the environment indefinitely, but the way the bottles are designed leads to us using way more than we actually need – so that we run out of products faster and need to buy a new bottle.

Switching to a simple bar of soap for your showers, baths and hand washing as well as opting for solid shampoo and conditioner bars will eliminate all this waste in one go! There are so many great and natural options to choose from. We particularly love the bars from the Palm Free Irish Handmade Soap Company, like the lovely soothing lavender bar or the more refreshing fragrance of Seaweed and Peppermint. Same goes for Shampoo and Conditioner; between the Friendly Shampoo Bar and the Alter/native nourishing solid shampoo and conditioner you have many waste-free and natural choices for your body & hair!

Eco Friendly Bathroom Step 2: Dental Care Products

You are supposed to change your toothbrush at least every three months, so that makes four toothbrushes a year and approximately 300 toothbrushes in a lifetime – and an awful lot of plastic waste if you use traditional plastic toothbrushes! In addition to plastic toothbrushes, many people also use dental floss made out of plastic and regular toothpaste which usually contains a long list of chemicals.

To clean and take care of your teeth in a more natural and eco-friendly way one easy swap is a bamboo toothbrush. A Humble Brush is made from sustainable bamboo with nylon-6 bristles. At the end of its lifespan, the handle can go in your compost bin, while the head needs to be disposed of in your general waste bin. This one simple swap can cut down your personal plastic waste by a lot! Bamboo brushes are very light, so they are easy to use for children as well. For very little ones the smaller brush heads of the biodegradable Jack n Jill Brushes are perfect.

Complete your new natural dental care routine by adding Ecoliving plant-based compostable dental floss and zero waste toothpaste tabs.

Eco Friendly Bathroom Step 3: Loofah Sponges, Wipes and Cotton Bud Tips

Not only do the products you use create waste, so too do the many tools you use to apply them. Disposable cotton rounds, make-up wipes or cotton buds with plastic handles are just some of those things used every day by many people. Luckily though, there are some sustainable alternatives out there, that work just as well, if not better, than their conventional counterparts.

Starting with Loofah Sponges, for example, which are a fabulous natural alternative to plastic-based sponges. They are ethically made from the loofah plant. Once immersed in water they turn into a soft sponge that is ideal for cleansing and lightly exfoliating your skin. When it can’t be used anymore, it can simply be composted – same as the Simpy Gentle Organic Cotton Tips with Paper Stems!

Cotton pads are commonly used to remove make-up and apply tonics and lotions to skin. However, they are not just disposable products which create waste when they have been used, but they also waste a lot of water and energy when being produced. The environmentally friendly answer: Reusable Cotton Wipes. Even though water and energy still need to be used to produce these, the fact you can use them over and over again makes them a lot more sustainable!

Eco Friendly Bathroom Step 4: Feminine Care

Over the course of her life, an average woman creates up to 150 kilograms of sanitary waste and with all those products containing plastic, they will simply never really break down. But there are eco-friendly and reusable options available, which will lower your environmental impact, be more natural for your body and also save you money.

When it comes to reusable sanitary products, you have the choice between washable sanitary pads and a Menstrual Cup. While the pads work just like disposable pads, instead of throwing them out, they are washed to reuse. The menstrual cup is simply emptied, washed, occasionally sterilised and used again and again. For convenience, or when out and about, eco-friendly disposable sanitary products like the Natracare Cotton Sanitary Pads and Cotton Tampons are a great option.

If you want to know more about reusable sanitary products, click here for a more detailed blog.

Eco Friendly Bathroom Step 5: Cleaning

When you are trying to make your bathroom more eco friendly, it is easy to forget about the products that help you to keep your bathroom clean and hygienic. If you think about your bathroom cleaning routine, you will notice that it is full of plastic. From the toilet brush and the cleaning gloves to the actual chemical cleaning products in plastic bottles. So when going eco friendly in your bathroom, make your cleaning routine plastic-free & natural as well!

Starting with your toilet brush, instead of replacing your existing plastic brush with another one, opt for a more sustainable wooden toilet brush which is biodegradable and compostable! This is also true for these Natural Rubber Cleaning Gloves and Sponge Cloths. Once everything is cleaned and there is no more use in your gloves, cloths and toilet brush, they go into your compost bin and not into your general waste bin!

Good to know: When collecting biological and compostable waste in your bathroom for your brown bin, remember to use a compostable bin bag!

The most used cleaning products in the bathroom are limescale remover and toilet cleaner. Both of which are usually loaded with harsh chemicals harming the environment and your health. When switching to the Ecover Limescale Remover Spray and Natural Toilet Cleaner you are investing in very effective natural cleaning products which are kind to the environment, 100% safe for you and your family and entirely packaged in recyclable plastic!

Is your bathroom next on your eco friendly or zero waste journey? Which swaps are you going to try to implement first?