Being green is something both my husband and I both aspire to, but have not truly put the work in part due to ignorance and the fear of adding even more cost to our high-spend but very average lifestyle living in Silicon Valley.
I was inspired when I found a store called Kind Matter during my postpartum depression days while I was visiting family in Canada. There was a refillable station and household items for daily living made by local makers that were curated perfectly to help you live a sustainable lifestyle. This planted a seed that is currently taking root. I'm displeased that there aren't more stores like this where I live despite the fact that I'm from the Bay Area. It seems like this lifestyle could be out of reach. Well, it took one relentless ad targeting from a laundry detergent company, Earth Breeze, for me to try out laundry detergent sheets and ditch liquid detergent. I am HOOKED. It's lighter, more compact for storage, and has a smaller carbon footprint with biodegradable packaging. It was great on all kinds of toddler stains. Best of all, it felt good that I knew I made an impact by ditching tubs of plastic laundry detergent containers for the rest of my household's life. What's crazier is as I discovered other brands the price difference could be the same or cheaper depending on which brand you choose. This small practical step challenged my bias towards sustainable choices being less effective and higher cost. It sparked all kinds of questions like:
Identifying the Opportunity: What are all the household items that I can change?
Analyzing the Opportunity:
What are other easy changes that do not require a huge adjustment that I can make that will also make an impact?
How much more expensive are alternate sustainable living household items? Is it really more expensive?
What's the frequency of usage?
Decision & Action Plan: What would I like to experiment with?
While listing out the opportunities, I discovered to live better is a lot more affordable than I thought. Friction to changing lifestyle may include compromising on product quality or efficacy, price, or convenience. As I list out alternate items to try, I have decided to start experimenting using the approach:
Pursue changes as my current supply of status quo items runs out
Pursue small or easy lifestyle adjustments that can make an impact
Pursue adjustments that are aligned with my values. Some values trump the effort for sustainability.
I recently ran out of the Clorox refillable toilet cleaners that attach to the toilet cleaner wand. I don't like these toilet cleaners, but it's easier than using disgusting toilet brushes and all these smelly harsh chemicals that also come in plastic jugs.
I have 3 bathrooms and a wand for each that I'd have to replace and I saw that purchasing the Clorox Wand that comes with some refillable cleaner heads was ~$12 to $15. As I was researching for silicone toilet brushes that were highly reviewed, effective, and durable I found a pack of three that was ~$13 each. The toilet brush itself is roughly the same price.
Clorox Toilet Cleaner Head Refill $0.60 per vs Blueland Toilet Cleaner Tablet Refill at $1.29 per. This one hurts. It's double the price. But as I thought about it, how often do I actually clean the toilet? It's not an everyday expense. I also don't know how these Clorox toilet wand heads decompose so I decided to shell out the money since I didn't think it was significant. In this scenario, the value of the environment trumped my value for price. The effectiveness of the product in terms of ease of use and toilet cleanliness was luckily on par else this experiment would have failed.
Yay, success! Laundry Detergent, Toilet Cleaner, what's next?
Adjustments that are worthwhile are ones that we place our value over convenience. Generally, value convenience, ease of use, cost, and functional effectiveness, and the friction to try something new that may or may not be better or the need to develop a new habit prevents us from moving forward.
An example of a decision where our value of prioritizing health versus the environment was in conflict was thinking through whether we wanted to change out our electronic toothbrushes since it requires us to continue with plastic refillable brush heads. For the sake of our dental hygiene and the longevity of our teeth, we decided against using bamboo toothbrushes as an alternative.
An example of making a change that aligns with my prioritization of values is my assessment of choices for flossing. We've been purchasing plastic floss picks which are horrible for the environment so we bought biodegradable ones. Again like the Blueland toilet cleaner tablets it's twice the cost. This is something we use on the daily and although it's not significantly more expensive in a year since it's just floss, I was also not satisfied with the effectiveness of this type of floss. Here are my options:
Option 1: No Change - Change plastic floss pick to biodegradable floss pick - Current Situation - Not cost effective & not really a life improvement since it's still not the most effective floss as well as double the status quo cost
Option 2: Change plastic floss pick to a reusable floss pick and a biodegradable floss - Reusable floss picks are greener, but take much more effort in stringing the floss onto the wand or pick. The friction is our sheer laziness and existing poor habit of flossing. This might be an ineffective solution since it's better to floss a little than not floss at all.
Option 3: Change plastic floss pick to reusable floss pick & find the most effective floss on the market - This is probably the hardest option, because it's a lifestyle and expensive, but ...
If I were to weigh the following values for Option 3:
Health - Total Win
Environment - Semi Win
Ease of Use - Questionable - Need to Experiment
Cost - LOSE
This is worth trying since health is something this household values more than the environment and cost.
I've recently accidentally converted to CocoFloss since it was something I had at home due to some beauty box subscription that I've discontinued for years now. It's not even a biodegradable floss! It massages my gums and gets all kinds of things out between my teeth that other floss in the market just simply can not. I've found myself somewhat looking forward to flossing, but also feeling annoyed at how much string I waste when pulling out enough length to wrap around both my fingers on both hands to reach the back of my mouth. My dentist always reminds me to floss more often, but I am seriously not crazy about paying $10 for the same length of spool that I can get for free from my dentist! So how can I improve my dental hygiene, save some money, and be kinder to the environment?
I'll just end this post by saying not all change is easy and some seem to move a little backward in sustainability rather than forward, but life is a compromise and I am excited to try Cocofloss & Paro Dental Floss Holder together. I researched countless floss holder picks and wands and the video of this particular holder looks easy to use and only uses an inch or two of floss! This looks promising and easy to teach my toddler to use!
Thankfully there are changes that make a bigger impact on the environment as well as easier decisions when assessing against my values matrix. My next goal is to get rid of as many plastic jugs from shampoo, conditioner, dish soap, hand soap, facial cleansers, moisturizers, and other single-use plastics like purchasing bottles of water. Any other ideas? Happy to hear about them since any high-impact, easy, and cost-effective change would create build greater momentum for my sustainable lifestyle journey!
I'm extremely excited about this journey since it gives me entrepreneurial ideas as well as makes me feel like I'm pursuing a lifestyle that's good for the planet.
UPDATE: I am extremely bummed about this, but I learned recently (literally the night after I finished this entry) that laundry sheets are also made out of plastic. They don't tell you this in the marketing material. I feel deceived. I am thankful I reduced the plastic jugs, but I am upset that they left out a key point about their product not being biodegradable. The ingredient polyvinyl alcohol (PVA or PVOH) dissolves and is water soluble leaving microplastics in our sewage and drinking water since water treatment plants aren't able to remove it (yet - probably not until this gets regulated).
Comments