Boobalou’s Top 20 Products To Help Reduce Your Waste

1. Reusable Menstrual Products

Reusable washable sanitary towels are comfier, cleaner, more breathable and a whole lot prettier than disposable pads. They also contain no nasty chemical and are more beneficial to vaginal health. They can also reduce menstrual cramps and produce a lighter flow.

They come in a variety of sizes, absorbencies and fabric to suit your individual need. It feels like an extension to your underwear instead of a rustling sticky disposable pad.

They are very easy to use, simply wash them and reuse again and again, zero waste.

Menstrual cups are a great alternative to tampons with no known risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome. They collect blood rather then absorbing it. They are reusable for around 2- 10 years depending on the brand and you only need one cup, so very good value for money too.

Depending on your flow and the cup you can wear a cup for around 12 hours before emptying.

2. Baby Wipes

Reusable baby wipes are much more effective at cleaning babies bums than disposables as they do not smear and are very absorbent. They will save you money and are very easy to use. Simply wet with tap water or make your own soap or diluted essential oil mix. Then wash with your cloth nappies or in with your normal clothes, towels or bedding wash. Reusable wipes are gentle and soft for your babies skin. You will also know exactly what chemicals you are putting onto your baby.

Disposable wipes are normally made from rayon and often mixed with plastic too, which does not degrade easily. Rayon is derived from bleached wood pulp. It’s production undergoes 16 unnatural stages involving a cocktail of chemicals, including bathing in a bath of sulphuric acid. Leaking chemicals in the production process. The packaging is also plastic and non-recyclable by local councils.

3. Reusable, Washable Make-up Remover Wipes
Make the simple switch to cloth make-up remover wipes and reduce your landfill waste. Cloth wipes lift rather than smear leaving less make-up residue. Just add water instead of a cocktail of chemicals that commercial companies have chosen. This is kind to your skin and the environment. Also saving plastic packaging landfill waste and your money.

4. Reusable Kitchen Roll
Look great in your kitchen and are much more absorbent than paper towels. This cloth kitchen roll is easily snapped together, use one absorbent sheet at a time to clean or mop spills. With children in the house I am forever mopping up spills. You can use tea towels to mop spills however, I would end up going through 4-5 towels a day. That’s a lot of washing.

Reusable kitchen roll is easy to use. Just throw the sheets in your washing machine, no fabric conditioner. That’s it.

Paper kitchen roll carries a big carbon foot print and is non recyclable too. Reusable kitchen roll will save you money and will eliminate the plastic packaging that these products are purchased in. All this is extra landfill space.

5. Family Cloth
Family cloth or reusable toilet roll is soft and gives a decent wipe compared to paper roll. It’s much cleaner than disposable roll as it’s washed before use. It is gentle on your delicate areas. Disposable roll is either bleached or dyed. These chemicals end up in our environment and our bodies. Toilet roll leaves paper particles on your sensitive bits, these can irritate and disturb the natural balance of your body.

This roll designed to be placed in your toilet roll holder. I also stock basket and wipes sets that are designed to sit on the top of the toilet.

The thin plastic, also used around multipacks such as toilet roll, makes up 43% of all plastic household packaging waste and weighs a total of 645,000 tonnes every year. By switch to cloth you will save plastic landfill waste.

6. Breast Pads
Soft and comfortable against your skin. More breathable to wear. Disposable pads do not degrade easily and are normally made from 90% plastic. These pads can be reused for general cleaning or as a menstrual cup coaster after use.

7. Reusable Bottles
BPA-Free reusable bottles that do not leech and are non-toxic. Bring a reusable bottle out with you and save tonnes of plastic bottles from landfill. 15 million plastic bottles are used in the UK alone every day. We have high quality water literally on tap yet we still buy bottled water.

Did you know that bottled water is between 240 and 10,000 times more expensive than tap water? It can be more expensive than petrol. A quarter of all bottled water is simply filtered tap water.

It takes seven litres of water to make a single one litre plastic bottle. Drinking a bottle of water has the same impact on the environment as driving a car for a kilometre. Bottled water generates up to 600 times more CO2 than tap water.

Please remember your reusable bottle when you go out. We are very lucky to live in a country where we have access to a clean water source. Don't forget to use it.

9. Coffee Cups
A stylish, sturdy and smart solution to enjoying your everyday cuppa, without beating up on your taste buds or Mother Nature by reducing landfill. Did you know 2.25 billion paper cups are used worldwide every year and those figures are rising rapidly?

Made from a hardened borosilicate glass, the cup is strong, heat resistant and made to last. Glass also doesn't compromise the taste of your coffee, unlike plastic and paper counterparts. Glass is made from natural materials, lasts longer and is chemical free. It’s the same glass that Pyrex, laboratory flasks and modern baby bottles are made from. Strong, light and heat resistant.

Look great while enjoying your favourite beverage, hot or cold, on the move or in the office. It's the clear cup with a clear conscience.

10. Bamboo Water Filters
A zero waste alternative to plastic water filters. Bamboo Charcoal Water Filters that can be reused in many useful ways throughout your house and composted at the end of their life.

Bamboo charcoal is a refreshingly simple and natural way of filtering tap water. Just leave it in a jug filled with tap water and it will slowly filter out impurities such as chlorine and chloramines.

An added benefit of using bamboo charcoal as a water filter is that it “mineralises” the water during initial usage by slowly releasing minerals – potassium, magnesium, etc. - into the water.

After using charcoal for 2 months as a water filter, don’t throw it away! Charcoal also regulates moisture, reduces odours, inhibits mould and keeps food fresh.

You can be creative and give your charcoal a second life, for example in:
*mouldy kitchen and bathroom corners
*places you keep food and fruits (e.g. the fridge, bread bin, fruit bowl)
*smelly places (e.g. the fridge, loo, shoes)
*places you want to keep very dry (e.g. chests of drawers)

When it’s time to say good-bye to your bamboo charcoal you can return it to the earth by crushing and burying it in the garden, in pot plants or mixing with compost, etc.

As if it hasn’t worked hard enough, crushed bamboo charcoal will help aerate soil and increase water retention, absorb excess moisture when it’s wet and release it when dry. Not bad after many months of multi-tasking for you!

11. Bamboo Toothbrushes
With 4.7 billion plastic toothbrushes produced every year worldwide now is a great time to switch to bamboo. With a biodegradable handle made from 100% bamboo and soft BPA-Free Nylon bristles. I stock two brands one has recyclable bristles and the other is 100% biodegradable.

The outer packaging is also biodegradable.

12. Bamboo Cotton Buds
If you are a plastic cotton bud user then why not switch to bamboo? These nifty cotton buds are 100% biodegradable. Plastic cotton buds are often found on the beach, in our oceans and always found in plastic containers in the shops. Go Bamboo have designed a 100% biodegradable product.

These cotton buds have a bamboo stick and come in this elegant recycled paper sliding box. The box is a sliding drawer type that is intended to be reused. Bamboo is a sustainable product. It needs no pesticides or fertiliser to grow. It’s a super fast growing grass that is more efficient at taking CO2 from the air and producing more O2 than trees. A few small everyday changes will reduce the amount of waste going to landfill

13. HankyBook
This the season for runny noses. Instead of using boxes of tissues why not switch to a reusable HankyBook!

100% organic cotton, this ingenious reusable hankie will prevent the dreaded red nose. It's soft and very absorbent. It has 8 folding pages that are bound together like a book. They have cute cover designs which you hold so your hands do not get dirty. Then closes so your pocket doesn’t get dirty either, genius!

Replaces tissues, napkins and baby wipes. Perfect for mopping up spills, cleaning camera lenses, glasses and great for backpacking too.

14. Shampoo Bars/Natural Soaps
The bathroom is often the forgotten area for recycling and trying to cut down on plastic packaging. Use soap bars to wash your hair, body and hands. By using Pure Nuff Stuff soap not only will you become free from nasties such as parabens, alcohol, sodium lauryl sulphate etc. You will also save tonnes of plastic from going to our landfills. All the soap I stock is also free Palm Oil free.

Eliminate plastic shampoo/shower gel bottles and SLS by using shampoo bars instead. It’s an old concept, a soap bar you can use on your hair but it actually works. Can be used to clean your hair and body.

15. Food Wrap/Sandwich Bags

Enjoy a littlerless lunch. A reusable sandwich bag is the perfect alternative to a disposable plastic bag. Food wrap can also be used to wrap left over food or cover bowls of food in the fridge. I also use it to buy meat from the meat counters

16. Unsponges & a Bamboo Pot Scraper

A reusable washable alternative to a dish sponge. Replace all those sponges sitting in landfill with one unsponge that you can reuse again and again. They have good scrubbing power as they fit in your hand better than a dish cloth and it's not stiff like a sponge so fits in all the little nooks and crannies. For cleaning stubborn burnt on stuff I would recommend this bamboo pot scrubber. Affordable and eliminates the need for plastic scrapers.

17. Reusable Shopping Bags
The UK uses over 5 million tonnes of plastic each year. The majority of these plastic are from products with a very short life span. Around 1 million plastics bags are used per minute. These plastics sit around for hundreds of years breaking down into very small pieces that pollute the land, sea and wildlife. This handy Onya Bag packs into a tiny pouch that can fit into your bag, onto your keyring or belt with a handy clip. Made from recycled plastic bottles.

17. Tulle Bags

So you have remembered your reusable bags, but still need to use plastic for your fruit ‘n’ veg…..Not any more!

The Onya Weigh contains 5 strong tulle bags, which are light enough not to effect the scales. You can wash your veg in them just like a colander, and store them in the fridge. Much better than plastic bags and zero waste. The tulle bags let your fruit and veg BREATHE so it lasts longer! Also great to use as laundry bags to wash your make-up remover wipes etc.

18. Bamboo Straws
No inks, no dyes, no more throw-away straws. 6 Certified Organic Reusable Bamboo Straws with cleaning brush. These reusable bamboo straws are durable, beautiful and cut from nature. Fully biodegradable and compostable at the end of it’s life

19. Soap Nuts
Great for washing clothes, hair, your body, dishes, a natural pesticide and chemical free multi-purpose cleaner. 100% Natural, non-polluting, sustainable, compostable, certified organic and vegan.

20. Reusable Bamboo Spork
A zero waste alternative to plastic utensils. Plastic forks are very wasteful and do not degrade. They are made from crude oil and have a large carbon footprint. Most plastic forks will end up in landfill polluting the land or end up in rivers and seas. Replace all those plastic forks with a biodegradable spork.