Preparing For Zero-Waste Week September

Apart from the weather getting crisper and the autumn season quickly sneaking up on us, September has so much in store for us, including Zero Waste Week!

During the first full week of September, the 7th-11th, the Zero Waste Week campaign challenges anyone and everyone to be mindful this entire week and beyond in terms of recycling, repurposing, and reducing waste. As we know by now, our planet is in dire need of proper caretaking. We are always aiming to reduce our own environmental waste, but as a community, it’s vital that we work together to encourage those around us to do their part as well.

We are going to break down the week into focus days to give you the lowdown on haircare, skincare, make-up, dental care, and hygiene. Let’s talk about how powerful the small lifestyle changes actually are for each beauty area.

Haircare

Pre-zero waste hair care routine, you might have found yourself mindlessly buying bottles of shampoo and conditioner, but then you had to have all the hair oils, leave-in conditioner, texture sprays, and hair masks too, right? Well, it’s estimated that the average woman uses 10 hair products on a daily basis, not even including plastic brushes. If every woman in the UK alone used this many plastic-wrapped hair products every day, we’re looking at about 330,000,000 bottles in total! 

It’s hard to dodge the advertising campaigns that practically scream at you saying you need multiple products for soft, silky, and smooth hair. When in reality, all your hair really needs is some natural oils to repair itself and a break from products that are filled with chemicals. Just by simply switching to shampoo and conditioner bars, you’ve already simplified your hair routine, dramatically cut costs, and have reduced your contribution to the gut wrenching number above!

Skincare

When it comes to our skin, we can all agree that we need the best products. Since we all have different skin, the skincare industry doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when they only make a certain number of products that’s suppose to work on all skin types. 

The process usually goes something like this: look up product reviews online, buy the product, try it out, not see any drastic changes or even notice skin irritation, never use the product again, and on to the next. We’re not judging because this is so common in an industry that has millions of products on the market that usually always come in plastic containers and contain toxic chemicals. 

By taking a minimalist approach to skincare and going for the benefits in natural properties, whilst also being mindful of wasteful packaging, your skin, your wallet, and our landfills thank you for your impact. 

Makeup

Every wonder how something so beautiful on the outside can have loads of problems on the inside? That’s the beauty industry for you. With more than 120 billion units of packaging produced by the cosmetics industry each year, we’re sad to say that it’s almost all plastic. 

If it’s not the plastic containers, it’s single-use products like makeup wipes. It takes 100 years for one single makeup wipe to a breakdown in a landfill. If you’re cringing at how many wipes you’ve probably thrown away before finding reusable makeup rounds, we’re right there with you! Whether it's a bought set of hemp wipes or a cutting from an old towel, reusing is so important to reduce single-use items. 

Many makeup brands including All Earth Minerals and Zao have so many refillable options, meaning you can but plastic usage by around 90%! There are also now many multi-purpose products, for example, some brands are now creating one product that can serve as your blush, lip tint and eyeshadow!

Dental

We throw away 264 million plastic toothbrushes every year in the U.K. They’ll end up anywhere from our landfills to somewhere in the ocean. Dental hygiene products that are made from biodegradable materials drastically remove this problem by eliminating the waste at the end of their usage.

We should all take our dental hygiene seriously, but that doesn’t mean we should ease up on zero waste habits here. Our teeth can be just as clean and healthy by using a bamboo toothbrush, zero waste toothpaste or tablets, and some biodegradable refillable floss! 

Hygiene

As we should know by now, maintaining a hygiene routine doesn’t mean we have to pollute our planet. The same products that help us stay clean are usually some of the biggest culprits that increase environmental waste.  For example, let’s compare body wash to zero waste soap bars. Something that we all use in the shower or to wash our hands multiple times a day, you can only imagine how many bottles we waste on average between our homes, hotels, and businesses. It’s been studied that liquid bottled soap has a footprint that’s 10x larger than a bar of soap.

The hygiene industry is responsible for an immense amount of waste like disposable razors, plastic deodorant tubes, tampons, etc. Avoiding the counterintuitive process of keeping clean while polluting our planet can be simple and cost-effective which you can learn more about in our previous blog post. 

This Zero Waste Week, we hope that you’ll find inspiration, empowerment, and motivation to continue doing your part in saving our planet, and in return, we have a few surprises up our sleeves that we can’t wait to share with you!