A Room-By-Room Guide To Sustainable Plastic-Free Product Swaps

Our homes are sacred spaces – most of us live, eat, sleep, and even work within the same four walls day after day. Aside from the physical construction of an apartment building or suburban living space, it’s the contents inside that truly make a house a home. Various decor and furniture choices externally display the personalities of their owners in an artful way. While we tend to give spaces that get extra eye time more care to curate, there are usually hidden corners of our homes that don’t receive the same special treatment.

Bathroom medicine cabinets, laundry rooms, and kitchen garbage cans are usually afterthoughts in the mind of a homeowner even though they're utilized practically every day. I can (rather reluctantly) admit that I typically don’t put too much thought into home necessities. When purchasing items like plastic wrap, dish soap, or garbage bags, I just gravitate to whatever's on sale at the store that week.

However, at the speed that my household goes through these products, I realized that I should be much more intentional about what I'm using. Although single-use plastic is a huge waste, it's often pretty prevalent in our homes. With Earth Day approaching and an overall desire to cultivate a more intentional living space, I’ve turned to plastic-free home products. Join me in creating a more eco-friendly household with the plastic-free swaps for every area of your home below.

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The Kitchen

In my kitchen, I started by swapping out single-use plastic items before tackling plastic products with more longevity. This meant: plastic wrap, sandwich baggies, garbage bags, and cleaning supplies.

The best saran wrap alternative that I found was from Bee’s Wrap. The brand makes rolls ($25) and pre-cut wrap packs (starting at $18) using organic cotton, beeswax, organic plant oil, and tree resin. With proper care, their pliable wrap can be used for a whole year and can be composted at the end of its lifecycle.

For plastic bag replacements, I turned to Hold On. Specializing in plant-based, home-compostable trash and storage bags, I was able to line my large garbage can ($26/40 bags) and enjoy snacks on the go ($15/100 sandwich bags) completely guilt-free.

When it came to tackling my dishwashing station, Blueland had me covered. For handwashing, their plant-based Pop-Up Sponge ($12/3 sponges) now has permanent real estate in my kitchen sink. This compostable super sponge arrives flat for easy storage and grows to its full size once wet. The brand also offers a dishwasher set ($25) that comes with a steel “forever tin” to store the original product purchased and future refills.

Products that while aren't single use, yet still plastic in composition that resided in my kitchen included my coffee maker, Tupperware, and an assortment of cutting boards. I made the respective swaps to a Chemex ($50) for delicious drip coffee, Caraway’s ceramic Food Storage Set, and this stunning Walnut Cutting Board ($65) from Our Place.

The Bathroom

In my bathroom, I went straight to my medicine cabinet to inspect what plastic products I could do without. I was met with countless plastic over-the-counter medicine bottles. I was shocked! How could I keep a product that was meant to improve my health in a casing that is so damaging to the environment?

Thankfully, I was recently introduced to Cabinet. Cabinet is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic from medicine, and does so through their wide offering of OTC medications (starting at $8) and glass medicine bottles ($10). Each medication refill arrives in a compostable pouch for health remedies that you can feel good about.

Aside from my kitchen, I probably focus the bulk of my cleaning energy on my bathroom. However, I quickly realized that the way I was keeping this area sterile was very plastic-centric. I go through spray bottles of counter cleaner and disposable wipes at a rapid rate, so it was time to switch to something more sustainable and I’m happy to report that Makesy’s All PurposeCleaner ($45) checks all the boxes. The starter kit comes with a reusable glass spray bottle, a sugarcane alcohol base, fragrance oils to smell, and castile soap to achieve that deep clean.

The Laundry Room

Last but not least, I ventured into my laundry room. There's a lot of discourse around laundry and microplastics, and I wanted to do my part to reduce my impact as much as possible.

I replaced my cheap, plastic laundry basket with this beautiful bamboo + cloth alternative from Cozymatic ($65). Not only is it foldable, but I can also wash the bag to keep it from smelling too funky.

As for detergent, Dirty Labs makes a powerful 5-in-1 laundry soap ($14) that is packaged in a bottle made from recycled aluminum that can be recycled once again once empty.

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Header image via Makesy