A moment of crafts: Handcrafted Reusables For Your Daily Routines

Saulė Troboje

You can find plastic and single-use item swaps for every room in your house and every area of daily life from rising a child, pet, home decor or gardening, all you need is a bit of research, check your local Zero waste groups, read blogs and be creative!

Plastic shopping bags to reusable ones is a really easy switch. The hardest part is remembering to bring them with you. Before you leave your house, ask yourself if you'll need a reusable bag. If you're on foot, look for a small foldable bag you can keep in your pocket or on your keychain. Reusable bags are for more than just groceries! Use them for all of your purchases from the pet store to the home improvement store.

The farmers market is the best way to avoid excess packaging. If you don't have access to a farmers market, you should bring your own produce bags and avoid prepackaged goods. It's very simple to sew your own or get one locally produced and support local business.

Paper towels can be replaced with rags or tea towels. Tissues can be replaced with handkerchiefs. Make better choices when it comes to toilet paper, buy rolls wrapped in paper, preferably unbleached.

Beeswax wraps and linen bags are excellent to store food or keep lunch, these do act like foil or cling wrap, but made from organic, compostable materials. You can use a silicone mat for lining your pans when baking at high temperatures well as freezing trays. There are so many uses for good dish towels, dusting, wiping, drying dishes, wrapping a sandwich to go!

With being a little more aware of your purchases and swapping out single-use products to reusables, you can reduce your waste by nearly 80%!