We are blessed with a deli near to our home which sells organic fruit, vegetables and store cupboard items. It is not that pricey in comparison to a lot of organic delis and most of the food is seasonal, we can stock up on produce as well as tins of food and plus the the odd samosa without having to go into the supermarket. The owners also sell ethical cleaning products, some of which we are now using.
We wash up on a daily basis, weekdays we leave our breakfast items for the evening clean as it is usually only toast crumbs, then at the weekend as we are in the house a lot more it could be up to three times a day that the sink is used to wash our plates, cutlery, cups, teapot and anything else that needs to be cleaned, the items are then air-dried. A contemplation we made when going on our self-sufficient journey was to eradicate cleaning items in the kitchen by also making our own cleaning products and also trying to cut down on waste.
Using Ecover Eco Washing Up Liquid has helped us stop having to recycle empty bottles which is a real positive, the actual washing liquid to clean has environmental advantages as it is completely biodegradable when going down the drain, it in addition doesn’t have the bad synthetic fragrances and chemicals that are attributed to cleaning items also.
Without sounding like an advertisement the best thing for me is that I can replenish the bottles of washing up liquid at my local deli, I can go to the deli and use the large 15 litre bottle to fill my own bottle – in return I become more environmentally sure with ethical consuming. I filled up yesterday and the owner of the deli said that he was pleased to see the service in use; we got into the conversation of how the idea makes sense and is a good answer to recycling and improving greener home cleaning.
The owner also said that when he was a youngster he would go into his local shop to pick up a measure of items such as washing up liquid, soap or shampoo as standard practice – his mother used the same bottles for years on end. I like that idea a lot and although in reality it is small fry with being more ethical, greener and self-sufficient in a world where there is all manner of cleaning items to buy in my local neighbourhood, but by making small ethical movements this will at least influence how we buy and what we buy for our ongoing project.
Kitchen towels. The wretched kitchen towels. I would love to do away with our use of kitchen towels, has any followers got any other ideas or solutions for an alternative in the kitchen ?
selfandroots 