Lets' Go Zero Waste

I have realized that a lot of zero waste bloggers also sell stuff. Or get commissions from Amazon or whatever to push certain products. I mean, whatever. If it's coming from a responsible provider who doesn't excessively package their stuff in "instant trash" than that's fine... and I would have to assume you are supporting a non-Amazon business, so good for you. But my point isn't really to gripe about that so much as it is to re-focus myself on the absolute lack-of-need around having to buy anything at damn all! True, I already have several of the items listed off as 'essentials': Reusable straws Mesh bags for produce Cloth fabric bags (like so fucking many could everyone STOP making them your cute giveaway) Mason bottle-esque bottles for storage grains, pasta, flours, etc. Compost bin, courtesy of the city of Portland But I have to not go crazy and remind myself: I do not need to buy adorable glass spray bottles. I do not need to buy...

My bathroom and kitchen bug me, from a zero-waste perspective, due to all the made-to-jettison crap within them. But my bathroom is worse, because a) it is filled to the brim with over-produced and unrecyclable products that we've all been taught to believe are necessary, which b) may not even be safe to put in or on my body. I'm mostly thinking of synthetic dyes in toothpaste, lotions, mouthwash... makeup too, of course, but I fortunately have never been a regular make-up user. I was, however, raised on Johnson's baby powder, which I for many years incorporated into my AM routine, after my daily shower, as a way to speed up the drying process of my armpits and receive compliments from men (fine, a specific man) about how nice I smelled. I bought the lavender scented kind. But dude, Johnson & Johnson knowingly put poisonous asbestos in it for years. Asbestos which made its way into women using it on a daily basis, and women have died from various cancers as a resu...