5 Easy Ways to Beautify Your Space While Using Less Plastic

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Maybe you and I are birds of an eco-minded feather: you want to reduce your plastic use, but nonetheless end up with a recycling bin that’s, um, very low on glass and cardboard. It’s just hard to avoid plastic—you may sometimes even be tempted to throw your hands up and forget the whole mess. But let’s be gentle with ourselves, in this world that defaults to plastic, and remember: progression over perfection. In that spirit, here are five truly easy swaps to use less plastic in your home while making your surroundings even more beautiful.

One key note: It’s easy to read a list of ideas, get overwhelmed, and do nothing. I’ve been there many times. So I cordially invite you to pick one idea from this list and work it into your routine.

5 Easy Ways to Use Less Plastic

Our efforts to use less plastic don’t need to be heroic. All the little things add up, and when we approach the process from a place of calm and ease, the whole thing is more fun and sustainable. These five, bite-sized ways to use less plastic will feel good and look great.

1. Swap Plastic Wrap for Reusables in the Kitchen

Plastic wrap can get so ingrained in our lives that we may need to move away from it an inch at a time. It is, alas, very useful. But we can still slowly and intentionally change our habits. Start with one of these three eco-friendly alternatives, depending on how you usually use plastic wrap.

1. Covering up bowls: The next time you have leftovers on their way to the fridge, grab some cloth bowl covers instead of plastic wrap. They’re reusable, machine-washable, and plastic-free. Not to mention quite pretty.

2. Wrapping standalone food items: Try wrapping things like sandwiches in wax paper and a rubber band. Note that a lot of wax paper uses a paraffin wax (petroleum-based) coating, so try to opt for something like If You Care, which uses soybean wax.

3. Storing leftovers: This one is more of an investment, but buying some nice glass leftover containers with tops (that are ideally also made of glass) will lessen your need for plastic wrap. These are great options.

2. Opt for Bars Over Bottles in the Shower

It’s so easy to accumulate bottles in the shower. And oh, heaven help us, the plastic of it all. But we have a solution: shampoo, conditioner, and soap bars. Yes, they actually lather and no, your hair won’t feel weird!

There will of course be exceptions to this bottle-for-bar swap idea. We all have beloved products that are going to stay in our shower no matter what they’re made of or packaged in. (Within reason.) But in the interest of inching away from plastic, substituting even just a single bottle for a bar is a step in the right direction.

Check out these brands for clean, cruelty-free, and highly-reviewed options: Ethique (fun shapes and colors), Kitsch (chic, color-safe, fluted designs), Attitude (simple bars from a wonderful brand), and Viori (rice water formulas with beautiful embossed designs). Bring it full circle and get yourself a stylish little soap dish or two to store your new bar collection.

An added perk of switching to bars is that it makes traveling just a little easier. Rather than wrestling with those little *plastic* travel-size bottles and trying in vain to fill them without spilling, get a travel container for your bars and you’re good to go! Bars are non-liquid, so that pesky TSA 3.4 oz rule won’t apply either.

3. Get One (or Two) Really Good Water Bottles

Whether you don’t have a reusable water bottle or are just prone to forgetting it, this presents a great opportunity to trim some plastic from your life. You’re still bound to forget your reusable bottle from time to time, but we can work to lessen that tendency. This boils down to two simple steps.

Step 1: Get a reusable bottle you love. 

Having the perfect reusable option will not only reduce your use of single-use plastic water bottles, but will also ease overwhelm and support your hydration goals. Choose a water bottle that will inspire you to keep and use it. Maybe that means it’s pretty and floral, self-filtering, or motivational. Or even covered in birds!

Step 2: Think about your day parts and plan accordingly. 

Think about your day and when it would do you well to have a water bottle on hand. Maybe you want one for home and one for work. Know that you’ll forget it sometimes, but the longer you try the more ingrained the habit will become. Your water bottle will serve as your travel buddy—always there to refresh you and spare you the expense and plastic of a single-use option.

4. Mix Cleaning Sprays in Refillable Glass Bottles

If you have a small army of plastic spray bottles under your kitchen sink, you are not alone. Much like the shower bottle line up, they’re very easy to collect. But imagine the organization and cohesion of pretty glass bottles—one filled with surface cleaner, one with glass cleaner, one with bathroom cleaner, and so on. So clean and so, dare I say, chic.

All you’ll need is your glass bottles of choice (I got mine from Grove Collaborative) and concentrated cleaner refills that you dilute with water. This may not eliminate plastic from the equation, as the refills still sometimes come in plastic, but it drastically reduces it vs. buying full plastic bottles of cleaner.

Concentrated cleaner refills are pretty easy to come by – try Grove Collaborative, Public Goods, or Blueland. If you’re feeling ambitious you can also make your own simple cleaning solution. But to stay true to this post’s promise of truly easy ways to reduce plastic, we’ll save that for another time.

5. Switch to Laundry Strips or Eco-Pods

It’s hard to imagine a greater concentration of plastic than in those chunky laundry detergent jugs. Not to mention that they take up a lot of space and aren’t super cute. But we’ve got options! Eco-friendly pods and laundry strips not only use less plastic than traditional jugs, but they’re also space-saving and require no measuring or heavy lifting. 

And just how is a bag of laundry pods an aesthetic upgrade over a jug of laundry detergent, you ask? Touché. This part necessitates a second step: get yourself a cute container to store the pods or sheets in.

This isn’t necessarily a zero plastic solution, unless you opt for laundry sheets that come in a cardboard box. But it’s a step in the right direction! And that’s our goal. If you’re worried about the efficacy of non-traditional detergents, I was also a skeptic. But the key is to find the right options, because they’re not all created equal. Try TruEarth for a completely plastic-free option, and Seventh Generation for pods—both are well-loved and deemed highly effective by reviewers.

Ending Thoughts

Sustainable efforts can feel loaded, and it’s easy to slip into an ‘all or nothing’ mentality. But that’s not how we, as well-meaning but imperfect beings, actually operate. So I’ll invite you once again to start with just one of these ideas and go from there. I run a sustainable lifestyle site (welcome to Florah!) and even I haven’t implemented all of these ideas yet. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. <3

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