Our favourite household swaps

Reducing waste at home doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing endeavor. As we’ve blogged about previously, it’s a much more manageable feat to introduce smaller changes over time and on an as-needed basis. You’ll be shocked at how quickly these changes accumulate to create an increasingly low waste household! In fact, we much prefer to use the term low-waste over zero-waste in this sense because zero-waste can often feel overwhelming and unachievable when it comes to tackling your household waste problem. To help get you started, here’s some of our favourite household swaps room by room!

The laundry room

Our favourite laundry room swap is to trade dryer sheets for dryer balls. Unlike the single use nature of dryer sheets, dyer balls can be used over and over to soften your clothes and decrease drying time. Quality dryer balls will be made of 100% wool and will last up to 1,000 loads of laundry! Though they are unscented, you can easily infuse scent by adding 2-3 drops of your favourite essential oil directly to the dryer ball before a load. These dryer balls are completely compostable when made of 100% wool, so you can dispose of them responsibly too, but they are also a very simple item to repurpose - dog toys, scent boosters for drawers, the possibilities are endless! Our favourite dryer balls are produced locally by Chetwyn Farms in PEC.

Another great laundry room swap is to refill your detergent container rather than purchasing a new one. When you reach the end of your Gain or Tide detergent’s life, simply wash out the container and bring it to a refill store, like Unboxed, and fill it up from their taps that dispense as much or as little as you need!

The Bathroom

One of the most impactful changes we’ve made in the bathroom is ditching the traditional, bottled shampoo for a shampoo bar. Almost like a soap, a shampoo bar is a completely zero-waste alternative when purchased free of packaging (as most are) for washing your hair and there are so many different scents and formulations out there, you’ll have no shortage of options! bare market carries our favourite shampoo bar, which can also be used on the face and body. You can also purchase conditioner bars for a completely zero-waste hair care routine!

Another great bathroom swap is to replace your traditional deodorant with a refillable option. This one takes a little getting used to because unlike a stick of Dove or Secret, you apply refillable deodorant with your fingers given it’s stored in a jar instead. That said, we adjusted quickly and actually prefer the jar for storage reasons! bare market also carries our favourite refillable deodorant, and you can purchase a jar on-site or bring your own – we’ve found that old tubs of face cream or even repurposed candle jars make great storage for this form of deodorant!

The Kitchen

The options are endless for swaps in the kitchen given that this is where the bulk of households produce the most waste, but as mentioned, we’re suggesting starting small.

Where it comes to groceries, our favourite swap involves olive oil. We cook regularly and go through a ton of olive oil, so the plastic bottles were really accumulating before we made the swap to refilling olive oil on tap from Unboxed Market. As with laundry detergent, simply save the container of your existing olive oil and use it to refill.

Unboxed Market carries many other grocery items, from cheese to produce to pantry, all of which can be shopped zero waste using jars and reusable bags, so once you’ve started shopping more sustainably for olive oil, you can continue on with the other grocery items you purchase on a weekly basis!

 An additional swap in the kitchen involves cellulose sponges, and our favourite is from The REplace because it has the coolest Toronto-based art on it! Not only have we replaced paper towels with cellulose sponges, we also use cellulose sponges as a gentle dishwashing option for pots and pans and less stubborn messes. We find these sponges good for use until about the 8-week mark, at which point they can be composted. In between uses, they can be washed in the dishwasher or along with your laundry should they need a little refresh.

The bedroom

If you’re like us and you love scent in the bedroom but hate the wastefulness of candle jars and essential oil bottles (which of course, can be repurposed, but one only needs so many jars!) considering purchasing incense sticks instead. Many stores offer incense for purchase by the stick, so you can purchase without packaging and the only waste left behind is a wooden stick the size of a toothpick that can be composted!

The home office

With many of us still working from home and set to work from home in some capacity for a long time (or perhaps forever!), office waste has made its way into our household waste.

One great swap for the home office is to trade in cheap, single use pens for a fountain pen that can be refilled with ink and used for years! Take Note is a local shop that carries a great variety of fountain pens and ink.

You can also replace many of your paper-based needs, like notepads and calendars, with whiteboards. Available from many office supplies stores, whiteboards will last you for years and replace countless pages of paper. We promise, the feeling of dry-erasing a to-do list item is just as satisfying as crossing it off of a paper list!

Every room!

If you’ve followed us for a while, then you know what Suppli is all about but if you’re new here, we have one final swap to suggest. Considering ditching the usual, wasteful take-out meal with a zero-waste take-out meal from Suppli! When ordering a Suppli meal from participating restaurants on your usual food delivery platform, your food will come in a metal container with a rubber lid that you’ll simply return to one of our many drop off locations to be used again and again! It’s a great way to enjoy take-out from your favourite Toronto-based restaurants without the waste! Sign-up today.