Updated: Jul 18, 2023
‘Plastic free July’ has just finished but your eco-friendly sustainable habits don't have to. Although, plastic is a major issue it is important to know that it is not just plastic that wreaks havoc on our planet. Essentially, anything you use can become waste and therefore you should look for long-term alternatives that can be reused or is biodegradable. The effects that waste and plastic have on the world is devastating, it ruins the environment and leads to many innocent animals death. If you have decided you want to prevent this and start your zero waste journey, I applaud you and want to help you achieve this. Here, I decided to make a list on my opinion of the first items you should pick up to achieve this goal. All the prices are from Amazon at the time of writing this article but prices can vary and there can be other cheaper options. Here are 10 of the top first zero waste items that I recommend:
Beeswax wraps:
These have been designed to replace cling film, which is the thin sheet of plastic that is used to wrap up fresh food. Instead, you can use beeswax wraps, which is made from organic cotton and beeswax that can be compostable at the end of its life. They last for about a year and can be used to cover and wrap your rolls, sandwiches, cut fruit and more to keep your food fresh for longer.
Pack of 3: £18
Reusable bag:
These are great, especially now that many counties have included a bag tax for each one you take. Bags are toxic for the environment and lead to the suffocation of many animals and therefore should be avoided at all costs. Pick up a number of bags from a general tote bag to a thermal one to keep your frozen food cold until you get home. Additionally, you can avoid being caught out by getting a pocket bag that can fold up to a small size, whilst not in use.
Pocket bag (Pack of 3): £7
Reusable bottle & Cups:
Plastic bottles, plastic lined single use coffee cups and straws all use plastic that takes hundreds of years to biodegrade (essentially, they are not biodegradable) and harm the wildlife. Look for eco-friendly, sustainable alternatives that can be used repeatedly. Get one that is made from recycled material and one that can also be recycled at the end of its life. Bonus: Additionally, look for some reusable straws to further reduce your beverage waste.
Reusable Bottle: £8
Reusable Coffee Cup: £11
Reusable Straws (Pack of 4): £3
Safety Razor:
Razor can be incredibly wasteful without people realizing it. The heads that are often quickly replaced have plastic, which leads to the plastic issue we have today. A great alternative is going back in time a little bit to use a safety razor. The only waste is the single blades, which can be recycled (However, check with your local authority first). Additionally, make sure to get a package free shaving soap and shaving brush to apply it to further prevent needless waste.
Safety Razor Kit: £23
Washing up:
Usually, a washing up sponge, cloth or scourer is made from plastic mesh that again is not good. However, there are organic alternatives that clean your dishes just as well, can be machine washed and are biodegradable at the end of their life. Two key items to pick up are an organic loofah sponge and coconut fibre brushes / scrubs. Both are organic, biodegradable and get the job done.
Loofa sponge (Pack of 6): £9
Coconut fibre Brush: £2.50
Bamboo Toothbrush:
Another daily plastic item that often ends up floating in our ocean is our toothbrushes. A great alternative that can be sustainably sourced and is completely biodegradable, which is a bamboo toothbrush. Bonus: Also look at getting eco-friendly biodegradable dental floss and a glass container to hold it in.
Pack of 5: £8
Single dental floss: £5.90
Lunch Tin:
To go along with your bees wax wraps get a reusable lunchbox. I have seen a variety of reusable lunch holding utensils. They can be made from reusable paper bag, steel tins to a simple fabric bag. All do the job great but try to avoid plastic to be even greener.
Stainless Steel tin: £20
Bars of Soap / Shampoo:
Bottled shampoo, conditioners and shower gels all lead to plastic waste at the end of their life. However, there is a variety of bar soaps, shampoo and conditioners that can come in eco-friendly packaging.
Solid Bar of Soap (multi-pack): £12
Solid Shampoo Bar (2 packs): £8
Solid Bar of Conditioner: £6
Reusable Kitchen Towels
Paper towels are a must have in the kitchen for whenever you spill a drink or just want to wipe a dirty surface. Yet these lead to additional waste. Instead look for reusable cloths that can be washed. Make sure to get a few to ensure you don’t run out.
Pack of cloths: £10
Whatever you already have:
This can be anything and everything. Essentially, the best way not to create any more waste is to use whatever you have now. Whether it is an old lunch box, some old cloths at the back of your wardrobe or something you can uplift yourself. The goal is to not create any more waste in any way.
Free
Here is just a small list of items that you can begin to integrate into your life in a bid to rid our world of waste. These are all just suggestions that are some of the items I think you should pick up first to help you achieve zero waste. However, you should aim to get reusable items that can have the biggest impact to your lifestyle. Additionally, there is so much more you can do to help combat waste and importantly plastic, through proper recycling, litter picking and refusing to use certain items can all help to reduce the waste littering many areas and make a change. These are all generic suggestions of what I believe are everyday items that can stop their wasteful counterparts. However, there are many variations of these that may be better suited you but aim to make sure that they are eco-friendly, ethical and prevent additional waste harming our planet.
Updated: Feb 6, 2023
Electric cars are becoming ever more popular, they are getting better looking, sustainable, economical and are clearly becoming the future of automobiles. Even recently, Volvo have announced that they aim to only produce electric cars by 2019. In this post, I have looked through several electric cars available at the moment and their aesthetics, cost and size to pick my favourite cars. I want to make it clear, I have never driven any of these care but are my opinion of the best from their looks, specs and reviews. Anyway, electric cars are not just great because of their sustainability but also economically, as to recharge an electric car is often much cheaper than a petrol or diesel one. Additionally, they have great tax benefits and many options of government grants, as well as being incredibly eco-friendly with little to no omissions. For this reason and more, you should get an electric car and here are my favourites you might want to consider. Although these are all fairly expensive, as any new car is now days, I have primarily looked at cars that will be used by the public and not the most expensive car only affordable to the extremely wealthy. Here are my top picks for electrical cars:
Volkswagen e-Up
The Volkswagen e-Up is a great quick run around electric car packed with a ton of technology crammed in to the a typical clean Volkswagen interior look. It is well spaced, has alloy wheels and achieved good long-range ability for an electric car. Additionally, it has four doors, which is increasingly rare for newer cars.
Number of doors: 4
Starting price approximately: £25,000
Nissan Leaf
The Nissan Leaf is a spacious family hatchback that gives a quiet comfortable ride. It again has great interior with large windows to let tons of light in to ‘emerge you into your driving experience’. It is reliable, as it included a number of safety features, which is a bonus. Lastly, you have the option to upgrade it to have even more gadgets to make it more high tech than the base model.
Number of doors: 4
Starting price approximately: £17,000
Volkswagen e-Golf
The second Volkswagen on this list gives a clean smooth drive but also provides spurts of power to give an excellent drive around the city centre. It has a fairly large battery for an electric car and has the ability to be charged at home from a three-pin connector. It comes with the usual beautiful Golf interior with some added highlights and features in easy to reach location. It is more spacious than other cars on this list, comes with 16inch alloy wheels, simple to use technological features and a brilliant car for its price.
Number of doors: 4
Starting price approximately: £25,000
BMW i3
Now the BMW i3 is on the more luxurious side of electric cars and full of innovation with a unique, easily identifiable look that whizzes through the street with its electric blue accents. It comes with new light weight carbonfibre-reinforces plastic (CFRP) body, has large windscreen and appealing light interior. It has the typical electrical systems from satnav to Bluetooth but also includes heated seats. It has a tons of power and in the case of emergency a backup petrol powered generator to complete this brilliant package.
Number of doors: 2 & two halves
Starting price approximately: £32,000
Renault Zoe
The Renault Zoe is one of the cheapest electric cars on the market. It is a great urban car brilliant for short journeys and running around your local town. It is an easy to use car with a typical appearance for new low budget cars on the streets today. It has good weight when driving and a nice updated interior with a fair number of gadgets including a touchscreen satnav and Bluetooth. Overall it is a quiet, classy, affordable electric care that you can pick up.
Number of doors: 4
Starting price approximately: £15,000+ (depending on model)
Tesla Model S
Tesla the well-known increasingly famous car of the future made by the new technology god, Elon Musk. This is by far the best looking car on the list but also has the price to match. As expected it comes packed with technology and gizmos in the futuristic cockpit of this high-end luxury car. This absolutely stunning car has room for your luggage and for adults to sit in the back, comes with great boosts of speed, brilliant steering and will easily get you notices.
Number of doors: 4
Starting price approximately: £60,000
Tesla Model 3
Another next level creation by Elon Musk but made for the general consumer and made to be mass produced. Here Tesla offer the Model 3. Again this is one of the best looking cars on the list with its sporty sedan look with some cool features, as mentioned above including the great autopilot mode. This is still incredibly stylish and screams modern high tech super car. It has Tesla’s iconic sloping roofline and a nice open window area. This is a bit more affordable than the above but still not the cheapest on the list but it is a Tesla after all.
Number of Doors: 4
Starting price approximately: £35,000
Electric cars are speeding into the fast lane both literally and metaphorically. The electric car industry is currently blooming and with encouragement from many governments is defiantly a strong consideration when buying your next car. Cars are probably the second largest asset you will buy in your life, so you want one that is reliable and future proof. I am incredibly excited to see the future of electric cars and the brilliant inventions that are sure to be coming out soon. We hope that the list above gave you some options for a potential purchase or just to get you thinking of the future of the automobile industry.
Updated: Feb 3, 2023
You may have seen this pop up in your news feed on your social media or even in an ad on the side of a webpage, perhaps even this one now. You may ask yourself what is 4Ocean and why should you buy or care about their bracelet. Well you should and I am here to tell you.
4Ocean have managed to market and promote the importance of saving our oceans. They have taken the devastation of waste we produce away from the ocean and helped to raise awareness doing so. This is mostly seen with their bracelets, which is a fashion accessory you really should be wearing. Even if you do not want to wear the bracelet you should still purchase one and I hope this article gives you a reason too.
Who are 4Ocean?
4Ocean is an organisation that is dedicated to clearing and preventing the trash polluting our oceans. This is the main reason you should get their bracelet. By purchasing a bracelet, 4Ocean guarantee “1 pound of trash will be removed from the ocean and coastline”. They also help to raise awareness by providing specific legacy bracelets, which focuses on a particular themes or animal to protect. I decided to get the Shark bracelet, which is partnered with Project Aware, which “Helps save Sharks”. Project Aware among many things create rallies to bring safeguards for sharks and rays, hence the name Legacy Shark Bracelet. #4sharks.
As well as collecting trash and raising awareness they focus on using '4 pillars' to achieve this, these are:
Optimising Technology: By using the latest technology to prevent, intercept and remove trash from the ocean and coastline.
Creating Jobs: They have teams and crews of people that are cleaning the ocean 24/7 and this number is increasing.
Education& Awareness: They educate everyone from individuals to governments on the impact of plastic and trash all around the world.
New Economies: They create a value out of the trash they remove,
Did you see what they did there?
The Bracelet
The bracelet whilst looking amazing and promoting your love for this planet and particularly the ocean. It is also a great sustainable accessory. This is because it is made out of 100% recycled materials. The bracelet is a unisex design with glass beads, a 4Ocean stainless steel charm with the cord made from RPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate), which is from recycled water bottles. The beads are made from recycled glass bottles. Further to the greatness of the bracelet, it is 100% waterproof, meaning you won't have to take it off. One bracelet will set you back approximately £16 ($20). However, you should take into account this is not just for the bracelet but also for removing a pound of trash from the ocean and coastline.
4Ocean also produce reusable bottles and a clean-up kit (so you can help clean up the oceans and coastline yourself). However, you could just show your support for ridding the ocean of the waste we produce by getting a bracelet and promoting 4Oceans and their ethos. Hopefully by promoting this the war on plastic and waste will become universally accepted and companies will adopt prevention's to stop negative impacts on the environment. 4Oceans bracelets are one way to promote your love for the ocean and making an impact but there are many more organisations similarly doing amazing things like this. I would love to see what you have done to remove plastic and waste from the ocean and coastline or how you have supported companies or charities like 4Ocean, so show me your support on social media (top right corner).
