What?! Isn’t cotton a good alternative to plastic? Even biodegradable? – Totally true. The truth might be in the numbers, though. I know that my bathroom bin is full to bursting after one week of cotton rounds, Kleenex, and q-tips. I’ll show you some good single-use cotton alternatives that are environment-friendly!
Different to plastic, the problem with single-use cotton products is not the impact on the environment after we throw it in the trash. Cotton is bio-degradable, you can chuck it on a compost heap just fine. The problem is how it’s produced.
Cotton plantations need lots of water – up to 30.000 litres for ONE T-Shirt-worth of cotton! – and other resources. Pesticides (more heavily used for cotton than for other plants) pollute soil, rivers and air. Organic cotton doesn’t fare better – its crops only yield about 30% the amount of non-organic cotton crops, so you need more farm land for it – mono cultures abound. (Why that’s bad.)
The biggest culprit is the clothing industry and their demand for cotton, but we beauty junkies use an awful lot of cotton without thinking twice about it. I started to research and here’re some alternatives for products you use and immediately trash every day.
Cotton rounds
I use cotton rounds to remove my eye makeup and apply toner about every day. But there’re alternatives: washable, reusable cotton rounds either made of cotton or bamboo (steer clear of the microfiber ones, bad for your skin and the environment). (Look how cute those look!)
Kleenex
I remember my Grandma’s embroidered handkerchiefs when I was a child. Pretty – and easily washable in your washing machine. Maybe not for when you’ve got a heavy cold or it’s allergy season, but to carry around in your purse – why not?
Cotton buds
If you’re using q-tips (cotton buds) to correct makeup mistakes like smudged mascara, eyeliner errors etc., I’ve got a good replacement option: use a thin, synthetic brush instead. Same result, but easily washable and re-usable.
Sanitary products
Oh, the number of tampons and sanitary towels we’ll go through in a lifetime! (Estimates say around 17.000.) There’re alternatives, though: menstruation cups are one, period underwear is another.
Makeup wipes
The devil’s work. Sorry if you love them, but they are! They fill up landfills, are often not bio-degradable, AND are bad for your skin (mostly). So. Face cloths are the way to go! Bamboo one’s are super soft and adsorbent. (I’m not a fan of linen or muslin face cloths – I find them too harsh and abrasive.)
Sheet masks
Yup, of course. I’ve mentioned it again and again, but I still find the beauty world’s insistence that one (or various) sheet masks a week make everything better, from your skin to your soul, more than disturbing. Sheet masks produce an enormous amount of waste, and don’t do anything an overnight mask can’t. So switch! I like a good mask as much as any beauty junkie, but I mostly use overnight ones nowadays.
Have you made an attempt to use less single-use cotton, and how did that turn out? Any recommendations?
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