It’s Earth Day! In appreciation of our beautiful planet, here are 9 easy ways to become eco-friendly and reduce your baby’s carbon footprint. Leave a comment including your best plastic free tip and I’ll add my favourite as number 10!
Plastic Free Bottles and Cups
Hearing ‘glass’ and ‘baby’ in the same sentence may be enough to turn your legs to jelly…but glass bottles are a great alternative to plastic bottles for many reasons. They are made from tempered glass (making them harder to break), are BPA free, and you can even buy silicone sleeves to make them easier to grip and less likely to break if dropped. Some stockists include: Philips, Evenflo, Dr. Brown’s, Baby Brezza, Chicco, Lifefactory and Tommy’s.
Plastic-free sippy cups are a little harder to find, but one really cool option are silicone sippy tops…these tops stretch over any cup or tumbler size, creating a sippy cup from any regular cup! You can find these online at Go Sili and Toddler Barn.
No Straws!
If you want to teach your little one to drink through a straw, invest in some metal ones – they’ll last forever!
Dinner Sets
Bamboo dinner sets are much prettier than plastic alternatives, you can find lots of lovely options at Bamboo Bamboo and Amazon.
Silicone dinner sets are available at a number of high street retailers, with plates and bowls often having a suction cup underneath for a cleaner dinner time…maybe…probably not.
Make Your Own Baby Food
Sure, the individually wrapped baby snacks from supermarkets are incredibly handy when on-the-go or looking to curb hunger until dinner time. But if you get the chance and are feeling a bit experimental, have a go at making your own baby snacks! You’ll be able to adjust them to your own babies preferences and dietary requirements, know exactly what goes in them, and can often freeze them so that they don’t perish as quickly. Baby Led Feeding have got lots of quick and easy ideas for homemade finger foods.
Go Back to Bars of Soap
Babies don’t need a lot to be clean, and in fact it’s probably better for their delicate skin to stick to natural products (or just water when possible!). There are plenty of mild soap bars made with ingredients such as olive oil, coconut oil and chamomile which are available in health stores without plastic packaging, or you could try making some! Some brands that sell baby soap bars include Johnson’s, Burt’s Bees and Aveeno.
Switch to Reusable Nappies
Using cloth nappies is one of the most effective ways to reduce your baby’s plastic waste! It’s estimated that around 3 billion nappies are thrown away in the UK every year – accounting for 2-3% of all household waste! Reusable nappies are thought to be less eco-friendly in carbon emissions due to the washing and drying that they need. But by washing them on a full load and hanging them to air dry this is less of a problem. Tumble drying can actually reduce the absorbency of nappies, whilst the sun is one of the best ways to get rid of those poo stains!
Use Reusable Wipes
This is such an easy option and will save you so much money! Go to Amazon and get yourself some flannel squares – we use ours for everything. You can keep them in a tub with some chamomile tea and olive oil for some ready-made soothing bum wipes, or just rinse them under the tap before use!
Think About Toys
Wooden toys can be preeeeeetty expensive…but buying a smaller selection of toys that will likely last longer than plastic means that you can balance out the cost. Don’t forget to talk to your friends and family if you would like to go down the wooden toy route before receiving an influx of plastic toys for every occasion! Plus it goes without saying that wooden toys are just so much less of an eyesore.
Eco-Friendly Food Storage
Every time I see cling film, my heart breaks a little bit. Foil does exactly the same job and can be recycled or reused. But if you’re looking to reduce your waste even more, give beeswax wraps a try, they work the same as clingfilm, are reusable, and look pretty. Countryfile even has instructions for how to make your own Beeswax Wraps if you’re feeling creative *adds to to-do list*.
Non-plastic tiffins and bento boxes make a great alternative to plastic lunch boxes. I can’t deny that they are fairly expensive, but you’ll only ever need one! You can find some fabulous Worthbuy lunch boxes on Amazon here.
When storing food in the fridge, opt for mason jars or glass containers over plastic. Don’t throw away the plastic storage containers that you already use! Just replace them with something more environmentally friendly when their time is up.
Avoiding plastic can be difficult, and isn’t always something that you can change overnight…but by adopting just one or two of these plastic-free practices you are helping the environment in a huge way!
Keira Leane 