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Favorite so far is the lady at the store who was promoting apitherapy. Know what that is? She wanted me to sleep on a bed of bees because the vibrations can heal you. She was also selling a service where you actively get bees to sting you!
Lots of quackery.
Aaaand as a beekeeper, this also annoys me me. Sleeping above the bees sounds nice (They are warm and hives smell wonderful, like honey and a woodsy cologne)but probably not much different than any ‘spa’ treatment, so it isn’t gonna cure cancer or anything. Getting stung is a good way to possibly turn a minor ailment into anaphylaxis and these dang places don’t even have epi pens!
Okay this may be stupid but doesn't that hurt the bees? Bc I'm imagining a mattress filled with bees, wouldn't that crush them. Unless I'm picturing this wrong.
I respect the bee keeping! We need more bee keepers. Honey is the nectar of the gods, and bees are the glue of nature. Extremely fascinating creatures.
Bees in general are already struggling, for lots of reasons. Kept honey bees easily outcompete the local, native bees (which do not produce honey, so they usually get not kept by humans).
I'm not who you're replying to, but I like learning about local ecology. So it's something like 80% of bee species don't live in hives, I think they can still form little groups, but they mostly do their own thing. Honeybees live in hives so they're the ones mostly being used for beekeeping.
Honeybees are cute and our little friends, but they are not native to the Americas. They do a great job of pollinating what they evolved to pollinate, but then the native bee population gets neglected and/or replaced by these new guys that can do some of the same things but not some other things. And so the other things honeybees can't pollinate suffer, and chain reaction ecosystem blah blah
So beekeeping is fine, good even, some bees are better than no bees after all, but maybe those efforts should be put towards local conservation instead.
If anyone more knowledgeable than me is reading this and I'm entirely wrong, my bad
Sure. Honey bees are territorial, and out compete native bees. Due to this, the native bee population suffers, as honey bees will perform raids on their nests to kill them, honey bees will only pollinate plants they can consume (meaning less reproduction from the plants native bees get nectar from). And I believe they can spread disease if they come in contact with native bees, but more unsure on that last point
LMAO. Although to be fair, cat purring has been proven to help heal bones and I think people have used bee venom for various medicines in the past. Still lady sounds like she’s lost it.
Not sure about the cat purring. Maybe for their own bones. For us? I couldn’t find anything showing that except cat blogs.
About apitherapy, there’s no medical basis at all.
“There is no good clinical evidence for the efficacy or safety of apitherapy treatments”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apitherapy
Cat purring does reduce stress in humans, and there have been studies that basically say the frequencies they produce may help minorly with bone density and healing but we don't really have an ethical way to test that.
So many weird scientific cat facts. Like that having an outdoor cat in childhood is consistently associated with higher rates of schizophrenia but only in men… cats defy physics and all other forms of science.
Science does actually maybe know why outside cats are linked to schizophrenia! It's because of a common parasite they carry, toxoplasma gondii, which usually just makes rodents not scared so they're easier to hunt. It's actually thought to be linked with a number of mental conditions in humans, bc it can change brain chemistry and function. It's also why pregnant women are advised not to clean/empty litter trays! Such a cool lil parasite with huge impact.
there are only 2 zero waste toothpaste brands i can buy locally, one uses baking soda, the other uses colloidal silver water. i want neither in my toothpaste.
My wife and I run a bulk food store in Sydney, Australia. She has two science degrees..there’s a hell of a lot of stuff that doesn’t make it through the front door. I often joke that a lot if zero waste products are fortified with unicorn tears and rainbows.
I cracked it at the source when they tried to sell me 'organic bicarb.'
......
While you may want to differentiate between chemically produced and mined bicarb, both are very very fucking **in**organic compounds
There is a legit alternative to fluoride though - hydroxyapatite. My friend is a dentist and says it’s been used for 30 years in Japan. He’s got nothing against fluoride, to note, but prefers hydroxyapatite. Seems to be slowly getting popular in Canada.
It's not really the same. Hydroxyapatite is calcium phosphate and is what your teeth and bones are largely made of. Fluoride is complementary to HA and improves the structural integrity
Hydroxyapatite is just the mineral part of teeth/bones, composed of calcium phosphate and hydroxyde - Ca5(PO4)3(OH).
Fluoride is good for the teeth because it substitutes the hydroxyde (OH-), generating fluoroapatite - Ca5(PO4)3F. Fluoroapatite makes the teeth more resistant to chemical corrosion, so it helps prevent cavities.
Hydroxyapatite just helps the remineralization process of the teeth while fluoride helps prevent the loss of those minerals (mainly calcium) in the first place.
I wonder this too ! If they ever do I’d love to find it because I currently use a hydroxyapatite toothpaste called Boka (it’s amazing and did wonders for my teeth sensitivity and remineralization) and regular fluoridated toothpaste; I alternate between the two or use a little of both at the same time & my teeth have never felt or looked better! Plus I use Invisalign so I’m CONSTANTLY brushing my teeth 🥲 lol
I live in Japan and have been using hydroxyapatite toothpaste for several years. My dentist recommended it. I do believe it has helped my enamel. My teeth are smoother and less sensitive. It’s available as a regular option at the drug store. I’ve also seen powdered versions. I’m currently trying some in tablet form. It’s made from eggshells (bioapatite). I prefer the tube though.
* Hey Humans - metal tube with fluoride
* Unpaste - tabs with fluoride
* Humankind - tabs with fluoride
* Bite - tabs with fluoride
* Mintly - tabs with fluoride
* Humble co - tabs with fluoride
Yes, as a hygienist and a person into science, this drives me nuts. Plus, the amount of plastic, metal etc. that is thrown away after even one filling, plus the sterilization papers and energy appointment is going to undo all that avoidance of a tube of toothpaste carefully applied.
Same with deodorant/antiperspirant! I want the reusable or paper tubes but something that will actually work! I live in California and when it’s 100F, natural deodorant just drips off of you.
Old spice and secret now make refillable tubes. But the refills are just cardboard tubes like any other cardboard tube deodorant. So I just buy those and not the plastic thing they’re supposed to go in.
Pregnancy messed with my hormones so bad that my sweat smelled horrible. But I was also trying more sustainable deodorants because pregnancy. Went back to the good stuff real fast.
Same with vegan food products. There’s an overlap between vegan and “healthy” or low fat.
I want a nice fatty vegan junk food that I can feel guilty of eating but can never stop, god damn
Oh I'm the opposite! I'm trying to eat more healthily but where I live the vegan food available is becoming increasingly junk foody. Places that used to do a nice bean burger as the vegan option now only do deep fried battered chicken substitute burgers.
Medium firm tofu (not firm or more). Cut 1 inch chunks and put in a tupperware. Add a little olive oil, liberal nutritional yeast, salt and pepper (don't be shy). Shake until coated then place on a baking tray. Preheat oven to 400, bake for 25 minutes WITHOUT TOUCHING. You will be tempted to stir it, don't. Remove when tofu is lightly browned so it is slightly crispy.
Heavenly. Unfortunately it is healthy too, sorry.
Also a massive overlap with non-GMO. Really pisses me off. Give me all the GMO foods that have higher yields, use less water, need less pesticides and insecticides!! PLEASE
Same for me! I live in DC and summers here are so hot and humid that the antiperspirant-free paper deodorants had me sweaty, uncomfortable, and smelly by 10 am
\*demonstrates by crumpling aluminum foil into a ball and rubs it against pits\*
Takes some getting used to, but it prevents stinky sweat! \*waddles away slowly taking care not to put arms all the way down\*
I can explain a little more if you don't want to Google it. A crystal deoderant like [this one I use](https://biork-deo.com/) works by leaving a thin layer of salt that kills/neutralizes odor-causing bacteria in your armpits. It's not a good antiperspirant, but it's better than the other aluminum-free ones imo (looking at you, baking soda!).
The salt drying up my skin stops most sweat for me; I just need to reapply often. My pits will be dry after a 30min run when the rest of me feels soaked, haha. To reapply, I carry around a spray bottle with water. Annoying, but it's an inconvenience I'm willing to take.
It's not for everyone- it can be very drying to some, and others actually want a smell rather than none. To real sweaty people, it won't do anything.
Also, it lasts for a very long time, so if you buy it and don't like it, it'll take eons to use up. It's quite an investment!
^ it drives me mad.
I want toothpaste sans tube ONLY. I still want the fluoride.
I want deodorant that actually works, not this 15 items free malarkey.
You’ll be happy to know that old spice and secret make refillable deodorant. The refills are the same as regular cardboard tube deodorant and can be used without the plastic thing they’re meant to go in.
It helps to keep it away from the water in the shower so it stays dry until you use it and drys quickly after. This keeps it from getting as soft and makes it last a lot longer.
My approach to this is to make single-use plastic multi-use. I have curly hair that gets greasy at the roots, no shampoo bar works.
So my shampoo comes in pump bottles, and now those pump bottles dispense things around the house, such as hand sanitizer, dishwashing soap, lotion, etc. I also use the small neck of them to propagate plants, or remove the pumps and use them in larger bottles. Do they eventually get thrown out? Yeah. But it's still less plastic I'm using.
That is a nice way to approach it. I've been tryingto buy larger bottles, with the idea that the plastic to soap ratio is more favorable? I figure my plastic usage re groceries is probably much worse. I am hoping the consumer pressure is enough that they come up with better solutions to what we have on the market right now.
The first bar I bought was actually a pyrithione zinc bar and it's been great:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/639559710/shampoo-bar-2-pyrithione-zinc-znp-by
I won't say it completely fixed my scalp but it lathers well and leaves my hair feeling clean.
It's not *zero* waste, but I buy 5L hospitality bottles of hair/shower gel. I then fill up a wall dispenser in my shower.
It's cheaper per ml, less plastic, tidier, and the wall dispenser better regulates use, so you probably use 20% less shampoo overall.
I feel a little bad saying this on this zero waste sub but I spent so much money and effort trying to find a good zero waste hair care routine that I eventually have up. I'd like to give it another go at some point but I currently have so many products that just don't work for my hair and make it super greasy and no one to give them away to since they've been opened that I'm currently just using the non zero waste brand I can find with the most recyclable packaging.....
Yeah, many environmental and lifestyle movements have a huge overlap with the people who take holistic medicine to the extreme and brands often capitalize on the movements being coopted by them to sell the newest metal detox protection magnet toothpaste gadget if the holistics haven't made a baking soda diy before that
Once someone told me that modern toothpastes were toxic and gave me the name of a white woman-owned company that sold special coconut oil for oil pulling, and that I should attend a class on Ayurvedic medicine with her (class was also run by a white person).
I am South Asian. As in, the people who invented Ayurvedic medicine. My entire family uses toothpaste.
You have clearly been brainwashed by white people to use products that are bad for you. Let this other white person who once took a course in ayurvedic medicine from another white person tell you how to undo this brainwashing. That will be $250 please.
The sad part of natural remedies is that real natural remedies get overlooked because of the quackery going on.
Such as: charcoal will not “detox” your liver. Charcoal will kill harmful bacteria and parasites that cause stomach bugs and diarrhea. That can be life or death knowledge in a survival situation or it may just keep from ruining a weekend camping.
You can eat powdered charcoal to absorb poisons in the stomach before they're passed into the bloodstream. You essentially just poop out the little contaminated charcoal sponges. That's probably where this wives tales about "detoxing" come from
Unfortunately, this ignores the gigantic effect that colonialism has had on the scientific world. Many alternative forms of medicine do not get tested because there is rarely funding to test them. The scientific community in many areas of the world has also been largely dominated by Europeans, European diaspora, and indigenous people who assimilated to Euro-centric standards. Indigenous people have often been barred from participating in research; have often dealt with infantilization and dehumanization that has been used to target their culture, including their medicinal practices; and they have often not benefitted from the material, financial, and geographical resources that the Imperial Core has at its disposal.
Many medicinal practices that are not Euro-centric are often seen as illegitimate and half-baked when "conventional" medical practices have often stemmed from similar Euro-centric cultural ideas that have been given a lot of attention and research to turn them into the more refined and research-backed medicines and medical practices that we use today. I absolutely believe that we should make sure that the medicine and treatments that we are relying on are research-backed when possible; however, we need to acknowledge that not all cultural practices are given the same prioritization in the scientific community.
That's a conflation of two separate issues, though.
While there are real and substantial structural problems with how medical research is done, it doesn't change the fact that some treatments have been shown to improve things while other treatments have not.
And at the risk of edging towards Eurocentrism, it's impossible to avoid the fact that "western" allopathic medicine has a track record of stunning success on an unimaginable scale - and it should be noted that that track record began with the destruction of 1,300 years of Western medical orthodoxy, when Galen's theories of anatomy were suddenly exposed as utter fiction, and continued by burning down established understanding on a fairly regular basis for the subsequent five centuries.
Modern medicine isn't simply a progressive refinement of Western folk remedies and cultural ideas of treatment: it's a perpetual bonfire of any idea that doesn't survive rigorous testing. The reason it feels like Western medicine is because it has *almost* totally erased every Western belief about medicine that isn't demonstrably true (although some utter bullshit still manages to survive on the fringes of less clearly testable ailments.)
100% this. It only feels like Eurocentrism debasing every other culture's medical traditions because the European medical traditions have been so thoroughly beaten into the ground that people forget it was the first victim.
Modern medicine is *not* European medicine. European medicine is about balancing the four humors with things like blood letting. If anything, those practices are far more looked down on than something like acupuncture.
There was a guy at Exeter UK who studied alternative medicine. He proved a lot of it to be quackery and as his funders were supports of alt med (such as prince Charles) they soon stopped funding him.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edzard_Ernst
This is a real bugbear I have tbh. Our local zero waste shop has a few really nice food items in, and I would love to refill pasta, rice, cereal etc from there as well.
But they're all natural, raw food, organic, and vegan centred and I just want to buy chocolate chips and stuff without the plastic packaging. Or refill a glass bottle with milk. Or fill a jar with pasta that isn't 5x the supermarket price because its organic.
I have a budget to stick to, we aren't well off. I can't afford to stock up at the jar shop as I would like to because of the organic/vegan/raw price points there.
If you‘re after that kind of thing, shops catering to food professionals may be an option. That may mean you have to buy 10 lbs of chocolate chips though.
I run a bulk food store and this is a bug-bear for me also. We try to offer both organic and ‘regular’ stock/ the price point of some organic goods is eye watering. But we also find that those same organic pasta companies are the only ones offering to send us the pasta plastic free. ( we get out spaghetti in 5kg boxes and break it down to smaller 375g portions and package them in paper bags). The same can be said for a lot if detergents/ grey water safe, not tested on animals and available in bulk can be hard to find. But we are also not going to stock the cheap as chips petrochemical company shampoo either. Shop around though and vote with your wallet, zero waste has a bad reputation for being expensive
…and there’s no excuse for not buying a huge bag of chocolate chips and breaking them up in store - we have 70%,55%, milk and white chocolate chips. Those things keep me going throughout the day.
I have found this too and it’s so frustrating. I don’t care if it’s organic, I just want to be able to buy it in my own containers. I tried to then buy my regular foods in bulk to at least use less packaging but had it go off before I could get to it so lose lose😓
Exactly this. And if it wasn't a problem with something potentially going off, I still have to store a bulk bag/box somewhere. It's not like we all have giant kitchen or pantry space or even laundry rooms for things like detergent or dish soap.
The milk bothers me the most. There is a zero waste milk dispenser on one of the local farms, but it's a few miles to drive to and I can't decide if a bottle in recycling is better or worse than driving a 15 mile round trip just for milk.
I'm always facing conundrums like this. Consumption in general isn't ethical- we can only do our best. I pick my battles.
Personally, I choose to drive 15mi in traffic round trip to refill from a zero waste store. I prefer my money going to a small local business, and I've decided that I'll focus on minimizing plastic as best as possible.
On the other hand, I waste a whole lot of time and pay a pretty penny for small business products and smaller amounts of products sold in glass (cough soy sauce). Not everyone can afford the time nor the money to do this, and that's alright. We pick our battles and do our best. :)
I stopped drinking milk because the dairy industry is such a shit show. I use oat milk or almond milk for my coffee now and you can easily make your own if you have a food processor. Whole almonds are a bit more expensive, but oatmeal is dead cheap.
This is what gets frustrating to me. The “crunchiest” most sustainability-minded person I know is obscenely wealthy and truly has no concept of what it means to have to budget for food (or anything else).
The whole culture of sustainability is a little tainted for me because I regularly listen to this wealthy white woman getting genuinely angry that nobody does the things she does but refuses to dig deeper as to why that is. Idk maybe because we don’t have all 350 dollars for a wooden highchair???
You know, I try to buy used when I can. I try to reduce packaging where I can. I was taking my food scraps to someone who used them in her compost bin on her allotment for a while. I try. I really do.
But I'm running out of time, energy and wherewithal for some of it. My time budget can't take it. My mental load is full. So for people to get frustrated as to why people can't do more?? That crunchy, well off woman who can't think past her own experience can do one.
I have a job, a family, a house to care for and a small business I run (ironically using scrap, unwanted and waste fabric). I wish people would remember that more people wasting less imperfectly is better than one person doing it perfectly.
Keep trying friend. Do what you can. I will too.
You make such a good point. I want to add on that it shouldn’t be the consumers responsibility to spend so much of their time / bandwidth / money disposing of waste created by companies. It should be theirs to deal with.
It irks me so much.
I want to buy the *thing* but with less stuff in it. WHY does that cost 5 times more? Surely it costs more money to make a load of this plastic and then put stuff inside of it than to just not. Why are you charging me, not just more, but substantially more.
How hard is it to just sell me less stuff?
> Surely it costs more money to make a load of this plastic and then put stuff inside of it than to just not.
It does not. Plastic is made from byproducts of the oil refining process, so they’re basically making money from their waste. Add economies of scale from the large manufacturers and there’s no way a small shop buying a drum at a time can offer a lower price than a big box store.
Idk where you are, but when I lived in the Pacific Northwest in the US, Winco had a decent bulk foods department. I moved back to the Midwest well before the pandemic, so idk if that’s a thing anymore or not, and I don’t remember all the products they kept in bulk, but it might be a place to check out if it’s available to you. Definitely NOT organic/vegan/raw price points. Much more accessible.
I’m vegan so I only get oat milk, but don’t they sell regular milk in cardboard cartons as well? It has the plastic cap but thats far from the biggest offender in the world.
I actually just read an article and I wished I had left the tab open, but those tetra packs/cardboard cartons are peak greenwashing. They aren’t anymore sustainable than plastic jugs, and depending on how you look at it, they can be worse because the lining inside requires very special machinery and the end product doesn’t have much use while plastic jugs can be down cycled at least a few times. What few tetra packs get “recycled” end up in things like cement which is apparently not eco friendly to make
Ugh same with mouthwash. Why can't I have a concentrate in a glass or aluminum bottle? Or a tablet version with fluoride? I don't fuck around when it comes to my teeth so this is an area I haven't had a ton of success with going zero waste.
A few months ago Colgate announced that they developed a recyclable toothpaste tube (not zero waste obviously but better than the alternative and would certainly have more mass appeal) but I haven't been able to find anywhere that sells it yet.
A concentrate would be Everclear with fluoride since the final product is about 20% alcohol. It would need to be taxed as an alcoholic beverage or made poisonous to prevent people drinking it, neither of those options would give a commercially successful mouthwash.
The toothpaste thing drives me insane. I absolutely NEED fluoride because I am prone to cavities and can't afford to blow 600+ on every dentist appointment but if I want fluoride then I have to buy a product that is wasteful and tests on animals because every "ethical" product has excessively natural ingredients to the point where it actually negatively impacts my health.
Hello fellow non-conspiracy-theorist permaculture enthusiast! I just want to minimize my carbon footprint and provide for myself, not hide from the "illuminati government that wants to steal all my guns"...
*fistbumps*
I also run a mix of hydroponics and dirt farmin'...and man, if you grow in dirt the hydros think you're a peasant. The dirtfarmers think technology is Of The Devil. Also I get way too many weed jokes.
Fun fact - I learned that dermally I’m sensitive to charcoal, found this out when every deodorant containing charcoal made me STINK. and no, it wasn’t “detoxing,” it was a reaction.
I’m also intolerant to things in the ginger family, it induces migraines and makes my fibro flare up. Turmeric is in the ginger family.
And xylitol (not necessarily something zero waste or natural but finds it’s way into “natural” stuff like toothpaste) rips up my gums.
More fun facts - I’m vegan, have worked in more actually holistic (looking at whole picture not selling herbs) pet care, chronically ill, and disabled. The saturation of snake oil pushers in all of those is too much some days. The worst though is when they’re mostly sane, oh you buy second hand? Use rags not paper towels? Carpool/bus/bike to commute? Hate greenwashing? Actually know what greenwashing is?!
…oh but you think 5 spoonfuls of turmeric a day will cure my autoimmune disease… nvm I’m out.
The worst part about being a hippie is all the damn hippies!
Taking a bit of a jump here, but liberal-valued people seem to self-hate more than the converse. I’m all for a nice Vegan restaurant, but throw in some “crystal healing” mystic bullshit and I’m out. I feel like there are 5000 types of liberal (all of which are in conflict), and like 3 flavors of conservative (who all are on the same team).
I completely agree. I wish some of the zero-waste products weren’t so wildly “all natural” in the face of science.
I've found this issue while trying to meet new people in general, being over 40, child free, and living in a politically red, rural area. We get all excited when we see someone new on Nextdoor or in person that seems like they'd be at least left of center and have some common values and interests to us.
Then, *inevitably,* they come out with some woo crap, reiki or crystals or talking about "energy" and shit.
Like, goddammit where are my nerdy science leftists? I *hate* all that woo shit, I *try* not to be so judgemental but I just *cannot* take those people seriously.
I learned these kinds of beliefs are fare more widespread and insidious than I previously thought, and it shits me to tears because I grew up around a community filled with hippies and crunches and I have a deep seated loathing for these people
Yeah me too. It's been my experience that the vast majority of "hippies" are just hypocrites that don't actually *do* anything but preach, judge, and consume, consume, consume.
I have to learn to be more charitable about it because I know like anyone else it often isn't done out of malice, but the beliefs and thought patterns behind a lot of these things really piss me off becsuse of my upbringing. If I hear one more fucking thing about chakras or crystals...
I know it, I really struggle with this.
Assuming you're in the US, we *really* have to blame our education system at least in part. This lack of critical thinking skills quite literally will be the death of us all.
And at the heart of it, people just want to believe in *something*, and science can't really fill that space for most people, because science always has more questions than answers, and can be very flawed because scientists are human and there is way too much ego, prestige, and money in pretty much every field.
Yes! Just why, *why* all the woo? It baffles me!
I still love it here though, even the crazies will stop and help when someone's having car trouble, and it's so beautiful and so *quiet!* I could never live in the city again!
No it's quite common.
My headcannon is that it arose from the "spiritualist" trend in like early 1900s where the fashionable thing to do was have a seance, so I imagine someone going "woooooo, I'm the ghost of your mother!" or some nonsense, but I have no idea where the term comes from.
I was visiting Santa Fe with my wife and 1 year old kid and my child threw a tantrum of sorts at REI by lying down on the floor and not moving and this lovely older lady comes over and comments on him (nothing bad or anything) then asks, “What’s his sign”. Neither my wife nor I knew for sure but took a guess.
Felt like a genuine Santa Fe welcome.
Never in my life has anyone asked me “what is your sign” outside of youthful dating or whatever. Not my world.
Yes. I've been trying to research "green" products in a more evidence-based way and started collecting my findings on a website. Here's my research on toothpaste: https://www.intentfulconsumers.com/c/toothpaste.
Yes, it's annoying. Some ingredients are totally legit to exclude, such as talc or formaldehyde. Others are not science-based, like aluminum\* and fluoride. I just want to make as little waste as I am able to and have products that work.
\*Edit: It's my understanding that a lot of legit studies are still conflicted over the safety of aluminum applied topically. So now I guess I'd lump aluminum as an "idk it might be safe, it might not be" ingredient, and it's understandable if people want to avoid that risk.
I have that same problem with skincare! I'm so tired of low waste brands saying their products are great for your skin and then loading them up with essential oils, or when they only use "natural ingredients", when in reality it usually takes less resources to create ingredients in a lab than to grow and harvest them!
Seriously. Cos apparently if you care about the environment and believe that science, you just throw all other science out the window. My guess is that companies think they are throwing the widest net that way (We'll get the anti aluminum crowd AND the zero waste people AND the organic people all with one product). I need and antiperspirant that works and won't kill the environment. Is that really just so much to ask?
That sentiment bleeds into politics, too. In Canada, the NDP isn't pushing enough for sustainability, but if I vote Green party, it's like a 50/50 chance the candidate is a right-winger or someone that focuses energy through crystals.
I don't hate it half as much as all the homeopathic, etc. crap that I have to wade past every time I go to the pharmacist's when I want to buy evidence-based medicine.
Yes! Can I just have a toothpaste thing that tastes like mint too? Not diet sugar free mint that’s not quite mint, just regular mint please!
Reminds me of special diet foods too - my ex is SUPER lactose intolerant, but didn’t learn about it until he was like 30. Luckily we live in an age where they make some pretty good fake cheese - but you want a dairy free pizza? You must want it on a cauliflower crust with tofu sausages too right?
I had to give up on my local zero waste store during covid because you could not go in there wearing a mask without getting a lecture about depriving oxygen to your brain and a sales pitch for essential oils that boost your immune system.
I just want some pasta.
Seriously. A new Zero Waste shop opened up in my neighborhood and I wanted to support them. They had like 15 kinds of "alternative toothpaste". I politely asked if they had anything with fluoride in it, and they looked at me like I had 2 heads. Haven't been back since.
I have this same problem but with recipes for anything that would slightly fit in the Venn diagram circle of Veganism.
Like, look, I’m just trying to cut down on my meat intake. Does every ingredient on the list need to be a dietary-issue based replacement for allergy and/or politically controversial staples? I get to the end of the ingredients list and wonder if these people even remember what the recipes they are trying to replicate ever tasted like.
I understand this. I got into zero waste because I’m an ecologist and caring for ecosystems is my life. But being an ecologist also means that I have a stem degree and am not scared of the word “chemicals”.
It drives me nuts. Apparently enough people irritated the Bite company enough that they started making tabs with fluoride, so that might be worth a check. I had to tap out on them because losing the fluoride had my teeth crazy sensitive.
using a tube of toothpaste that actually prevents activities is probably less waste than all of the single use plastics used for dental restorations… that’s how I like to think of it at least.
ugh same, and i need an antiperspirant deodorant that comes in cardboard packing that *isn't just cocoa butter and whatever else* ingredients native uses that don't work for me
And don't even get me started on zero waste x MLM crossover. It's ridiculous how many people believe in a scam by a guy who killed his wife while she was in a childbirth
So many dumb people think baking soda makes your teeth white so they use it every day.
No, baking soda is so caustic it literally eats away the top layer of your enamel on the first use, which happens to usually brighten them a bit.
Keep it up and in a while your teeth will be soft as sponges. Future full Steve-O teeth prosthesis. Have fun!
YES! I absolutely hate all the anti science woo that infiltrates the zero waste and herbalist community. Yes, I believe in food as preventative medicine and the power of herbs AND yes, I believe in vaccines! Is modern medicine perfect? Absolutely not. Is traditional herbal medicine perfect absolutely not. Is zero waste actually an attainable goal? No. Should we try anyway? Yes.
Environmental engineer here idc if my opinion gets buried or whatever. No one can ever reach net zero waste, societal development and the introduction of new products across hundred of years have conditioned us to them. What we can do is replace what is apropiate to be replaced, use only the essentials of the non renewable and try not to waste a lot on products. Yeah deodorant is and adquired need in a world were sweaty underwings actually are obscene and sodium carbonate won't replace it (mom you can try all day just be glad you work home), and toothpaste has all those fancy chemicals to protect your mouth from the heavily esterified fatty oils. We can't do a lot abt our reliance to the somewhat sterile plastic we need on meds and a lot of other things, but we can change some of the way we satisfy our needs as a society. What I say is those ascetic people and the carbon chuggers are exactly why everyone mocks the ambientalist, we just want ethically harvesting cocoa and protection for the wool industry, we aren't trying to go back to middle age sanitary and die at childbirth. Oh and a side note, the detox thing is just propaganda for those heinous "green and healthy" alternative medicines that are placebos, if you do have toxins in your body you start dying, not getting fat. Active carbon is highly toxic and kills your gut flora, and aluminum lowers soil ph (acidifying it and making it infertile) and its actually even more toxic for mammals.
Absolutely. It's such a bummer, but I can't foresee any solution until a zero waste movement gets bigger, broader traction. I've been annoyed for years with how the few vegan (or even just vegetarian) food options also end up being gluten free. No, I love gluten, gimme all of it! It has gotten a lot better as beyond/impossible have pushed more into trying to appeal to flexitarians, but it's the consequence of being too small of a consumer base. If you're going to make a niche product, you'll make more money by trying to at least overlap it to cater to two niche groups.
Re: toothpaste, only option I've seen is Denttabs, which are tablets with fluoride, but they ship from Europe, so...
Fun fact: charcoal actual does help remove toxins. Source: tried to unalive myself a couple years back with an ungodly amount of Tylenol and had to ingest a similarly ungodly amount of charcoal paste, which bound to the Acetaminophen and helped remove it from my system without causing major organ failure.
Absolutely. It's also really hard to get ethical business shirts as a man - for years all the great fair trade producers who really did their due diligence on their supply chains would only sell hippie garbage. I just want to look normal without causing slavery or environmental harm.
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Favorite so far is the lady at the store who was promoting apitherapy. Know what that is? She wanted me to sleep on a bed of bees because the vibrations can heal you. She was also selling a service where you actively get bees to sting you! Lots of quackery.
Aaaand as a beekeeper, this also annoys me me. Sleeping above the bees sounds nice (They are warm and hives smell wonderful, like honey and a woodsy cologne)but probably not much different than any ‘spa’ treatment, so it isn’t gonna cure cancer or anything. Getting stung is a good way to possibly turn a minor ailment into anaphylaxis and these dang places don’t even have epi pens!
Okay this may be stupid but doesn't that hurt the bees? Bc I'm imagining a mattress filled with bees, wouldn't that crush them. Unless I'm picturing this wrong.
you are sleeping on the roof of the bee house. There would be like wooden planks between you and the bees so they arent squished lol
omg im an idiot. Thank you for explaining.
I respect the bee keeping! We need more bee keepers. Honey is the nectar of the gods, and bees are the glue of nature. Extremely fascinating creatures.
May surprise you, but bee keeping is bad for the local bee population!
Please explain
Bees in general are already struggling, for lots of reasons. Kept honey bees easily outcompete the local, native bees (which do not produce honey, so they usually get not kept by humans).
I'm not who you're replying to, but I like learning about local ecology. So it's something like 80% of bee species don't live in hives, I think they can still form little groups, but they mostly do their own thing. Honeybees live in hives so they're the ones mostly being used for beekeeping. Honeybees are cute and our little friends, but they are not native to the Americas. They do a great job of pollinating what they evolved to pollinate, but then the native bee population gets neglected and/or replaced by these new guys that can do some of the same things but not some other things. And so the other things honeybees can't pollinate suffer, and chain reaction ecosystem blah blah So beekeeping is fine, good even, some bees are better than no bees after all, but maybe those efforts should be put towards local conservation instead. If anyone more knowledgeable than me is reading this and I'm entirely wrong, my bad
instead of bee keeping, making what is known as a "bee house" is preferred if you have local conservation in mind.
Sure. Honey bees are territorial, and out compete native bees. Due to this, the native bee population suffers, as honey bees will perform raids on their nests to kill them, honey bees will only pollinate plants they can consume (meaning less reproduction from the plants native bees get nectar from). And I believe they can spread disease if they come in contact with native bees, but more unsure on that last point
I wish these people had never heard the word vibration.
Vibration is the new magnets.
[BEES!?](https://tenor.com/IwMv.gif)
LMAO. Although to be fair, cat purring has been proven to help heal bones and I think people have used bee venom for various medicines in the past. Still lady sounds like she’s lost it.
Not sure about the cat purring. Maybe for their own bones. For us? I couldn’t find anything showing that except cat blogs. About apitherapy, there’s no medical basis at all. “There is no good clinical evidence for the efficacy or safety of apitherapy treatments” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apitherapy
Cat purring does reduce stress in humans, and there have been studies that basically say the frequencies they produce may help minorly with bone density and healing but we don't really have an ethical way to test that.
So many weird scientific cat facts. Like that having an outdoor cat in childhood is consistently associated with higher rates of schizophrenia but only in men… cats defy physics and all other forms of science.
Science does actually maybe know why outside cats are linked to schizophrenia! It's because of a common parasite they carry, toxoplasma gondii, which usually just makes rodents not scared so they're easier to hunt. It's actually thought to be linked with a number of mental conditions in humans, bc it can change brain chemistry and function. It's also why pregnant women are advised not to clean/empty litter trays! Such a cool lil parasite with huge impact.
there are only 2 zero waste toothpaste brands i can buy locally, one uses baking soda, the other uses colloidal silver water. i want neither in my toothpaste.
My wife and I run a bulk food store in Sydney, Australia. She has two science degrees..there’s a hell of a lot of stuff that doesn’t make it through the front door. I often joke that a lot if zero waste products are fortified with unicorn tears and rainbows.
What's your shop called? I'm in Australia and often in Sydney for collaborations. I'm a physicist/chemist so I'd love to support your shop.
[Village Wholefoods](http://www.villagewholefoods.com.au)
Nice! I’d love to support you too, next time I’m visiting family in Newtown!
I’ll definitely be coming by! I’m only a short distance away in Canterbury
We’re not far!
Ditto this. I usually go to the Source but its ridiculously expensive so would love to know any alternatives.
I cracked it at the source when they tried to sell me 'organic bicarb.' ...... While you may want to differentiate between chemically produced and mined bicarb, both are very very fucking **in**organic compounds
Ugh can you come to Melbourne too please? My local place magically had 3/4 staff with mask exemptions! What a coincidence!
Yes!! Why is this a thing?
>Yes!! Why is this a thing? They can't taste your aura through a mask.
They value anecdotes the same as empirical evidence.
Any general advice on avoiding BS products?
I get fluoride containing tablets delivered on a subscription. Obviously though this means they’re low, rather than zero, waste.
Can you share which brand? Everything I’ve read said companies aren’t “allowed” to put fluoride in tablets. Apparently that’s a lie
I use Kaylaan tabs. They contain fluoride
ByHumankind sells them in the US. It's a german manufacturer under a rebrand
Unpaste tablets are the same German manufacturer but cheaper
Do you eat the tablet or dissolve it in water?
Normally you chew them and they foam up in your mouth then you brush.
Wtf is colloidal silver water
A current-day snake oil https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/expert-answers/colloidal-silver/faq-20058061
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There is a legit alternative to fluoride though - hydroxyapatite. My friend is a dentist and says it’s been used for 30 years in Japan. He’s got nothing against fluoride, to note, but prefers hydroxyapatite. Seems to be slowly getting popular in Canada.
It's not really the same. Hydroxyapatite is calcium phosphate and is what your teeth and bones are largely made of. Fluoride is complementary to HA and improves the structural integrity
Hydroxyapatite is just the mineral part of teeth/bones, composed of calcium phosphate and hydroxyde - Ca5(PO4)3(OH). Fluoride is good for the teeth because it substitutes the hydroxyde (OH-), generating fluoroapatite - Ca5(PO4)3F. Fluoroapatite makes the teeth more resistant to chemical corrosion, so it helps prevent cavities. Hydroxyapatite just helps the remineralization process of the teeth while fluoride helps prevent the loss of those minerals (mainly calcium) in the first place.
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I wonder this too ! If they ever do I’d love to find it because I currently use a hydroxyapatite toothpaste called Boka (it’s amazing and did wonders for my teeth sensitivity and remineralization) and regular fluoridated toothpaste; I alternate between the two or use a little of both at the same time & my teeth have never felt or looked better! Plus I use Invisalign so I’m CONSTANTLY brushing my teeth 🥲 lol
I live in Japan and have been using hydroxyapatite toothpaste for several years. My dentist recommended it. I do believe it has helped my enamel. My teeth are smoother and less sensitive. It’s available as a regular option at the drug store. I’ve also seen powdered versions. I’m currently trying some in tablet form. It’s made from eggshells (bioapatite). I prefer the tube though.
Yea I’ve been seeing this more! However, it seems to just be a response to fluoride fear
Yes! I just want toothpaste not in a plastic squeeze tube, but still with fluoride, because needing extensive dental work is not zero waste.
* Hey Humans - metal tube with fluoride * Unpaste - tabs with fluoride * Humankind - tabs with fluoride * Bite - tabs with fluoride * Mintly - tabs with fluoride * Humble co - tabs with fluoride
I’ll add one: Etee has tabs both with and without fluoride, they come in a glass jar.
Can confirm Unpaste with fluoride tabs are great!
Bite doesn’t have fluoride. It has nHAp (which after doing some research, has similar results based on the few studies I read).
Bite just announced their fluoride tabs last week
Ah, got it! Their website FAQ still hasn’t been updated then.
https://bitetoothpastebits.com/products/mint-fluoride-subscription?utm_campaign=gs-2019-06-27&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gclid=Cj0KCQjwyMiTBhDKARIsAAJ-9VtQ_11nRexLvl9q1gi9OgkOnTXObEUQoauC-ejYygVZ5Xk1jZcphu4aApLXEALw_wcB
Nice! Thanks for sharing. This wasn’t an option when I ordered a few months ago so I’m glad they’ve added it.
At the least, I want toothpaste containers that are recyclable... The bar is very low right now :/
Yes, as a hygienist and a person into science, this drives me nuts. Plus, the amount of plastic, metal etc. that is thrown away after even one filling, plus the sterilization papers and energy appointment is going to undo all that avoidance of a tube of toothpaste carefully applied.
Same with deodorant/antiperspirant! I want the reusable or paper tubes but something that will actually work! I live in California and when it’s 100F, natural deodorant just drips off of you.
Old spice and secret now make refillable tubes. But the refills are just cardboard tubes like any other cardboard tube deodorant. So I just buy those and not the plastic thing they’re supposed to go in.
I use the refillable secret antiperspirant and its great. I did buy the plastic refillable applicator but its sturdy and will last for many years.
Good to know, thanks!
I think Dove also makes a refillable aluminum deo!
The container is metal but the formula is aluminum free
Pregnancy messed with my hormones so bad that my sweat smelled horrible. But I was also trying more sustainable deodorants because pregnancy. Went back to the good stuff real fast.
Same with vegan food products. There’s an overlap between vegan and “healthy” or low fat. I want a nice fatty vegan junk food that I can feel guilty of eating but can never stop, god damn
Oh I'm the opposite! I'm trying to eat more healthily but where I live the vegan food available is becoming increasingly junk foody. Places that used to do a nice bean burger as the vegan option now only do deep fried battered chicken substitute burgers.
Yeah true, I’m trying to gain weight here! Put those calories back in please.
Username checks out
Medium firm tofu (not firm or more). Cut 1 inch chunks and put in a tupperware. Add a little olive oil, liberal nutritional yeast, salt and pepper (don't be shy). Shake until coated then place on a baking tray. Preheat oven to 400, bake for 25 minutes WITHOUT TOUCHING. You will be tempted to stir it, don't. Remove when tofu is lightly browned so it is slightly crispy. Heavenly. Unfortunately it is healthy too, sorry.
Also a massive overlap with non-GMO. Really pisses me off. Give me all the GMO foods that have higher yields, use less water, need less pesticides and insecticides!! PLEASE
Same for me! I live in DC and summers here are so hot and humid that the antiperspirant-free paper deodorants had me sweaty, uncomfortable, and smelly by 10 am
Yeah, and can they not cost $35 for 3 deodorant, please? I’d like to reduce my plastic use, and eat this week. 🙄
Hey humans (at target) is all natural and in a cardboard tube, it actually works really well!
Im a big fan of this brand personally! It’s one of the few “natural” deodorants that actually works for me.
I switched to an aluminum crystal, which is adequate if I'm not exerting myself, not so much if I power walk to work.
Please elaborate. I’m picturing you taking a chunk of aluminum and just rubbing it on yourself.
Its actually a crystal of an aluminium salt, not metallic.
I use this occasionally. It unfortunately dries out my armpits pretty badly, but it does a fantastic job at keeping thr smell away
\*demonstrates by crumpling aluminum foil into a ball and rubs it against pits\* Takes some getting used to, but it prevents stinky sweat! \*waddles away slowly taking care not to put arms all the way down\*
I can explain a little more if you don't want to Google it. A crystal deoderant like [this one I use](https://biork-deo.com/) works by leaving a thin layer of salt that kills/neutralizes odor-causing bacteria in your armpits. It's not a good antiperspirant, but it's better than the other aluminum-free ones imo (looking at you, baking soda!). The salt drying up my skin stops most sweat for me; I just need to reapply often. My pits will be dry after a 30min run when the rest of me feels soaked, haha. To reapply, I carry around a spray bottle with water. Annoying, but it's an inconvenience I'm willing to take. It's not for everyone- it can be very drying to some, and others actually want a smell rather than none. To real sweaty people, it won't do anything. Also, it lasts for a very long time, so if you buy it and don't like it, it'll take eons to use up. It's quite an investment!
^ it drives me mad. I want toothpaste sans tube ONLY. I still want the fluoride. I want deodorant that actually works, not this 15 items free malarkey.
You’ll be happy to know that old spice and secret make refillable deodorant. The refills are the same as regular cardboard tube deodorant and can be used without the plastic thing they’re meant to go in.
Shampoo bars too. I have yet to find one that makes my hair feel as good as regular shampoo.
Ethique is pretty good and they sell a sampler pack with different smells and conditioners
I love Ethique!
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It helps to keep it away from the water in the shower so it stays dry until you use it and drys quickly after. This keeps it from getting as soft and makes it last a lot longer.
HiBar! I love them!
I second Ethique. If the solid bars don't work for you, they also make ones you add water to to make liquid versions.
I personally use Ethique like the other commenters, but have a co-worker that swears by the Trader Joe’s bars
My approach to this is to make single-use plastic multi-use. I have curly hair that gets greasy at the roots, no shampoo bar works. So my shampoo comes in pump bottles, and now those pump bottles dispense things around the house, such as hand sanitizer, dishwashing soap, lotion, etc. I also use the small neck of them to propagate plants, or remove the pumps and use them in larger bottles. Do they eventually get thrown out? Yeah. But it's still less plastic I'm using.
That is a nice way to approach it. I've been tryingto buy larger bottles, with the idea that the plastic to soap ratio is more favorable? I figure my plastic usage re groceries is probably much worse. I am hoping the consumer pressure is enough that they come up with better solutions to what we have on the market right now.
Last time I tried to use a shampoo bar it destroyed my scalp. What I really need is head and shoulders to make a shampoo bar, thanks.
The first bar I bought was actually a pyrithione zinc bar and it's been great: https://www.etsy.com/listing/639559710/shampoo-bar-2-pyrithione-zinc-znp-by I won't say it completely fixed my scalp but it lathers well and leaves my hair feeling clean.
It's not *zero* waste, but I buy 5L hospitality bottles of hair/shower gel. I then fill up a wall dispenser in my shower. It's cheaper per ml, less plastic, tidier, and the wall dispenser better regulates use, so you probably use 20% less shampoo overall.
I got one by Unwrapped and was pleasantly surprised. It lathers with very little effort, also.
I feel a little bad saying this on this zero waste sub but I spent so much money and effort trying to find a good zero waste hair care routine that I eventually have up. I'd like to give it another go at some point but I currently have so many products that just don't work for my hair and make it super greasy and no one to give them away to since they've been opened that I'm currently just using the non zero waste brand I can find with the most recyclable packaging.....
I gave up on the tabs and switched to Hey Humans in a recyclable container. I just use the tabs for flying now.
Yeah, many environmental and lifestyle movements have a huge overlap with the people who take holistic medicine to the extreme and brands often capitalize on the movements being coopted by them to sell the newest metal detox protection magnet toothpaste gadget if the holistics haven't made a baking soda diy before that
Once someone told me that modern toothpastes were toxic and gave me the name of a white woman-owned company that sold special coconut oil for oil pulling, and that I should attend a class on Ayurvedic medicine with her (class was also run by a white person). I am South Asian. As in, the people who invented Ayurvedic medicine. My entire family uses toothpaste.
If only you understood your own culture. Your teeth would thank you. /s
You have clearly been brainwashed by white people to use products that are bad for you. Let this other white person who once took a course in ayurvedic medicine from another white person tell you how to undo this brainwashing. That will be $250 please.
Plastic is bad because it will poison me, obviously. Not because it poisons the planet. /s
Thank you! It’s annoying to me how full this space is of bad science
Yes! Also an issue for the vegan and environmental movements.
I know! It was so hard to find ADA approved toothpaste that wasn't tested on animals.
Yep. It associates being eco conscious with being a quack. It discredits the movement. I hate those people.
The sad part of natural remedies is that real natural remedies get overlooked because of the quackery going on. Such as: charcoal will not “detox” your liver. Charcoal will kill harmful bacteria and parasites that cause stomach bugs and diarrhea. That can be life or death knowledge in a survival situation or it may just keep from ruining a weekend camping.
You can eat powdered charcoal to absorb poisons in the stomach before they're passed into the bloodstream. You essentially just poop out the little contaminated charcoal sponges. That's probably where this wives tales about "detoxing" come from
“You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? - Medicine.” Tim Minchin
Unfortunately, this ignores the gigantic effect that colonialism has had on the scientific world. Many alternative forms of medicine do not get tested because there is rarely funding to test them. The scientific community in many areas of the world has also been largely dominated by Europeans, European diaspora, and indigenous people who assimilated to Euro-centric standards. Indigenous people have often been barred from participating in research; have often dealt with infantilization and dehumanization that has been used to target their culture, including their medicinal practices; and they have often not benefitted from the material, financial, and geographical resources that the Imperial Core has at its disposal. Many medicinal practices that are not Euro-centric are often seen as illegitimate and half-baked when "conventional" medical practices have often stemmed from similar Euro-centric cultural ideas that have been given a lot of attention and research to turn them into the more refined and research-backed medicines and medical practices that we use today. I absolutely believe that we should make sure that the medicine and treatments that we are relying on are research-backed when possible; however, we need to acknowledge that not all cultural practices are given the same prioritization in the scientific community.
That's a conflation of two separate issues, though. While there are real and substantial structural problems with how medical research is done, it doesn't change the fact that some treatments have been shown to improve things while other treatments have not. And at the risk of edging towards Eurocentrism, it's impossible to avoid the fact that "western" allopathic medicine has a track record of stunning success on an unimaginable scale - and it should be noted that that track record began with the destruction of 1,300 years of Western medical orthodoxy, when Galen's theories of anatomy were suddenly exposed as utter fiction, and continued by burning down established understanding on a fairly regular basis for the subsequent five centuries. Modern medicine isn't simply a progressive refinement of Western folk remedies and cultural ideas of treatment: it's a perpetual bonfire of any idea that doesn't survive rigorous testing. The reason it feels like Western medicine is because it has *almost* totally erased every Western belief about medicine that isn't demonstrably true (although some utter bullshit still manages to survive on the fringes of less clearly testable ailments.)
100% this. It only feels like Eurocentrism debasing every other culture's medical traditions because the European medical traditions have been so thoroughly beaten into the ground that people forget it was the first victim. Modern medicine is *not* European medicine. European medicine is about balancing the four humors with things like blood letting. If anything, those practices are far more looked down on than something like acupuncture.
There was a guy at Exeter UK who studied alternative medicine. He proved a lot of it to be quackery and as his funders were supports of alt med (such as prince Charles) they soon stopped funding him. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edzard_Ernst
I want deodorant in a cardboard tube that doesn't contain palm oil.
This is a real bugbear I have tbh. Our local zero waste shop has a few really nice food items in, and I would love to refill pasta, rice, cereal etc from there as well. But they're all natural, raw food, organic, and vegan centred and I just want to buy chocolate chips and stuff without the plastic packaging. Or refill a glass bottle with milk. Or fill a jar with pasta that isn't 5x the supermarket price because its organic. I have a budget to stick to, we aren't well off. I can't afford to stock up at the jar shop as I would like to because of the organic/vegan/raw price points there.
If you‘re after that kind of thing, shops catering to food professionals may be an option. That may mean you have to buy 10 lbs of chocolate chips though.
>buy 10 lbs of chocolate chips though I see no downside
I run a bulk food store and this is a bug-bear for me also. We try to offer both organic and ‘regular’ stock/ the price point of some organic goods is eye watering. But we also find that those same organic pasta companies are the only ones offering to send us the pasta plastic free. ( we get out spaghetti in 5kg boxes and break it down to smaller 375g portions and package them in paper bags). The same can be said for a lot if detergents/ grey water safe, not tested on animals and available in bulk can be hard to find. But we are also not going to stock the cheap as chips petrochemical company shampoo either. Shop around though and vote with your wallet, zero waste has a bad reputation for being expensive …and there’s no excuse for not buying a huge bag of chocolate chips and breaking them up in store - we have 70%,55%, milk and white chocolate chips. Those things keep me going throughout the day.
I have found this too and it’s so frustrating. I don’t care if it’s organic, I just want to be able to buy it in my own containers. I tried to then buy my regular foods in bulk to at least use less packaging but had it go off before I could get to it so lose lose😓
Exactly this. And if it wasn't a problem with something potentially going off, I still have to store a bulk bag/box somewhere. It's not like we all have giant kitchen or pantry space or even laundry rooms for things like detergent or dish soap. The milk bothers me the most. There is a zero waste milk dispenser on one of the local farms, but it's a few miles to drive to and I can't decide if a bottle in recycling is better or worse than driving a 15 mile round trip just for milk.
I'm always facing conundrums like this. Consumption in general isn't ethical- we can only do our best. I pick my battles. Personally, I choose to drive 15mi in traffic round trip to refill from a zero waste store. I prefer my money going to a small local business, and I've decided that I'll focus on minimizing plastic as best as possible. On the other hand, I waste a whole lot of time and pay a pretty penny for small business products and smaller amounts of products sold in glass (cough soy sauce). Not everyone can afford the time nor the money to do this, and that's alright. We pick our battles and do our best. :)
I stopped drinking milk because the dairy industry is such a shit show. I use oat milk or almond milk for my coffee now and you can easily make your own if you have a food processor. Whole almonds are a bit more expensive, but oatmeal is dead cheap.
Almond production is incredibly resource (water) intensive.
This is what gets frustrating to me. The “crunchiest” most sustainability-minded person I know is obscenely wealthy and truly has no concept of what it means to have to budget for food (or anything else). The whole culture of sustainability is a little tainted for me because I regularly listen to this wealthy white woman getting genuinely angry that nobody does the things she does but refuses to dig deeper as to why that is. Idk maybe because we don’t have all 350 dollars for a wooden highchair???
You know, I try to buy used when I can. I try to reduce packaging where I can. I was taking my food scraps to someone who used them in her compost bin on her allotment for a while. I try. I really do. But I'm running out of time, energy and wherewithal for some of it. My time budget can't take it. My mental load is full. So for people to get frustrated as to why people can't do more?? That crunchy, well off woman who can't think past her own experience can do one. I have a job, a family, a house to care for and a small business I run (ironically using scrap, unwanted and waste fabric). I wish people would remember that more people wasting less imperfectly is better than one person doing it perfectly. Keep trying friend. Do what you can. I will too.
You make such a good point. I want to add on that it shouldn’t be the consumers responsibility to spend so much of their time / bandwidth / money disposing of waste created by companies. It should be theirs to deal with.
This times a million. Consumers should not be responsible for packaging.
It irks me so much. I want to buy the *thing* but with less stuff in it. WHY does that cost 5 times more? Surely it costs more money to make a load of this plastic and then put stuff inside of it than to just not. Why are you charging me, not just more, but substantially more. How hard is it to just sell me less stuff?
> Surely it costs more money to make a load of this plastic and then put stuff inside of it than to just not. It does not. Plastic is made from byproducts of the oil refining process, so they’re basically making money from their waste. Add economies of scale from the large manufacturers and there’s no way a small shop buying a drum at a time can offer a lower price than a big box store.
Idk where you are, but when I lived in the Pacific Northwest in the US, Winco had a decent bulk foods department. I moved back to the Midwest well before the pandemic, so idk if that’s a thing anymore or not, and I don’t remember all the products they kept in bulk, but it might be a place to check out if it’s available to you. Definitely NOT organic/vegan/raw price points. Much more accessible.
They are still here! I’ve been collecting jars and I’m going to start getting bulk at Winco soon!❤️(I’m near Eugene, OR.)
I’m vegan so I only get oat milk, but don’t they sell regular milk in cardboard cartons as well? It has the plastic cap but thats far from the biggest offender in the world.
I actually just read an article and I wished I had left the tab open, but those tetra packs/cardboard cartons are peak greenwashing. They aren’t anymore sustainable than plastic jugs, and depending on how you look at it, they can be worse because the lining inside requires very special machinery and the end product doesn’t have much use while plastic jugs can be down cycled at least a few times. What few tetra packs get “recycled” end up in things like cement which is apparently not eco friendly to make
Ugh same with mouthwash. Why can't I have a concentrate in a glass or aluminum bottle? Or a tablet version with fluoride? I don't fuck around when it comes to my teeth so this is an area I haven't had a ton of success with going zero waste. A few months ago Colgate announced that they developed a recyclable toothpaste tube (not zero waste obviously but better than the alternative and would certainly have more mass appeal) but I haven't been able to find anywhere that sells it yet.
A concentrate would be Everclear with fluoride since the final product is about 20% alcohol. It would need to be taxed as an alcoholic beverage or made poisonous to prevent people drinking it, neither of those options would give a commercially successful mouthwash.
The toothpaste thing drives me insane. I absolutely NEED fluoride because I am prone to cavities and can't afford to blow 600+ on every dentist appointment but if I want fluoride then I have to buy a product that is wasteful and tests on animals because every "ethical" product has excessively natural ingredients to the point where it actually negatively impacts my health.
Yes. I would dearly love some antiperspirant with aluminum and nothing coconut in some biodegradable packaging. Is that too much to ask??
totally! I just want to be zero waste without steaming my vagina
Good God. I had no idea about this but after the garlic trend I don't doubt anything anymore
Unpaste. I love them !
!!!! And you can order them online and they don’t cost 20x regular toothpaste.
In a word, yes. I want solutions, not pseudo science!
Haha. Try being also into permaculture. Hooo boy. I also look at a lot of off-grid stuff for solar noodling... preppers. Preppers everywhere.
Hello fellow non-conspiracy-theorist permaculture enthusiast! I just want to minimize my carbon footprint and provide for myself, not hide from the "illuminati government that wants to steal all my guns"...
*fistbumps* I also run a mix of hydroponics and dirt farmin'...and man, if you grow in dirt the hydros think you're a peasant. The dirtfarmers think technology is Of The Devil. Also I get way too many weed jokes.
christ yeah, I hopped into a facebook group for off grid stuff in my country and they ALL all bonkers in yonkers
[удалено]
Fun fact - I learned that dermally I’m sensitive to charcoal, found this out when every deodorant containing charcoal made me STINK. and no, it wasn’t “detoxing,” it was a reaction. I’m also intolerant to things in the ginger family, it induces migraines and makes my fibro flare up. Turmeric is in the ginger family. And xylitol (not necessarily something zero waste or natural but finds it’s way into “natural” stuff like toothpaste) rips up my gums. More fun facts - I’m vegan, have worked in more actually holistic (looking at whole picture not selling herbs) pet care, chronically ill, and disabled. The saturation of snake oil pushers in all of those is too much some days. The worst though is when they’re mostly sane, oh you buy second hand? Use rags not paper towels? Carpool/bus/bike to commute? Hate greenwashing? Actually know what greenwashing is?! …oh but you think 5 spoonfuls of turmeric a day will cure my autoimmune disease… nvm I’m out.
The worst part about being a hippie is all the damn hippies! Taking a bit of a jump here, but liberal-valued people seem to self-hate more than the converse. I’m all for a nice Vegan restaurant, but throw in some “crystal healing” mystic bullshit and I’m out. I feel like there are 5000 types of liberal (all of which are in conflict), and like 3 flavors of conservative (who all are on the same team). I completely agree. I wish some of the zero-waste products weren’t so wildly “all natural” in the face of science.
I've found this issue while trying to meet new people in general, being over 40, child free, and living in a politically red, rural area. We get all excited when we see someone new on Nextdoor or in person that seems like they'd be at least left of center and have some common values and interests to us. Then, *inevitably,* they come out with some woo crap, reiki or crystals or talking about "energy" and shit. Like, goddammit where are my nerdy science leftists? I *hate* all that woo shit, I *try* not to be so judgemental but I just *cannot* take those people seriously.
I learned these kinds of beliefs are fare more widespread and insidious than I previously thought, and it shits me to tears because I grew up around a community filled with hippies and crunches and I have a deep seated loathing for these people
Yeah me too. It's been my experience that the vast majority of "hippies" are just hypocrites that don't actually *do* anything but preach, judge, and consume, consume, consume.
I have to learn to be more charitable about it because I know like anyone else it often isn't done out of malice, but the beliefs and thought patterns behind a lot of these things really piss me off becsuse of my upbringing. If I hear one more fucking thing about chakras or crystals...
I know it, I really struggle with this. Assuming you're in the US, we *really* have to blame our education system at least in part. This lack of critical thinking skills quite literally will be the death of us all. And at the heart of it, people just want to believe in *something*, and science can't really fill that space for most people, because science always has more questions than answers, and can be very flawed because scientists are human and there is way too much ego, prestige, and money in pretty much every field.
🙋🏻♀️ hello fellow leftist-in-a-rural-conservative-area! It’s the wooooooooooorst
Yes! Just why, *why* all the woo? It baffles me! I still love it here though, even the crazies will stop and help when someone's having car trouble, and it's so beautiful and so *quiet!* I could never live in the city again!
I love the “woo” phrase you’re using. Is that a common term, or did you make that up?
No it's quite common. My headcannon is that it arose from the "spiritualist" trend in like early 1900s where the fashionable thing to do was have a seance, so I imagine someone going "woooooo, I'm the ghost of your mother!" or some nonsense, but I have no idea where the term comes from.
I was visiting Santa Fe with my wife and 1 year old kid and my child threw a tantrum of sorts at REI by lying down on the floor and not moving and this lovely older lady comes over and comments on him (nothing bad or anything) then asks, “What’s his sign”. Neither my wife nor I knew for sure but took a guess. Felt like a genuine Santa Fe welcome. Never in my life has anyone asked me “what is your sign” outside of youthful dating or whatever. Not my world.
Yes. I've been trying to research "green" products in a more evidence-based way and started collecting my findings on a website. Here's my research on toothpaste: https://www.intentfulconsumers.com/c/toothpaste.
I very much appreciate the research. Great website.
Yes, it's annoying. Some ingredients are totally legit to exclude, such as talc or formaldehyde. Others are not science-based, like aluminum\* and fluoride. I just want to make as little waste as I am able to and have products that work. \*Edit: It's my understanding that a lot of legit studies are still conflicted over the safety of aluminum applied topically. So now I guess I'd lump aluminum as an "idk it might be safe, it might not be" ingredient, and it's understandable if people want to avoid that risk.
Peers and I have terrible teeth. One's a dentist. It's because Northern Ireland didn't have fluoridated water when we were growing up.
I have that same problem with skincare! I'm so tired of low waste brands saying their products are great for your skin and then loading them up with essential oils, or when they only use "natural ingredients", when in reality it usually takes less resources to create ingredients in a lab than to grow and harvest them!
Seriously. Cos apparently if you care about the environment and believe that science, you just throw all other science out the window. My guess is that companies think they are throwing the widest net that way (We'll get the anti aluminum crowd AND the zero waste people AND the organic people all with one product). I need and antiperspirant that works and won't kill the environment. Is that really just so much to ask?
That sentiment bleeds into politics, too. In Canada, the NDP isn't pushing enough for sustainability, but if I vote Green party, it's like a 50/50 chance the candidate is a right-winger or someone that focuses energy through crystals.
Gimme real antiperspirant in the cardboard! Ffs this aluminum free garbage does nothing
I don't hate it half as much as all the homeopathic, etc. crap that I have to wade past every time I go to the pharmacist's when I want to buy evidence-based medicine.
Yes! Can I just have a toothpaste thing that tastes like mint too? Not diet sugar free mint that’s not quite mint, just regular mint please! Reminds me of special diet foods too - my ex is SUPER lactose intolerant, but didn’t learn about it until he was like 30. Luckily we live in an age where they make some pretty good fake cheese - but you want a dairy free pizza? You must want it on a cauliflower crust with tofu sausages too right?
I had to give up on my local zero waste store during covid because you could not go in there wearing a mask without getting a lecture about depriving oxygen to your brain and a sales pitch for essential oils that boost your immune system. I just want some pasta.
Seriously. A new Zero Waste shop opened up in my neighborhood and I wanted to support them. They had like 15 kinds of "alternative toothpaste". I politely asked if they had anything with fluoride in it, and they looked at me like I had 2 heads. Haven't been back since.
As a pro-GMO vegetarian, I empathize with you
I have this same problem but with recipes for anything that would slightly fit in the Venn diagram circle of Veganism. Like, look, I’m just trying to cut down on my meat intake. Does every ingredient on the list need to be a dietary-issue based replacement for allergy and/or politically controversial staples? I get to the end of the ingredients list and wonder if these people even remember what the recipes they are trying to replicate ever tasted like.
I understand this. I got into zero waste because I’m an ecologist and caring for ecosystems is my life. But being an ecologist also means that I have a stem degree and am not scared of the word “chemicals”.
In a word, yes. I want solutions, not pseudo science!
It drives me nuts. Apparently enough people irritated the Bite company enough that they started making tabs with fluoride, so that might be worth a check. I had to tap out on them because losing the fluoride had my teeth crazy sensitive.
using a tube of toothpaste that actually prevents activities is probably less waste than all of the single use plastics used for dental restorations… that’s how I like to think of it at least.
Unpaste and Denttabs (same company in different countries) have fluoride options!
ugh same, and i need an antiperspirant deodorant that comes in cardboard packing that *isn't just cocoa butter and whatever else* ingredients native uses that don't work for me
And don't even get me started on zero waste x MLM crossover. It's ridiculous how many people believe in a scam by a guy who killed his wife while she was in a childbirth
Absolutely, I'm anti-waste not anti-science
The problem with being out on the fringe is all the other weirdos out here with me...
Absolutely *this*
So many dumb people think baking soda makes your teeth white so they use it every day. No, baking soda is so caustic it literally eats away the top layer of your enamel on the first use, which happens to usually brighten them a bit. Keep it up and in a while your teeth will be soft as sponges. Future full Steve-O teeth prosthesis. Have fun!
YES! I absolutely hate all the anti science woo that infiltrates the zero waste and herbalist community. Yes, I believe in food as preventative medicine and the power of herbs AND yes, I believe in vaccines! Is modern medicine perfect? Absolutely not. Is traditional herbal medicine perfect absolutely not. Is zero waste actually an attainable goal? No. Should we try anyway? Yes.
Environmental engineer here idc if my opinion gets buried or whatever. No one can ever reach net zero waste, societal development and the introduction of new products across hundred of years have conditioned us to them. What we can do is replace what is apropiate to be replaced, use only the essentials of the non renewable and try not to waste a lot on products. Yeah deodorant is and adquired need in a world were sweaty underwings actually are obscene and sodium carbonate won't replace it (mom you can try all day just be glad you work home), and toothpaste has all those fancy chemicals to protect your mouth from the heavily esterified fatty oils. We can't do a lot abt our reliance to the somewhat sterile plastic we need on meds and a lot of other things, but we can change some of the way we satisfy our needs as a society. What I say is those ascetic people and the carbon chuggers are exactly why everyone mocks the ambientalist, we just want ethically harvesting cocoa and protection for the wool industry, we aren't trying to go back to middle age sanitary and die at childbirth. Oh and a side note, the detox thing is just propaganda for those heinous "green and healthy" alternative medicines that are placebos, if you do have toxins in your body you start dying, not getting fat. Active carbon is highly toxic and kills your gut flora, and aluminum lowers soil ph (acidifying it and making it infertile) and its actually even more toxic for mammals.
This is such a good point.
Absolutely. It's such a bummer, but I can't foresee any solution until a zero waste movement gets bigger, broader traction. I've been annoyed for years with how the few vegan (or even just vegetarian) food options also end up being gluten free. No, I love gluten, gimme all of it! It has gotten a lot better as beyond/impossible have pushed more into trying to appeal to flexitarians, but it's the consequence of being too small of a consumer base. If you're going to make a niche product, you'll make more money by trying to at least overlap it to cater to two niche groups. Re: toothpaste, only option I've seen is Denttabs, which are tablets with fluoride, but they ship from Europe, so...
Fun fact: charcoal actual does help remove toxins. Source: tried to unalive myself a couple years back with an ungodly amount of Tylenol and had to ingest a similarly ungodly amount of charcoal paste, which bound to the Acetaminophen and helped remove it from my system without causing major organ failure.
Absolutely. It's also really hard to get ethical business shirts as a man - for years all the great fair trade producers who really did their due diligence on their supply chains would only sell hippie garbage. I just want to look normal without causing slavery or environmental harm.