Live and Travel for a Healthier, Happier World, with Earth Easy

We all know and understand the importance of reducing our environmental footprint on the natural environment, including the simpler issue of reducing the number of disposable items we use in our daily lives. The thing that seems to be most challenging, however, is finding suitable and effective replacements for all of the things that we are so accustomed to just throwing away.

This is where Earth Easy makes a healthy and sustainable living, well, easier! You can quite literally choose any aspect of daily life and the Earth Easy website has a natural, recycled, reusable or otherwise low impact product that will fit the purpose you’re looking for.

It is also important to keep plastics in perspective. Plastic, as a material, is a big part of our lives. You cannot escape it or pretend that it is not there, because it is everywhere and many of society’s essential systems would not function without it!

Try to look at it this way:

1. Plastic is generally only harmful once it is no longer useful. While it is being used and in a stable form, it’s not really causing any harm.

2. When plastics are thrown away, they can enter our food and water system, causing pollution and poisoning of the environment as they slowly break down.

3. When you use plastic products, choose recycled ones, because this prevents existing plastics from being thrown away and becoming harmful.

4. Use alternatives to plastic wherever possible, because this reduces the number of new plastics being made, which at some point have to be recycled or disposed of.

5. Enjoy learning about all the new products and cool new science helping to deal with the issue of plastic. There is some really interesting stuff out there and we are on the edge of a massive shift in materials technologies.

Just as previous generations were around to see plastics become the new “wonder material” in the 1950s, we are the generation that gets to see them phased out as something new inevitably takes their place!

While single-use plastics currently have center stage for the moment, there is a whole range of other areas we all need to be focusing on:

• Reducing plastics use in long-lasting products (clothing, homewares, kitchen utensils)
• Reducing the use of environmentally damaging cleaning products
• Using products made from recycled and repurposed materials where possible, to reduce the number of existing contaminants entering the water table.

Whatever you can think of, Earth Easy probably has a solution!

Here is just a small selection of some of our favorite products from the Earth Easy website:

Reusable Produce Bags

We love truly simple solutions for big problems and this is one of them. More and more people are already taking their own bags to the grocery or supermarket and some stores have eliminated them entirely, which is amazing. What is often overlooked in the little produce bags for fruits and vegetables? In fact, in some countries, the store won’t even sell you the product until you put it into one of their little plastic bags, because they have to weigh it and stick a price table onto it!

For the most part, these reusable produce bags help to solve this issue. Yes, they are made of plastic themselves, but until a truly suitable replacement material is found and then produced in large enough quantities to replace it, we still have to accept a certain amount of plastic in our lives. What is important is that any plastic-based product is reusable and long-lasting, with the potential to be recycled and repurposed.

Given that woven synthetics, like the polyester used to make these bags, can be made from recycled plastics, they can help to make a dent in the amount of plastic going to landfill while we find a better alternative.

Luumi (Plastic Replacement) Silicone Products

These Luumi silicone food containers, lids, and straws are a great long-life alternative to plastic containers.

One plastic alternative which has been around for many years and will easily outlast any plastic product you can find is Silicone. Not to be confused with Silica (the element o the periodic table), silicone is a synthetic polymer made from quartz-derived silicon and hydrocarbons sourced from either fossil fuels or natural gas. It shares some of the same environmental concerns as plastics I terms of its production, but it can last many years longer, withstanding oven temperatures and deep-freeze conditions with ease. It can also be recycled at the end of its lifespan, although facilities can be hard to find.

The best part of these Luumi silicone products is that they are designed to fit straight into the areas of our lives that so easily get filled with “disposable” single-use plastics.

Reusable straws which can be squashed, bent and folded are easier to carry around than rigid metal types.

Silicone lids are multipurpose and replace the plastic lids that are usually found on metal and glass containers.

Luumi silicone food bags are incredibly versatile and durable. You can even use them to carry liquids when you use the stainless steel watertight clamp to seal them shut!

BioScarf – Air Filter Scarf

Have you ever been in a city in the middle of winter, perhaps sitting in traffic, when it feels like a heavy blanket of smog has been draped at around head height over the ground? The BioScarf is designed to function as an air filter capable of preventing over 99% of airborne particulates from entering your lungs. Just imagine how many less single-use masks that could mean in countries like China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam to name only a few. For the rest of the world where breathing masks are not such a common sight, the BioScarf can simply help to filter out common pollutants, allergens, and even the cold and flu germs, while keeping your neck and face nice and warm!

The fabric is made for recycled PET water bottles and recycled PVC, so it’s even helping to keep plastic out of landfills.

Onsight Saigon Shoulder Bag

We included this in the list, simply because it is a great example of how small choices can make big differences in places we often don’t think about.

As well as being very functional, comfortable, maybe even stylish, this shoulder bag is made from 60% recycled plastics. By choosing this bag over one with no recycled materials, you have just contributed to a significant reduction in the production of new plastics while delaying the environmental impact of plastics that already exist!

Natural cleaning products such as Nellie’s All-Natural All-Purpose Cleaner and CitraDish Natural Dish Soap.

It’s not just plastics that contaminate our environment and therefore ourselves. When one subject starts getting a big surge of publicity it’s important to not lose focus on everything else!

The majority of conventional household cleaners inevitably dump large amounts of chlorine and phosphates, among others, into the water system. There are many more environmentally friendly cleaning products available these days and with increased competition between brands, they are finally starting to become more affordable for everyday use. There are also lots of long-forgotten options for making your own ‘natural’ cleaning products, using cheap and readily-available products like food-grade peroxide. If you go that route then make sure you know how to do this safely!

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