Road to Reduced Waste #5: Reusable tumblers

Photo from wirecutter

It’s 2019!!! A new year and a chance to better oneself 🙂 I’m continuing my journey of becoming more sustainable one small step at a time. Due to the mounds of trash accumulating on landfills and oceans, everyone is encouraged to do the same. Let us give a little thought onto our environment. We can do it!

Skip that plastic cup or a paper cup coated with plastic for your go-to drink. Use your reusable tumbler.
Try to stop buying bottled water and bring your own bottle. You’ll save money too

Sadly, hardly anything gets recycled in our country (ph) so this method is advised.
So let’s get to it then. Here are the many aspects of a reusable liquid container.

 

 

Material

Plastic – traps odors
Stainless Steel – almost odor resistant

 

Glass – odor resistant

 

Open access

One button press
Twist bottle type
Straw

Feature

Insulated – maintains temperature
Regular

Weight

Insulated stainless steel and glass ones are way heavier than the plastics

Size

Or
266ml, 475ml, 710ml, 1.7l
Or
Short, grande, venti iced, and coke liter

What’s on the market?

Insulated
Corkcicle, Swell, Stanley, Klean Kanteen, Hydroflask, Tiger, Yeti and more

Plastics
Nalgene, Camelbak, Home Gallery, and tons of other brands

How to determine what you need:

Size of bag

Backpacks & Spacey bags
– up to 25oz/700ml

Handbags (photo of my mom’s bags)
– pick a small one – 16oz or 9oz/266ml or something even smaller
My mom chose 9oz so it’ll fit in most of her handbags.

Willingness to carry the extra weight

– plastic vs metal

Storage

Stuff it in bag
– spill-proof canteen or bottle
Place in car or table
– cup or tumbler

Style

Aesthetics is important. Choose a design you love so that you’ll like looking at it and you’ll bring it everywhere

My choice:

Look how sleek they look. I’m in lurrve 😍

Outdoors, Gym
Corkcicle Canteen 16oz
-wont spill. Cold water readily available until the end of a day

Daily use, Take out drinks
Corkcicle tumbler 16oz
– easier to drink, pop in a straw or drink right from the lid
– still keeps the temperature for a little while

Malls, errands, travel
Plastic flask
– lightweight and smaller size for portability


Previous choice:
Nalgene 600ml bottleThis has been with me for so long. So sulit ang 600php. It was so easy to use but the design wasn’t sophisticated and plastics are harder to clean when I pour something other than plain water. So it’s time to be replaced

Challenge

I’ll be honest. Lugging around a water bottle is a hassle. It takes up bag space and the weight is noticeable.

Washing it everyday is tiring too but I got used to it in a while

Oh and there are days when I forget to bring these.

Review

For durability, I can attest to Nalgene. I dropped mine from the second story onto the ground and even if it was just made out of plastic, it didn’t crack at all! Jawdrop. 10/10

For maintaining temperature, corkcicle canteen is amaaazing. Even after 10 hours, there’s till ice in my water. If you want to drink right from it, I advise you to use the canteen for cold drinks. For hot liquids, it does its job too well. So a boiling water will still be really hot even after a couple of hours.

For to-go drinks, it might be more fitting for you to get a reusable cup.

Note: I’m not asking you to buy if you already have one. This is just a little guide if you decide to do so.

That’s it for step 5. Wait for my next one! 😉

Road to Reduced Waste #4: Bamboo toothbrushes

Plastic Toothbrushes, the ones that we use aren’t sustainable at all. While it is recyclable, most recycling centers don’t accept them. Frankly, these just get thrown in the trash. Read up more here. Every plastic toothbrush ever created still exists since their invention in the 1930’s. No way! We should stop contributing to that pile and make a switch.

Photo from minka

5. Eco-friendly toothbrushes

Level of difficulty: very easy (0 out of 5 )

These are nowhere to be found in groceries. So finally I ordered them online. About timeeee!

Material:

Bamboo – less porous than wood, anti-bacterial properties

Photo from carousell

Review:

The one I’ve tested is Minka toothbrush. The bristles are very soft ++. However, the brush head is a little wide for my tiny mouth, I kept hitting my chubby cheeks so it was a bit uncomfortable to use.

Challenge:

The brush body takes a while to dry. For travels, using it then stuffing it back to your toiletry bag might not be ideal. Air dry or wipe it with a towel before storing it.

Photo from carousell

A step further:

The ones I have are bamboo toothbrushes with nylon bristles. While bamboo is biodegradable, nylon isn’t. Next step would be to find one that uses boar bristles or any other natural material.

That’s all for now. Quite easy eh? 🙂

Road to Reduced Waste #3: Reusable cutlery

Do you usually have your food delivered, buy em as take-outs or drive thrus? I do.
You usually get a pair of spoon and fork to go, right? After using, this goes to the trash. What a waste! Then sadly to the ocean soon. Nooo! So I’m changing my habits slowly.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnuyptAB4lD

3. Reusable cutlery

Level of difficulty: somewhat easy (2 out of 5)

For months, I’ve been using steel straws and so far the results are a success.🎉 Now I’m ready to move on to reusable cutlery.

Last mid-September, I ordered a couple of sets for my boyfriend and I. My friends wanted in as well. Yey! This purchase made me so happy 😄 (mubo kalipay haha)

Deliberation:

I realize beforehand that this won’t be easy breezy. At first, I wanted to get just a spork or a fpoon (key and peele 😂) so that I only need to wash one. Laziness showing haha. But after some thought, we usually need both spoon and fork to eat at ease (i.e. chicken at jollibee)

Materials:

Here are the materials of reusable cutlery available on the market.
Bamboo – lightweight, somewhat durable (up to 3 years with proper maintenance)
Stainless Steel – bit heavy, durable (lasts a lifetime), easiest to clean
Plastic – lightest, breaks easily, absorbs flavors 😨

Don’t reuse plastic spoon and forks from takeouts. These are designed to be single use and will break down after a couple of washes. Chemicals will leak into your food.

Before everything, I did just that but yikes! It’s not advisable at all.

My choice:

Bamboo

This is the best option for my purpose cause I need to stuff it into my bag and bring it everywhere. It’s less porous and like all wood, has anti-bacterial properties as well.

I got mine from sip.ph. It contains spoon, fork, knife and chopsticks wrapped in a canvas.

Usage:

Spoon and Fork, occasionally knife – meals
Chopsticks – For noodles, french fries and other finger foods. Especially when watching movies or working on my laptop when I don’t want my hands to have flavor powder (potato corner or cheetos fingers) or be oily.

Challenge:

Wash right after use. It requires a bit more effort to wash these than my straws.
After washing, you need to air it out completely dry before storing.

Stats:

All right. Tally time! *drumrolls please……………  Here’s how many Charles and I used in about a month and a half. Look at this illustration for perspective made by charles teng :3

Daghana diay. That’s 21 less spoons and forks to be thrown in the trash! Yosh!

I’m not done yet, for the chopsticks, total used is 14.

      

Overall, I deem this a short success! 🙂

Review:
After a month usage, the bamboo utensils are still holding up plus I get compliments on my black straws ❤

As for the container, my canvas burrito is the best! 🙂

The colors white and bluegreen stands out so it catches my eye every time and I don’t forget to bring it as often as I did before yey.

That’s it! Thanks for reading all the way. See you in step 4!

Road to Reduced Waste #2

2. Foldable tote bags
Level of difficulty: easy (1 out of 5)

Types

Canvas, cloth, waterproof material

This is the easiest challenge of all which should have been step 1 haha.

For shopping, I use a canvas tote freebie or a navy blue polka dot I got my friends at Happy Garaje/Folk fiction.

For heavier items, I bring the waterproof tote, a gift from a friend.

For groceries, a large spacious one does the job. Im using the super cute Honestbee bag 🙂

I didn’t buy any of my foldable totes except for the blue polka dot bag.

Note this is not a sponspored post 😂 Zalora or honestbee if you’re willing to send some items over, I wont say no hahaha

Review

Canvas bags gets dirty fairly easily but are easy to wash.

The ones Im using are pretty durable.

Challenge

I keep forgetting to bring one when I need them. Here are a few steps that can help:

• Always bring one when you intend to go shopping.
• Stuff one in your daily bag for impromptu purchases.
• 2 or more in your car. For groceries, you may need more than 1 bag.

That’s it! See you in step #3

Road to Reduced Waste #1

Photo from Don’t Panic It’s Organic

Have you watched the video of a turtle with a straw stuck on its nose? I watched volunteers try to pull it out and saw the animal writhe in pain. I felt waves of guilt and pity. I use straws. Most of us do. Poor turtle! Our habits need to change. We needlessly consume too much plastic and our environment’s getting worse. There must be something I can do. Even something little in my daily life.

1. Reusable Straws

Level of difficulty: easy (1 out of 5)

Charles is crazy on coffee and I’m an avid drinker of milk tea and coffee. Everytime we order a drink, we use up a disposable plastic straw.

A friend started selling metal straws with brushes. This is an appropriate baby step to reduce my plastic consumption!

I decided to test it out with my boyfriend. 1 bubble straw and 1 bendy straw for each person.

Types:
Here are the types of reusable straws available on the market.
Material: metal, bamboo, plastic
Kinds: straight, bendy, bubble

Review:
The first few uses were a bit of a hitch. It has a taste of a metal but it will go away in a few washes. You can also feel the hardness but you can get used to it in no time. I had a habit of biting my straws. Well, not anymore 😀

Challenge:
Wash after use and don’t forget to pack them back into your bag. Often times, I forget to bring them or better yet, maybe I should get another set to leave at the office.

Stats:
For about 3 months, I recorded each time we saved using a plastic straw with our reusable ones.

In total, we saved 61 straws. Wow! I can’t believe we could have used up that much!

If you want to try, this is quick and easy 🙂 The straws are so easy to clean with the thin brushes that came with it, you can stuff it back in your bag after use.

Refuse the plastic straw, go reusable instead!