3 simple, sustainable swaps for your home

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Happy Earth Day, friends! Celebrating our planet for Earth Day comes in all sorts of forms. Whether you’re out enjoying nature, cleaning it up, or looking for ways to be a bit more eco-conscious in your life, every bit counts.

When it comes to your home, here are a few swaps that are good for you and the planet.

#1: clean up your soap.

One thing about being an adult that I get excited about is having fancy soap. It’s a true accomplishment, maybe even a definition of success, if you can sport some fancy soap by your sink. What makes soap fancy? I’ll leave that up to your interpretation but to me, it smells good, it looks pretty and it has ingredients I feel good about.

When it comes to your fancy hand soap, you can be a bit more eco-friendly by doing two things: paying attention to the ingredients and using a refillable soap dispenser. I like to buy my soap in bulk and found that the 3-pack of 32oz cartons of Cleancult Liquid Hand Soap was a good option for our family. They sell their product in recyclable paper cartons and their ingredients are clean and biodegradable, making them good for us and the planet. The ingredient worm hole can get a bit overwhelming so I like to reference EWG’s Skin Deep database so I can quickly look up products or ingredients to see their toxicity level if I’m unsure.

In regards to the dispenser, try to avoid buying single use plastic soap containers and instead opt for a refillable one made of materials like glass, stone or ceramic. This allows you to buy larger portions of soap at a time (many brands offer large refill containers) and fill up your dispenser as needed, all while maintaining the fanciness.

Below are 9 refillable soap dispensers $15 or less that add a touch of class to the side of your sink.

Pink Ceramic Soap Pump, White Rubber Coated Soap Pump, Matte Black Ceramic Liquid Soap Dispenser, Recycled Glass Soap Dispenser, Smokey Glass Soap Pump Blue, Fluted Glass Solid Soap Pump Clear, White Reactive Glaze Soap Dispenser, Solid Marble Soap Pump Dark Gray, Black, Gray And White Terrazzo Liquid Soap Dispenser

#2: check your cotton.

So many items in our home are made of cotton including the textiles we use on a daily basis. I’m talking sheets, towels, table linens, curtains, etc. If you’re in the market to spruce up your home with new textiles, you’ll want to dig a little deeper into the cotton quality you are purchasing.

As a starting point, look for the OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certification label. This means that every part of the item has been tested for harmful substances and has been proven to be harmless to human health. If it’s harmful to human health, it’s also harmful to our waterways, soil, wildlife and the air we breathe.

If you want to take it a step further, investing in organic cotton is even better. Organic cotton is sustainably grown without toxic chemicals, making it a healthier option for humans and less polluting to the Earth. It takes less water and less carbon to produce and is better quality because it’s grown in healthier soil.

Turkish organic cotton is even better yet. Turkish cotton is made from long fiber cotton which is stronger, more absorbent and softer. It actually gets softer with time which is pretty neat. Nobody likes scratchy towels, right? The Turkish Towel Company is an excellent source for high-quality Turkish cotton offering organic product and a variety of colors and styles. It’s a fair trade, family-run, woman-owned business, all of which I can definitely get behind.

Investing in high quality materials means it’ll last longer, which means a lower rate of consumption because you don’t need to replace it as often, and that means less product going into a landfill.

So while the cost up front may be higher, you actually end up saving money in the long run.

This is a swap that may take some time to level up to. No need to go out and buy all new towels if the ones you have are perfectly fine, just keep it in mind for the next time you do need to purchase new and consider swapping for a higher, more sustainable grade of cotton.

#3: go low VOC.

Since we’ve moved into our house 5 years ago I’ve painted nearly every inch of it, sometimes twice. My husband is probably more than annoyed with how much I like to paint things but honestly the power of paint just never disappoints. You can transform a space, a piece of furniture or even a door so easily with paint, it never ceases to amaze me.

One thing I learned along the way of my painting adventures was what VOCs are. VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compound. There’s a lot of science behind that term which I frankly don’t really understand but the moral of the story is they are chemical compounds that are emitted as gasses from solid or liquid form, causing a variety of short and long-term health effects like headaches and asthma all the way up to cancer. Sounds yummy, right?

Paints and stains are common culprits of high VOC content due to their chemical make-up. They not only pose a threat to human health but because they are emitted in the form of gas, they pollute the air we breath affecting all sorts of things in our environment.

Thankfully, many paint companies offer low VOC and even zero VOC products. Brands like Clare Paint, a direct-to-consumer paint brand with a curated color palette, Benjamin Moore, a well known designer paint brand, and Farrow and Ball, a high-end British paint and wallpaper company that distributes in the US, all offer zero VOC paints with incredible viscosity which means less coats and a more durable finish, all while being as low in toxicity as possible. For a less expensive option, I like to use Behr paint’s Marquee Line that is low VOC, available at The Home Depot.

A good rule of thumb to ensure a low VOC content is just to look for the Greenguard Gold certification label (seen in the image below). Whatever brand you choose, the next time you’re buying a can of paint, swap your usual go-to for something less toxic and you’ll be happy you did.

These are upgrades that align with our lifestyle as a family, and things that I want to invest the time and money towards. However, they may not be right for you and that’s okay! I am a big advocate on self-education. There is a lot of information out there and ultimately it’s up to us to not only learn about but to understand what’s best & what’s realistic for us and our family.

The goal towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle is about progress, not perfection. Keep that in mind if you’re feeling overwhelmed about it all, I know I do from time to time! Progress happens little by little and if we’re willing to make some changes in our habits, invest in quality over quantity and maybe even learn some new tricks, that’s when the progress happens.

Just think if we all did that how much farther along we could be in helping out our sweet mother earth?