We can make a difference with the products we buy

Buy eco-friendly, plastic-free products when you can

There are microplastics in our water

Does it make a difference if you buy eco-friendly products? Is it worth it, even if they cost a bit more? The answer to both questions is a resounding “yes”.

First, buying products that aren’t made of plastic or don’t arrive in plastic packaging means you personally have less exposure to plastic and can decrease the microplastics that are already in your food, water, and body. The products I recommend on KnowGreenValley.com/shop are biodegradeable and safer for the environment than single-use plastic, the vast majority of which is never recycled. It clogs our landfills, potentially poisoning our groundwater.

Who hasn’t heard of the massive floating garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean? Our plastic laundry detergent jugs, water bottles, and shampoo bottles are sickening marine life and degrading into microplastics that have entered our food chain. Many efforts are underway to clean up the garbage patch, but it is a losing battle until we break up with this sort of plastic to begin with. If you walked into your house with the kitchen sink clogged, with the faucet running hard, would you start to clean up the wet floor, or would you first turn off the faucet?

We must tell manufacturers that we want our products to be safe for the environment, safe for our bodies, and have the smallest carbon footprint possible.

Compare Sheets Laundry Club’s lightweight laundry soap delivered in a cardboard box versus to a big bottle of Tide purchased at Safeway or Target. Products like Tide are mostly water. The plastic jug took petroleum and lots of energy to create. The large size and weight of the bottle of Tide took large trucks burning diesel fuel to deliver to the warehouse and then to the grocery store. The massive aisles of just the laundry section of the grocery store require expensive, polluting air conditioning and lighting. The heavy fragrances used in laundry detergent are made from petrochemical derivatives, which create VOCs, bad for the environment and our air quality.

When a large number of consumers take small but meaningful steps, it matters. We changed our cars over time from leaded gasoline and banned the damaging freon of air conditioners. Public outcry is changing laws about single-use and hard-to-recycle plastic. Do your part by purchasing alternatives today.