Plastic NOT Fantastic

So as I am sure I have stated before, my husband and I have been on the journey of becoming more green over the last three years since my oldest joined us here on this beautiful place called Earth! We first began the process to save a little money but after our Ella was born we continued. We wanted to do our part on not only keeping this Earth in good shape for her and her children, but, to keep her healthy and away from the amount of chemicals there are in our everyday products that are causing this uproar in Cancer in people who should be living far longer than they are! As a parent we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to guarantee a healthy upbringing for our children and why expose them to the billions of toxins that companies are putting in things we use to eat off of, brush our teeth with or even eat! How is this even legal is the question I keep coming back to?! There are always unanswered questions and although I probably cannot ever get an answer that I am satisfied with I can do my part to avoid these harmful things as much as possible.


One happy and HEALTHY kid!



Over the last few years we have tried a few things to become greener,  some we have ditched and some that fit our family needs and lifestyle we have stuck with. We have officially switched to all organic, paraben free; cleaning products, shampoos, body washes, toothpastes, deodorants, lotions and diaper rash creams. We have made our own wipes out of essential oils, recycles paper towels, water and baking soda. We have stopped buying plastic baggies, paper napkins, and paper plates and now only use our reusable grocery bags and mesh sacks for produce and other groceries. All of these have been easy changes and have not costed me any more money than before as I now do not have drawers full of beauty products I only used once and only now only buy new when absolutely needed. I have yet to buy organic makeup but trust me, once I get through all the makeup I have, I will never be buying anything from Walmart or Mary Kay again!



There is an abundance amount of things I am dying to try or change out but it is either too expensive or the things I have now are not warn out yet. Making it is more Eco friendly to keep them out of the landfill until need be. Some of the things I am excited to try in the next year or so is bamboo sheets and towels, makeup of course, less toxic toys for the kids (right now they have more than enough I am actually trying to give them away!), and more things for my kitchen which brings me to the whole idea of today's post....



The awesome thing about reusable bags is that you
 can get them in all different shapes, sizes and designs to fit your need or style,  Love them!



About six months ago my husband brought me this article that was given to him from a customer he was dealing with for work. I guess he noticed that she too was very into the organic way and he began telling her about our journey. The article was about the harmful effects that plastic has on our body. Plastic contains BPA which is Bisphenol A, this is what is put in plastic that helps harden it. Research shows that this chemical can cause obesity, early onsets of puberty in children, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver complications and blunten the effectiveness on chemotherapy drugs. Sure now a days most items have a stamp on them that states they are BPA free but that doesn't matter because 90% or more of them still have a Pythalate in them which is abbreviated to be PVC or Polyvinyl Chloride. The main concern with this chemical is pregnancy complications, a hormone change it causes in males causing more of a feminine behavior, and the ellevation of cramps and bloating during PMS in women. These are just two of the many other ingredients that are in that innocent plastic water bottle you have sitting on your desk right now that are harmful to us.



Totally want this Popsicle maker set! Safer alternative to the plastic
kind I am sure you all have owned at one point in life!


After reading this small article he was given we both knew that we needed to make a change. We thought about just getting rid of all plastic in the house since we had a baby on the way and even though my oldest was done putting everything in sight into her mouth we knew we would soon have another youngin busy at exploring everything with her gooey gums. Well, when we started looking around we realized that is virtually impossible to do, wishful thinking in fact. Do you realize how many things are made of plastic? Take a look around I would have to say, especially if you have kids majority of your belongings are in fact plastic! We decided that one, we can't just go get a dumpster and rid our house of plastic because how Eco friendly would that be? and two we absolutely do not possess the funds to replace everything at once.

Favorite food storage containers,
cheap and can multipurpose them!

So we decided to do a couple things from here on out. The first one was to start with the kitchen. My mother in law sells Tupperware so we had a heaping cupboard of nice, fairly new Tupperware so I went through it and pieced them together by sets, then I went through the utensil drawer and so forth. I then went on my favorite sight right now, M2M which is a Facebook sight for local moms to sell and buy gently used things and started selling! Within a week I sold ALL of the plastic in my kitchen and took that money and bought stainless steel, glass, wood or ceramic replacements for the things I absolutely needed. It was so exciting for me to be able to not only buy all new things but to buy things that will probably last forever, are safer for my family to eat off of and I did it without adding anything to the landfill or hurting my wallet! I still have a few more things I would like for example more stainless steel sippy cups/ water bottles and some glass storage containers for food but all in due time! The next direction we are taking is to start tackling the rest of the house and not bring in any more plastic! This is going to be hard as we have great friends and family that are always gifting us things, but, the least we can do is not buy any ourselves. I refuse to buy even plastic baggies, which has been the hardest thing for my husband to adjust to, we use brown paper bags for snacks, reusable glass or stainless steel containers, wax paper or aluminum foil. It isn't as difficult as I thought because now that I look at the way we consume differentl,  I do a heck of a lot less shopping, lol!




If you want to learn more about the harmful toxins that companies put into their plastics go here... http://www.breastcancerfund.org/clear-science/chemicals-linked-to-breast-cancer/plastics/

There is also this family that I have read about that decided to live completely Plastic free! I don't know how they did it but it is extremely insightful! They have a book that I have not yet gotten my hands on but here is a bit about them if it interests you... http://www.odditycentral.com/news/austrias-green-heroes-family-lives-a-life-without-plastic.html

I even try to limit the plastic my food comes in, it is possible.
Actually pretty easy if you are buying the most nutritious foods out there, (preservative free that is)