We toss out over 80 pounds of textiles each year. These textiles are often made of plastic materials (polyester, nylon), made in unethical conditions, dyed with harsh dyes that often get put into the rivers, etc. Even a single cotton shirt releases carbon emissions and uses tons of water.
So the best thing to prevent the unsustainable growth of the fashion industry is to make sure that your clothing lasts as long as possible. To do so, mending clothing is a must. So here are some resources to help you learn how to do various things, such as sewing a button, to tailoring clothes, or even upcycling old clothing into new styles.
These are just a few of the things that you can do in order to make sure that your clothing lasts for a long time. Nobody wants to keep buying new clothing, as it is expensive and wasteful.
So making alterations to your clothing, or fixing small holes hen you see them can be hugely beneficial to your wallet, to garment workers, and to the environment in the long term.
Many people have asked questions, so I decided that I should answer
them to the best of my ability! So let’s see what people are asking!
How to make small clothes bigger, or short clothes longer
This question was asked a lot, for instance, Celestriankle and Drachenstocther
are at least two users who asked this, and this is a great question!
Often you see how to make large clothing smaller, but not the other way
around.
Mostly
this is done by just adding a wedge of extra fabric between the seams,
and this can make youtr clothes last and fit you, even if you fluctuate
in your weight.
Here is a resource about adding more butt to your pants:
When it comes to repairing the crotch of jeans,
which is what anyone with thick thighs know all too well the irritation
of, there are a few ways that you can do that. For instance:
This question was asked by user CleanLinens and Bovel.
One
person, OnYourGoat, asked about resources for people who cannot thread a
needles, The good news with this, is that there are needles out there
that you do not have to thread if you have vision issues. These are
called Self Threading needles.
Also, there were a few tips by users on how to make your sewing more sustainable. User SaveATruckRideAnOptimus-Prime states
that you can get blankets and table-cloths from the thrift shop
(something I often do myself) in order to have fabric to make your own
clothing.
This is even more sustainable if you are choosing cotton, wool, or linen fabrics.
The last thing to mention is that user AssassinationTipsForLadies says:
“there
is a great sewing instructor on YouTube called Evelyn Wood who has a
whole bunch of videos on mending and the construction of old clothes.“
Let me know if you have any more questions or tips!
If you don’t have a sewing machine and done want to buy one, do check with your local library as it’s becoming more and more common for libraries to rent out things like sewing machines and other expensive but useful items. If yours doesn’t, expressing interest in a “library of things” could well be the motivation your library needs to get one going.
Fabric stores sometimes rent out machines too so check if you have one near by.
And if you’ve got any sewing/knitting clubs or places like the WI that are popular with old women, you will absolutely be able to find someone who will gladly let you use their machine and teach you how.
If you have older family members ask them about sewing cause chances are they’d love to teach you
If you need supplies on the cheap, check out local estate sales. I will never have to buy new hand stitching needles thanks to someone’s sweet grandmother who loved to quilt.
Who tossed out 80lbs a year? Is that meant for the average household? That sounds like way too little for a country or something but too much for one person.
Yes, that is 80 pounds per person, per year. In the US, Canada, and the UK at least.
Some of us love to get new books and be transported into a new magical realm. Some of us don’t enjoy books at all, and prefer to get our information in other ways. Either way, you are likely to have a lot of books, magazines, and textbooks that you may not want. What should you do with these? Let’s look at some ways to reuse or recycle them!
Resell them
Selling your excess is always the best way to give your stuff a new life. This is because, unless someone specifically asks you if they can have or borrow a book, people tend to care more about something if they have to spend money on it.
reselling used books is also a good thing to do if you are given a lot of books, or you find a fair amount of them when dumpster diving. I know I find my fair share of them, and selling them helps me to pay bills or rent.
Give them away
YThis may sound odd given what I just said above, but giving them away can be beneficial as well. If someone asks you for a certain book, or you have family or friends that you know may want to read a particular book you have, then giving away your copy might be the best bet.
Also, you can have a small library if you have the ability to put one up where you life. These are small outdoor pantries that hold books that people can put in, or take out.
Cut them up and recycle them!
You cannot recycle books whole due to the covers and glue, but you CAN tear out all of the pages and recycle the pages instead. This can be great if you are recycling a workbook, if the book is otherwise heavily written in it, or if the book is damaged.
Also, some books are filled with hateful or harmful rhetoric. Giving them away or reselling them might just propagate the harmful ideas, so this is another way to give the pages a new life!
Use them for craft projects!
People have been able to take old books and turn them into beautiful works of art! This is a great way to reuse an old worn or vintage book while also stretching your creative muscles!
Cutting up magazines for scrapbooking, or making paper beads, is always a fun thing to do as well!
So maybe see what you can make! Or you can try any of the other tips, and more, to make sure that books and magazines get reused or recycled instead of trashed.
***
If you like what you have read and want to support me, you can by using the shop links below! But only buy if you need new supplies, clothes, etc. Don’t buy just for the sake of buying.
Upcycleability- My Etsy shop where I sell my upcycled crafts and craft supplies:
UpcycledLucy– My Poshmark to buy used clothing that I salvage from being thrown out
UpcycledLucy– My Mercari where I also sell used clothing, but cheaper
Lucienes– My eBay shop where I sell everything else that I salvage, such as books, games, boxes, and more
5-10% of all sales from the above links go towards 350 dot org, an intersectional activist organization working to fight climate change and get climate justice.
If you do not have tailor’s chalk, what are some eco-friendly replacements that you can use for marking on your fabric?
Sidewalk/chalkboard chalk:
This is a low-impact and inexpensive way of marking on fabric. while it may not be as thin as tailor’s chalk, it can be sharpened easily to make a more fine tip. Using different colors might make it harder to remove from fabric, but since this chalk is supposed to be used by kids, it is most likely going to be easy enough to remove the markings from clothes.
Pencils
I use regular pencils a lot when I am cutting up fabric. When used on lighter colors of fabric, a standard #2 pencil will create a thin dark line that can be easily traced with a pair of scissors to give a fantastic cut!
The main issue is, not only would this be hard to do with knit fabrics, but it might not be easy to come off the fabric if you have any residue left from the pencil after cutting. Also, the pencil cannot be too sharp or it will catch on the fabric instead of “writing” on it.
Chalk pencils
Personally, I LOVE using these! I have bought a couple of them on eBay from someone who was destashing them, and they work wonders for writing on fabric! You can even get them in different colors, such as different skin tones, white, and gray, so you can switch them up to use on any fabric you need to ujse them on.
The ones I use are General’s Pastel Chalk. Idk if any others work well.
What not to use to mark fabric:
Crayons/Color Pencils
I learned the hard way that it is very hard to get wax out of fabric
Eyeliner
I learned this the hard way as well. Not only is eyeliner fairly oily, but it also doesn’t dry. This means that it is super easy to smudge, leaving marks all over the fabric, which are very hard to remove.
Markers
While there are fabric markers you can use for this specific purpose, most markers will bleed and run on fabric, and can be hard, if not impossible to remove.
You do not have to be conventional when it comes to sewing, and finding some alternatives can also help to get them secondhand for cheap. So try these out if you like!
***
If you like what you have read and want to support me, you can by using the shop links below! But only buy if you need new supplies, clothes, etc. Don’t buy just for the sake of buying.
Upcycleability- My Etsy shop where I sell my upcycled crafts and craft supplies:
UpcycledLucy– My Poshmark to buy used clothing that I salvage from being thrown out
UpcycledLucy– My Mercari where I also sell used clothing, but cheaper
Lucienes– My eBay shop where I sell everything else that I salvage, such as books, games, boxes, and more
5-10% of all sales from the above links go towards 350 dot org, an intersectional activist organization working to fight climate change and get climate justice.
I generally just try to put out good information on things we can do to help when and if we can (because corporations are not on Tumblr reading my blog), but apparently, this brought criticism of me and my shop, so I am going to address that criticism.
The article this is about is the only one out of 121 articles written so far that has somehow gone viral. You can read it HERE
The person who mentioned this had a few things to say about me, so let’s start off with this:
“Corporations are personally responsible for the majority of all industrial waste including textiles. the og post is written in a way to make you feel socially guilty and obligated to do minuscule acts to "help” (just like all the cutesy water conservation tips that blind us to the fact that corporate farms and golf courses use more water in a week than a human uses in a year).“
I 100% agree that the main issues are a result of corperations and governments. I talk a lot about how we need systemic change and how the governments are to blame in my article on overpopulation.
"Living an eco-friendly lifestyle ourselves is a good starting point, but the governments and corporations make the majority of the trash and environmental harm. Do not harm minorities because you have an ignorant misunderstanding of how the world works. Do your part, and force the people who are causing this problem: rich folk, corporations, and governments, to do theirs.”
I talk about this all the time, both here on my Tumblr, but also over on Medium. I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty about their life while giving corporations an out. I am calling out corporations, while also providing nifty tips that I have learned about myself to help in what little ways that we can. We need both systemic change and social change.
Hold companies and government accountable, but also live ourselves in a way that we want to see the world. This is how I personally live my own life.
op then punctuates the post with adverts for her shops: where she’ll make money off of concepts that are supposed to help mitigate needless consumption. it doesn’t take into account that interstate transport has a shitty “eco footprint” too and thus shipping via Etsy or Poshmark is adding in new pollutants.
Yes, at the end of most of my posts with links to my shops where I sell secondhand and salvaged materials. I do this so that if anyone is going to buy something anyways, they can buy it in a more sustainable way.
I only sell within my own country or the one country adjacent, and I only ship using longer shipping times (no 2-day shipping if I can avoid it), and I only use the US Postal Service as they are heading to your home to deliver your mail anyhow, so it is a greener option and easier for me to implement.
I also know that all things shipped has a carbon footprint, which is why I buy carbon credits, and donate 5% of my rather low income to intersectional climate activist group 350 dot org.
And as I often state: Don’t buy from me if you don’t need anything. I sell used clothing, destash fabrics, salvaged materials for crafts, and upcycled products that I make. If you are going to sew anyways, buying salvaged fabric and the like is far better than buying brand new fabrics that are often made using harmful chemicals and poor labor rights.
it’s remarkably clever, the monetization of “wokeness”, and OPs post is a fantastic example of it.
I am a trans woman, pansexual, disabled, neurodivergent, and live in poverty. I know very well what “wokeness” is, and I doubt what I am doing is anything close to that.
i’d be amazed if they didn’t take any business or advertising classes because the setup of the OG post is nearly textbook… and I do mean textbook, as in “I personally have textbooks that describe using the methodologies OP is using in the OG post to make herself money”.
I did not take any business or advertising classes at all. I suck at advertising. I have been writing blogs and the like for myself for over 15 years on a variety of different topics, and that is the only way I know how to promote my business. I write about something I am fascinated in and want to learn more about myself, or else share knowledge with people who don’t know what I have learned via research, and then link my upcycle shop if anyone is interested in finding some things they may need without the impact of buying new.
And I love how they make it sound like I am striking it rich. On Etsy, over the last 3 months (after fees), I made about 235$, or about 80$ a month.
On Mercari over the same 3 month period, I made 66 dollars, so 22$ a month.
On eBay, 90 day total is 242$, or about 80$ a month.
Poshmark has my most income, at 377$ since January 1st, or almost 4 months. That is, again, about 80$ a month.
So for all of my “monetization of wokeness” I make about… 250 bucks a month. And that is about half to a little more than half of my monthly income. The rest I get through what few freelance writing clients that I get in a month.
I live off 400-500 USD a month in earnings. I get by with this, and I am happy to do what I love, such as dumpster diving, disassembling clothing, and selling or reselling what I make or find. It also allows me to work from home, as someone who is a trans woman, pansexual, disabled, neurodivergent, and in poverty.
I am not trying to trick anyone, I am simply trying to survive in a Capitalist hellscape. If selling salvaged handbags and scarves made from T-shirts is my sin, then burn me at the stake.
I will be writing a new article soon about more eco-friendly craft supplies.
At this point, I would be shocked if anyone didn’t know of the massive issues perpetuated by Amazon against their workers, against the environment, and more. That said, one great alternative that I have been engaging in is actually that has been rivaling it since its beginnings: eBay.
The Transparency of eBay
One thing I really enjoy about eBay is the fact that it tells you the numbers. Amazon refuses to show their carbon emissions numbers to the world, and has ties to many companies and entities, like the Military, that is a gas-guzzling giant.
Meanwhile, eBay is open and honest about all of what they do, and what they are doing to reduce their overall impact. You can read their 2019 environmental impact report here.
No extras, Less energy usage
Unlike Amazon, eBay does not contribute to GHG emissions via shipping their own goods, having tons of massive warehouses, production of branded products, making their own boxes, overpacking, and more. eBay is mainly just a site used to provide the transactions and the individual sellers package and ship on their own accord. In fact, according to their report:
“When looking at our corporate footprint, data centers comprise the majority of our emissions at 57 percent, and offices and business travel contribute 43 percent.”
This means that most of the emissions are created through the computer data centers that allow the transactions to take place, as well as holding the data, images, videos, etc. This means that the majority of their emissions can be drastically reduced by simply reducing their reliance on fossil fuels and switching to renewable energy. Which they are.
Their use of renewable energy has been going up quite a bit over the past few years, and they are hoping to reach 100% renewable by 2025.
Buy Local and Used
Every time I go to buy something on eBay, I specifically change my search criteria to only include items that are located here in the US, and are used. I can’t always get something that fits both of these criteria, but 99% of the few things I do buy, are. These includes books, specific items of clothing to upcycle, etc.
Doing this drastically reduces your emissions footprint, and also helps a generally small seller be able to make a little bit of money from selling their old books, games, or clothes, etc. There are a fair amount of larger shops who sell on here too, like goodwill, but many of them are small sellers reselling their own stuff, or buying liquidation crates and selling the contents.
Other Alternatives to Amazon
eBay is not the only alternative to consider either. You can also find some awesome goods at places like Etsy, Poshmark, Depop, Mercari, Facebook Marketplace, and more. There are so many online shops that sell secondhand goods that there is really no reason to ever shop at Amazon. Or, at the very least, reduce your shopping there to a minimum.
✯✯✯
If you like what you have read and want to support me, you can by using the shop links below!
Upcycleability- My Etsy shop where I sell my upcycled crafts and craft supplies:
UpcycledLucy– My Poshmark to buy used clothing that I salvage from being thrown out
UpcycledLucy– My Mercari where I also sell used clothing, but cheaper
Lucienes– My eBay shop where I sell everything else that I salvage, such as books, games, boxes, and more
5-10% of all sales from the above links go towards 350 dot org, an intersectional activist organization working to fight climate change and get climate justice.
I have been trying to get on the vaccine schedule since I have been eligable about a week ago. But sadly, due to poverty and lack of transportation, the only place I could feasibly go to get the vaccine was my local clinic. But they have been booked solid.
Well, I checked this morning, lo and behold, someone cancelled their appointment and I was able to snatch up an appointment for an hour later. This is important due to me having athsma, being disabled and frail, as well as given what I do for a living, which is upcycling and dumpster diving. I was also able to get one for my husband in a few weeks time.
I am posting this not to gloat, but to urge others to get the vaccine when they can. It is very safe, and prevents sickness not just to yourself, but to those around you who may be elderly or immunocompromised.
Coronavirus is not a hoax, it is not a lie, it is not over reported, it is a serious virus that has killed over half a million people in my country alone. So if you have the ability to do so, please get a vaccine. And continue to wear your face masks for the next few months.
Please be curteous to those around you who may have an increased risk, or who may not be able to get the vaccine.
And please don’t just throw your masks on the ground. Dispose of them properly.
As mentioned in my last post, we need to do what we can to help each other. I do not have much that can help in this time of need, but I do have a growing platform here on Tumblr. And one way I can use it is to give a shoutout to sustainable Asian-American/Canadian brands that are doing awesome things!
I am including some Canadian shops as well due to the fact that hatred and bigotry towards Asians during this pandemic is also a major issue there as well. So regardless if you live in the US or CA, you can find some amazing shops.
So here are a few of the shops that I have found that are owned by Asian Americans/Canadians that are also helping to make the world an awesome and sustainable place to live!
Owner of Blueland,
Sarah Paiji Yoo, works to reduce the use of plastic bottles by providing an alternative. This well-known sustainable brand sells a variety of products in tablet or powder form, such as dish soap, hand soap, laundry detergent, and different cleaning sprays.
They will provide a strong bottle (I think the bottle is made of plastic, but it is optional, and meant to be reused for life) and then all you need to do is buy refills to fill tthem back up! This is good as sustainable hand-wash dish soap seems to be hard to find for me.
3Women is a wonderful shop that is after my own heart. The owner, Crystal Lee Early, as well as a few of her friends, create new clothing and designs made from vintage fabric. Their designs and clothing look very beautiful, and as a result of being reused, they are eci friendly!
Reusing the old for new purpose is something that inspires me every day, and it is always awesome to see other people doing the same!
Novel Supply Co is wonderful minimalist clothing brand created by Kaya Dorey. She creates sweaters, hats, crews, and tank tops using either upcycled products, or materials such as hemp and organic cotton.
Her designs are simplistic, but facinating, and she even makes clothing for kids! Most of her clothing are white or off-white in color, which would make me nervous to wear around a cup of coffee, but they look awesome!
OpusMind is a leather brand made by Kathleen Kuo. It works to take leather scraps that would otherwise be tossed out by a local glove company and turns them into nice looking backpacks, tote bags, crossbody bags, cardholders, and even an organizer.
While leather is generally seen as a harmful material due to animals being harmed to get it, using leather scraps is a great way to get the sustainable and long-lasting benefits of leather, while minimizing the harmful effects of it.
This swimwear company was created by
Courtney Chew. It is a high-quality swimwear company that focuses on making swimsuits that can be worn regardless of whether you are in or out of the water, such as when exercising. These include bathing suits, swimming trunks, sports bras, hoodies, and more!
These clothes are made using recycled plastic bottles as well as recycled nylon. While recycled plastic garments can be problematic due to them shedding microplastics when washed, etc, not much can be done about clothes that are meant to become wet, like swimwear and athleticwear. So using recycled plastic is a good alternative.
Rehyphen
by Jessica “JJ” Chuan
is a fascinating designer brand that I learned about not too long ago.
It is a shop that is based out of Singapore, but does do international
shipping. I discovered her when looking up bags and the like made from
old VHS tape.
What Jessica does is create bags, maps,
artwork, and more, entirely out of VHS tape. Her beautiful designs are
rather breathtaking to behold.
***
So here are just 6 of the many Asian-owned companies that are sustainable. Consider purchasing from them if you need anything, as every little bit helps.
The Past and Present Exclusion, Hatred, Sexualization, and Dehumanization of Asian-Americans
Bigotry against Asian-Americans is something that has existed for centuries. Long before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and long after the Japanese Internment Camps of 1942. Before people put signs in their neighborhood saying “J*ps keep moving, this is a white man’s neighborhood“ and will sadly keep happening long after this virus ends.
Dr. Seuss is well known for having dozens of anti-asian stereotypes
written into his children’s books, and even made comics for years about
how much he detested the Japanese as war propaganda. This history and
these images are still defended fervently by many white people on the
Right. They feel the removal of these books and the anti-Asian
characatures are a “cancelling“ too far.
But historical facts and mockery is not the only issues that Asian-Americans deal with. They are still dealing with massive amounts of bigotry to this very day. In fact, the amount of hate they have been receiving is on the rise.
Since the onset of Covid-19, there has been a 150% spike in hate crimes against people of Asian ancestry. Slurs, mockery, and hate has been thrown towards Asian-Americans, even those who are not from China. This is because white people tend to have a hard time telling Asians apart, so they lump them all under the same umbrella and are racist against all Asian-Americans.
Recently, a white man who I refuse to name went into 3 massage parlers, which are usually run by mostly Asian women, and shot 9 people, killing 8 of them.
People are trying to defend his actions by claiming that what he did was not racism. These people are wrong. The actions of this sociopathic murderer is steeped in the obvious stench of anti-asian sentiments and mysogyny.
Of the 8 people who died, 6 of them were Asian women. Asian women that he viewed as “a temptation“ for his “lust“ and ergo deserved to be murdered. What do women wear in these massage parlors? These spas? Well… scrubs.
Scrubs.
He couldn’t handle his “sex addiction“ around women wearing what the typical nurse wears.
This is because Asian women are automatically seen as sexual and are inherently fetishized by American culture. So much so that for a lot of (generally white) guys, simply existing as an Asian woman is sexual. According to Chin Lu via The Bold Italic:
“I cannot comprehend what makes men choose to say things like ‘Unlike white women, [Asian] women remember what it’s like to be a woman: to be docile and submissive and respectful to a man.’ This is how they woo the ladies they’re
presumably fond of?”
An article on Huffington Post mentions the same sentiment: Asian women often have to deal with a lot of oversexualization their entire lives.
This needs to stop.
We as white people need to change our behavior, and to change the society that we live in. Below are links to two articles showing a list of books that everyone to read to educate ourselves. Nobody should have to do so to treat Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders as human beings.
We are all struggling through this world together in one way or another. At least 99% iof us are. There is no reason why we cannot work together to end bigotry, classism, ableism, and the like.
While imputting hasgtags into this site, this popped up. This is part of the problem. Asian women are not sexual objects. Objectifying women, and especially women of color is part of the reason women keep getting harmed, abused, and killed. @support @staff let’s change this mindset in the hashtags.
One way to help is by shopping at small Asian-owned businesses either around your town or online. Finding eco-friendly and sustainable shops can also be a plus.
Here is an etsy shop by an artist that I follow on Instagram named Kaitoonist, who makes lovely stickers and post cards:
Every little bit helps, and always do your best to be an awesome person, and to be an awesome activist.
Also, if I said anything harmful or inaccurate in this post, or worded something wrong, etc, please message me and let me know so that I can correct it.
It is said that 9% of plastic ever produced is recycled. I am going to make a deep dive of this statistic soon, but this seems to be the base number. In fact, very little of the plastic produced can even be recycled. Type 1 plastics are able to be recycled, but even then only 25% actually make it to be downcycled into other products, like clothing, or pillow stuffing, or clothing tags.
This seems like it is at least a good use of old plastic bottles though, right? If clothing is being made from plastic that would otherwise be dumped, than what is the issue?
It makes people complacent
People think that by purchasing a shirt made from recycled plastic that they are doing a good thing. As a result, they do not think too much about the impact of consumerism and buying too much stuff.
“Ethical“ and “environmentally friendly“ clothing does not matter when you are still buying far too much of it, and not wearing it that many times before tossing it out, or worse, “donating“ it.
So buying a recycled plastic shirt/etc can actually make you less likely to reduce your impact in other, more vital areas. This includes drastically reducing how much stuff you buy overall, using renewable energy sources, and eating more plant-based.
Recycled plastic is still plastic
Even though it is recycled, a shirt made out of recycled plastic is still a shirt made out of plastic. It is likely to wear far quicker than a natural fiber shirt, more likely to be trashed after a few wears, and it will release microplastics when washed.
This plastic is still problematic, and it really a band-aid solution for what is actually a gash of an issue. What we need to focus on is eliminating the production of new plastic in areas where they are not needed, such as in food and beverage industries, plastic bags, etc. This will be far better overall than trying to recycle the plastic and causing just as much harm, or even more harm, than what would exist if you tossed it in the garbage.
In fact, it is probably more eco-friendly to throw your plastic bottles in the trash than to have it remade into a T-shirt, as if it is in a landfill, it will not cause any microplastics, harm wildlife, or cause any pollution issues at all.
It is unnecessary
With all the natural fibers and seminatural fibers that we have, from cotton, hemp, and wool all the way to viscose and leather, there is no reason to use plastic of any kind in clothing. Especially for something like T-shirts.
I might understand its use in athleticwear or swimwear, as it is used to wick away moisture and sweat, making it good for these kinds of garments and can therefore be used for awhile without literally falling apart as you use them. But for things like pants, jeans, shoes, jackets, and shirts? It is far more harmful than useful.
Buying secondhand clothing made from natural and semi-natural materials are far better overall than buying a shirt or pair of leggings made from old plastic bottles. They also spread far fewer microplastics into the ocean.
***
If you like what I have written and want to help me out:
I
run a small business as a solo craftsperson who focuses on eco-friendly
and sustainable creations of goods. I use natural fabrics fished from
the trash and other secondhand locations like thrift shops.
My foray into Zero Waste or Low Waste dish washing ended in failure. But finding out a few tips and bits of information, I am far better able to wash dishes while creating minimal to no trash in the process.
Do Not Soak Dishes
One thing that I did a lot when I did the dishes was to fill up the sink with water, and allow the dishes to soak for a bit. This was good as it made the junk on the dishes softer, and ergo easier to wash off.
However, when I did this with a bar of castile soap, it put a very hard to remove grime all over my dishes.
So I am not sure if you can do this with other inds of soap, but for good practice, it might be best to minimize soaking dishes, especially if you are soaking them in soapy water.
I now make sure that the dishes are lightly soaked but not submerged in water without soap, and then use the soap on each dish seperately. It is more of a pain, but it allows for much less trash in the long term.
Things that can help
I use a soap made from 100% coconut oil made by a US-based seller on Etsy known as Molly’s Saponarium. They are super affordable as well.
And if you need some cleaning cloths, etc, I am your crafter!
You can find these zero waste washable dish cloths HERE
As well as some soap saver exfoliating drawsting bags HERE
Buying from me will help me as a pansexual transperson who is currently living in poverty. So every little bit helps not only me, but also the environment, as everything I make is made from secondhand and salvaged materials.
Also, 5% of all proceeds go to the intersectional activist organization 350 dot org.
