Zero Waste - Bathroom products Journey

Alright it's been about 7 months since I started this journey. 

We used up all our body wash and made a half switch from body wash to dove soap bars.  Unfortunately that was not a perfect solution, as the bars are wrapped in coated cardboard, have a plastic glue to seal, and then the 16 bar package is wrapped in cellophane.  It was definitely a transitional option until I find better solutions. 

The problem for me, is my skin is a bit sensitive around my neck and a lot of the bar soaps leave a residue or a sticky feeling that irritates my skin.  I haven't tried the castille soap bars or the Good Soap bars in whole foods but I'm a bit hesitant after some internet research.

After we've used up the Dove, I'm going to try out Baudelaire Fine Soaps

I like the company principles.  The company is eco-friendly and craftsman focused.  They used recycled materials for their packaging and just switched to solar energy.  I will report back on the products once I receive and use them. 

Now for the Lush soaps.  I unfortunately CAN NOT endorse their products.  They all were drying, overly fragrant, and sticky.  I just never felt clean and was eager for them to be used up.  The face bar caused me to get a breakout a bit and the conditioner bar was an oil sludge, that didn't leave my hair moisturized.  It took even more shampoo to wash it all out.  Anyway, I'm definitely a no-go on the Lush hair or face products and am hesitant to go back to those products.

For toilet paper I trialed who gives a crap toilet paper.  That was also disappointing because the basic, affordable toilet paper feels like 1 ply and shreds in your private bits when you wipe, so I would find bits of it later when I bath.  I still have a lot of it, and am happy with the company's principles, but boy do I miss the soft quilted stuff.  I will have to keep researching other options.

For body lotion bar, which I really loved.  Except I purchased it on Amazon, and it came in a bunch of packaging material.  I have no idea where else to purchase them so I will keep looking. 

Waste to be further eliminated from the Bathroom
1. toilet paper
2. hair product
3. lotion
4. tooth products
5. facial products

ZOMG EVERYTHING.  But one step at a time...one step at a time.

Zero Waste: Hair: Shampoo/Conditioner Solutions

This is all the shampoo and conditioner we have in the house right now.  It will probably take us until the end of the year to finish everything, minus the chlorine removal shampoo/conditioners.

THE PLAN: Switch to shampoo/conditioner bars

Soap Savers:

These were definitely not zero waste to obtain, but they are necessary for maintaining the integrity of the soap bars. Fail 1: They came in a waterproof fedex envelope.  Fail 2: They are packaged in plastic and have plastic labeling/tag hooks.

PRODUCTS OBTAINED: Lush Cosmetics

4 hair products

Damaged Hair Treatment $10.95

Jason and the Argan Oil $11.95

Sugar Daddy-O solid Conditioner $12.95

Karma Komba Shampoo Bar $12.95

Total California Tax ~$5.00

FINAL THOUGHTS
Pros:
1. Easy to obtain and eliminates plastic shampoo and conditioner bottles
2. These are good transition products as I explore this zero-waste world more.

Cons:
1. Somewhat of an upfront cost, however if this all replaces 3 bottles of shampoo each, this will end up being much cheaper in the long run
2. The Lush products all contain sodium laurel sulfate, BUT so did all my original shampoo.

Waste Reduction Plan 1.0

Goal: Reduce waste in my life.
Plan: Target one area at a time.
Area 1: The Bathroom
hair care
      Shampoo
      Conditioner
      Styling products
face products
       wash
       tone
       moisturize
       SPF
       exfoliator
       makeup
       makeup removers (eye & make-up)
body skin
        lotion

        sunscreen
oral hygiene
        tooth brush
        tooth paste
        floss
        mouthwash
toilet
        toilet cleaner/brush
        toilet paper
Feminine Hygien
        pads
        panty liners

Fantasy vs Reality: Home Gardening

Fantasy: Living in an environmentally sustainable home with minimal energy usage and an integrated and abundant edible landscape.

Reality: 1. We let our lawn go gold to bring our water bill down.  2.  I'm not super fond of getting dirty. & 3. I'm afraid of bugs.    

Fear of bugs memory: When I was a teenager, my mom told me to go wash out my cat's water bowl.  I obediently went to clean out the bowl, only to discover a slug on the rim of the bowl!  I quickly ran screaming to Mom, but alas, I knew my fate when I saw the look on her face; I was about to get a character building lesson.  There was a lot of staring, pacing, positive self talk, and calm breathing...but finally I had to take action (Mom said dinner was ready and I better hurry up).  I flipped the bowl over and ran for cover.  (Now that I'm thinking about this, where was Nancy?!   And why didn't I use a stick?)  When I finally calmed down enough to flipped the overturned bowl back over, I was relieved to discover that the slug had been dislodge.  I cleaned the bowl, gave my cat fresh water and went inside to have dinner.  I have no further recollection of what happened to the slug.

Return to present:
So our backyard is a barren landscape.

Apartment Hunting

I'm going to diverge a bit from trying to figure out health care and talk about my life.  It's time for me to find my own place.  A real place where I'm going to live by myself for an extended period of time.  YIKES!  I've never lived by myself before but I'm actually really excited about the prospect.  Scared but excited.  

There are a lot of things for me to consider.  1) traveling for work 2) safety 3) price 4) location and 5) longevity.

What I know for certain is that I need a new place by August of 2013 and that I don't know where I'll be working full time until after December 2013. 4 months in a temporary location sounds really exhausting. I've done it before...but do I really want to do it again?

So after some thought, I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to start looking for my dream apartment and of course I turned to the internet for help.

I came across this great article on lifehacker!

Five Best Apartment Search Tools  

I'm going to try out the search tools and see if I can find my next home!

The top rated on the blog is MyApartmentMap (don't mind the inaccurate bar chart in the article, just look at the numbers) so I'll start there.

*** Edit***
Just saw another great article on life hacker!

Hack Attack: Apartment Hunting 101

Set up RSS feed on craig's list!!  Great tip!!

double double toil and trouble

good & bad...how these labels interact and can easily be clouded over by other variables like lust, greed, and gluttony...

Going to in'n'out is a scenario that can illustrate how this phenomena affects my life:

When I go to In'n'out I walk up to the cashier and order a "Double double, no cheese, whole grilled onions, chopped chilies, no sauce, ketchup & mustard instead, protein style."  Done!  Easy.  I wanted a burger, I got a great quality burger that falls in line with my optimal fueling guidelines, at a good price point, the way I wanted it.  This scenario is simple, it is a good situation.  

Life is good.  Then the damn teenager goes and asks me if I would like to add an order of fries.  My eyes see the fries, my soul wants the fries, (cue slo mo of salt being rained down on a mountain of crisp goldens), BUT my rational side that protects me from danger says I shouldn't order fries every time someone offers me fries (those polite and evil geniuses!)  

Now my simple scenario is complicated because I'm faced with a more difficult choice to make, immediate pleasure (YES PLEASE) or long term health (eh...ok).  With the introduction of fries, a new variable has confounded my good situation.  Now what do I choose to label as good or bad?  How much value do I put into immediate pleasure and how much value do I place on my long term health?  Being healthy is good.  Fries are good, wait no, fries are bad, good, bad, good bad...ahhhh!!!   Mind is blown.  Now good and bad become irrelevant and it comes down to what I want?  Do I want the fries or don't I want the fries? "Slap them on young grasshopper, Meesus Miyage is going home with fries, animal style."  

 Everyone has a set of foundational values which allows them to filter the world accordingly.  I have my own set of principles, motivations, and desires that let me navigate my life according to how I see fit. Now what becomes of great interest to me is when people in power positions make HUGE & IMPORTANT decisions when their good, bad labels become blurred and skewed by other variables.  

For example, the military needed to improve screening of traumatic brain injury due to the multitude of exposure to IED blasts experienced in the ongoing war efforts in the Middle East.  They had a good idea, to get a baseline for every soldier.  GOOD!  But once the process of implementing this good idea began to unfold, other confounding variables started to affect the straightforwardness of the process.  The goal was to improve care provided for soldiers that are risking their lives to carry out missions of national importance. (real goal: cover up the asinine treatment of traumatic brain injury in the military in the first place).  But then one ineffectual decision was made one after another based on political ties/power structures and profit incentives. Read/listen to how this story unfolded at the following links:   

Frontline Report on Military's Brain Injury Test

ProRepublica's report on NPR's All Things Considered.

Square 1: LA County

 POPULATION (1)

World 7,044,872,282

U.S. 314,553,796

California 37,691,912

Los Angeles County 9,889,056 (.1% of world population)
retrieved: 00:31 UTC (EST+5) Oct 11, 2012 

Los Angeles County QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau

COUNTY VIEW

Major Cities View (google map LA COUNTY)

interesting tidbits from wikipedia

~over a quarter of Californians live in LACounty
~Most # of millionaires as well as the most # of people who are homeless

***
Resources:
1) http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California