Here are five reusable products you'll use time and time again:

Menstrual Products

You can save up to 29 products per menstrual cycle from ending up on landfills. The average woman uses 10,500 products for 480 periods in her lifetime. Going out during COVID19 just to buy tampons or other menstrual products can put either you or the people in close proximity to you in danger. Additionally, disposables are typically made with a combination of plastics, cotton, synthetic fibers, and wood pulp. Non organic cotton is one of the most toxic crops grown, using 20 percent of the world's pesticides and herbicides.Placing these bleached, pesticide intensive products into your body may have adverse effects.

If these health reasons haven’t swayed  you yet, maybe the numbers will be more convincing. Granted, reusables have a larger initial cost, but they last much longer. With proper care, cloth pads or menstrual cups can last for years, saving hundreds of rands. Should you switch to reusables when you start menstruating you could save around R14,100.00 over your lifetime.  Here are a couple of reusables we'd suggest. 

Cleansing & Toning Pads

Reusable makeup pads are a sustainable option for your beauty regime. Not only are they great for the environment, but also kind to your skin.

Disposable items, like makeup remover cotton pads, are well-known to be exceptionally detrimental to our natural environment.

More individuals around the world are committing  to living sustainable lives in order to lower the human impact of toxic and hard-to-breakdown trash that is pilling up in our landfills. Consider making the smart and eco-friendly switch to reusable makeup pads, doing this helps to save our beautiful planet.

Environmentalists,  as well as professional skincare and beauty experts, highly encourage individuals to make the simple switch to  reusable cosmetic pads to remove makeup and apply skincare products 

Choose reusable makeup wipes made from pure and softer organic cotton or bamboo fibers that won’t strip your skin of its natural oils and moisture needed for that healthy glow everyone desires.

While preventing around 730 rounds a year from entering our waste systems, it could also save you more than R500 a year.

Click here for more on the environmental impact and switching to reusable rounds.

Refilling Shampoo, Conditioner, Body Wash & Cosmetics Products

Refilling isn’t a new idea, but it’s one whose time has come. Instead  of getting us to be green after we consume, by recycling, it steps in earlier in the purchasing cycle to tackle the hugely wasteful business of packaging.

A staggering 5.5bn household plastic bottles are not recycled each year, while plastic-recycling plants are closing because they’re not financially sustainable. With refilling on the other hand,, you can either buy a low-cost refill pack or take a container to a refill station at your local store when you run out of product. We love shopping at local brands like Earthsap and refilling at Nude Foods,  but there are many other zero waste stores popping up all over South Africa. An alternative to refilling is to buy bar shampoo and conditioner. There are some really lovely local brands around, have a look at Restock for more information. 

Head to your nearest Theirry Mugler beauty counter to refill your perfume bottle with one their signature scents. “This may seem like a relatively new concept, but the Mugler Source has actually been around since 1992 and was inspired by the tradition of perfume fountains that was born in the 18th century (it’s said that Marie Antoinette herself had her very own perfume fountain).” for more on the Mugler Source read this post by For the Beauty of It 

Reusable Coffee Pods & Filters

Every single-use coffee capsule creates garbage. Aluminum is a valuable resource, which is energy intensive to produce. It can be recycled in part, but that too requires a lot of energy. We know it’s not practical to get rid of your loved Nespresso machine. However, switching to a reusable coffee pod saves 1.22kgs of aluminum for every 730 cups (two cups a day for a year) of coffee brewed. Over multiple households, we’re talking about millions of tons of aluminum waste that could be prevented. Local alternatives like 4wks.coffee are also waste free, and are easy to compost. 

Loose Leaf Tea

Many brands of tea are using different types of plastics in the construction of their tea bags, tags and the string. While plastic tea bags are a convenient and durable way to serve tea they have a dire effect on the environment and your health. By steeping these plastic bags in hot water you’re sipping on potential toxins.

Loose leaf teas produce far less waste, just the outer bag, box or tin. Additionally, you can just empty the steeped tea onto your compost heap. Our favourite local rooibos is Theonista, it comes in a paper bag and can be used for kombucha, skin care.