Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Bamboo is back in my life

As a person of Chinese extraction, I'm familiar with things like the sight of a building completely covered in bamboo scaffolding, eating with bamboo chopsticks and cooking on bamboo steamers.

Less traditionally, I'm dipping my toe into bamboo fabric and knitting yarn (well, thinking about it and looking for it anyway).

But it's taken me till now to buy a bamboo toothbrush and bamboo clothes pegs (which can be tossed in the compost once you remove the non-bamboo bits).

When I announced this to the boy, he said that his family used bamboo toothbrushes when he was a boy! Which would have been back in the 70's and 80's! And they weren't even hippies!

So it's great that I can slowly switch to bamboo where possible (and affordable - 7 bucks for a toothbrush seem expensive) without having to worry about resistance from the within the household.

Though it makes me sad that bamboo implements went so out of fashion for so long, to be replaced by animal-choking plastic.

4 comments:

Amanda said...

I'm intrigued by the idea of a bamboo toothbrush but I use an electric toothbrush to preserve what's left of my filling filled teeth so probably not an option :(

We have been buying compostable rubbish bags however...

Violet said...

hi Amanda - I have a soft-head toothbrush and I did wonder whether the bamboo toothbrush I bought would be okay for my teeth (also filling-filled). I was going to ask the guy in the shop but I couldn't get his attention...I like the idea of compostible rubbish bags. Hopefully they don't pose a danger if eaten by wildlife?

babystartiger said...

https://environmentaltoothbrush.com.au Violet I have just the thing!!! Altho if you out international postage and Aussie exchange rate I guess they might work out to be $7 each.... I bought a box of these about 2 years ago so it’s actually worked out quite cost effective. I bought a box of kids ones for Gus too Altho he tends to chew them so he didn’t get as much mileage. We write our names on them so they don’t get mixed up. I’ve not taken the step to natural toothpaste yet mostly cause I seem to be super allergic to baking soda (ditto on natural underarm non pung too).

It’s funny I started a plastic reducing thing about 2 years ago as well - I don’t know how successful I’ve been.... and I stopped blogging cause it was in Facebook and I’m (in the process of deleting my account). Maybe I should start a new blog. I have been using compostable rubbish bags which break down - and I also bought these stainless steel pegs which are ludicrously expensive but they last forever, because bamboo ones go mouldy.

I’ve also read some stuff about bamboo fabric being a bit evil cause it’s actually rayon and chronically treated?? Not sure what I think about that.

Karen said...

Can you get bamboo loo roll over there?