5 Ways to Green your Bathroom Rituals from Martha

Entry #444, March 11, 2011

Every morning when you go into the bathroom there are ways to have your family live a greener and eco-conscious way. Whether it is turning off the sink while you brush your teeth, or it is using chemical free cleaners. A greener bathroom means a healthier you, and a greener Mother Earth!

All Images courtesy: Martha Stewart Living

Look at these tips from Whole Living, a Martha Stewart publication.

1.) Use Eco-Friendly Towels:

Typical towels use conventional cotton, a crop that accounts for about 25 percent of the world’s insecticide use, including some of the planet’s most hazardous chemicals. What’s more, manufacturers often use dyes derived from petroleum in a high polluting process that leaves chemicals gushing into waterways, ravaging aquatic habitats, and clinging to the towels you bury your face in. Look for eco-friendly organic cotton and bamboo towels made with plant-based or low-impact dyes.

2.) Avoid PVC Shower Curtains

Most shower curtains are made from polyvinyl-chloride or PVC, a plastic that can release hormone-disrupting phthalates into the air. Look for non-vinyl curtains instead.

3.)Use Recycled Toilet Paper

If every family in the United States replaced one roll of conventional toilet paper with a roll of 100 percent recycled material, we’d save 423,900 trees in a year.

4.) Clean Shower Solutions

You may think the eco-friendliest way to clean a shower is with a basic liquid castile soap. But if you have hard water, you could cause a chemical reaction that leads to a difficult-to-remove dull film. (To check for hard water, pick up a simple test at your local hardware store.) Detergents, on the other hand, avoid this soap scum by their very formulation. Rather than go with conventional ones that contain nonrenewable petroleum-based surfactants and air-polluting synthetic perfumes, look for a plant-based all-purpose detergent such as Ecover’s All Purpose Cleaner.

5.) Tub Scrub