I’ve been thinking about things I’d like to improve in my life. Becoming more sustainable is always on my mind. I am by no means perfect at living Eco-Friendly and I never will be. It’s not about perfection, but being aware of what improvements can be made makes me excited for the challenge.

Below are my Eco-Friendly struggles.

Trash bags

We’ve been trying to reduce our waste to the point of not needing trash bags anymore, but it’s easier said than done. I feel so guilty every time we take out the trash because that’s just another plastic bag being sent out to the landfill.

We do burn or compost cardboard, paper, and food scraps, but the reality is that not everything is burnable or compostable. As you’ll see below recycling has become a difficulty as well.

Bottled soaps

I’ve tried bar shampoo and I gave it a fair shot but it doesn’t work for my hair… We live in a small city where there aren’t any shops that offer refills on shampoo either so we go big. What I mean is we purchase our shampoo at Costco. The bottles last us around 6 months and when they are empty we can re-purpose the bottle for another use. This has greatly reduced our bathroom waste.

Recycling

This is a sore subject for me. The recycling center closest to us has gotten very difficult. They have changed their policy and now only offer to pick up recycling for residents who live in town, but since we live right outside of town, they no longer offer to pick up our recycling and they don’t allow drop-offs at their facility anymore either… The only way to recycle anymore is to go to one of their drop-off stations which are only available on the 3rd Wednesday of every month from 9 to 11 am…

When you and your husband work a full-time job, you can’t just leave to drive 20 minutes one way to the designated recycle pick-up station… It’s been very frustrating!

I’ll admit, it’s a struggle. I’m not one to give up though, so we are trying to further reduce items that need recycling and find out if we can take our recycling to other cities close by.

Deodorant

I’ve tried powdered deodorant. I’ve tried making my own. I’ve tried it all and none of them work for me, except the natural ones made by Green Goo and Native, but of course, they come in a plastic casing…

I’ve been trying to think of ways to reuse those casings but have failed so far… If you have any ideas I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Pet Food bags

When you have pets, they’re gonna need food and it’s not common to find their food in bulk!

We used to have to get a bag of dog food once a month, but with our Costco Membership we not only save money on dog food but the bags are bigger so we only buy it once every two months! It has reduced our plastic bag waste quite a bit. This one is necessary as much as I hate it. We have kicked around the idea of feeding our dogs a raw food diet but the budget isn’t quite big enough for that. Eventually Maybe. 🙂

Our parrots eat pellets along with fresh fruits and veggies. They don’t eat nearly as much as our dogs do so their bag of pellets lasts around 6 months. Which is really nice, but again it comes in a large plastic bag… Can’t win them all I guess…

Those are a few of my Eco-Friendly struggles. Do you have Eco-Friendly struggles? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!