Julian at Plastno reached out to ask me to review his products. I’ve been asked to do this by other companies, but Julian was the first one to have a good answer and it was on his website, “Save thousands of bags from clogging up oceans and landfills.” As anyone who has seen pictures of fences along landfills knows, the bags get torn open by the trucks and blow around catching on the fencing and trees in the area. It takes awhile to fill and close a landfill, and they’re more like open fields rather than deep pits, so this is a good answer. My original thinking was it gets squashed in the landfill anyway so why does it matter what the bag is made of? My next phase of thinking was that is true, but at least I can help by purchasing recycled content plastic bags rather than virgin plastic bags. Now, with Plastno, I am like the idea of getting rid of all the single-use plastic I can even if it’s for a garage bag.
The featured image is the box’s content after I made the cleaning solution. The spray bottle arrives empty. The main focus was waste bags so we’ll start with them. The wrapper is paper so curbside recyclable, and the bags are BPI certified and strong! They don’t tear apart themselves when you pull them off the roll unlike some brands, ahem HEB, and they are holding up great! I’ve stuffed binders and other random big/pokey cornered stuff in these and they haven’t torn. The drawstring handles are great! The main ingredient is cornstarch, not plastic. They don’t feel weird or powdery or slippy, things I’ve felt on other trash bags. I am SO GRATEFUL these are not scented as my family has scent sensitivity.
The unscented cleaning solution doesn’t smell either! I love it! Grove Co. doesn’t offer an unscented cleaning solution so I’m already sold here. The process to dissolve the table was easy and efficient; the whole tablet dissolved. The wrappers for bags and tablets are 100% recyclable, along with the shipping packaging. The solution cleaned well, there was no residue, and as I mentioned no smell. So it was great. The spray was a good amount too, not too much and not too little. Grove Co. spray bottles wear out and the replacement nozzles aren’t any good either. I am hoping this spray bottle lasts a long time. The bottle itself is plastic, but the more work I do the more I realize two things that affect me personally. One, a plastic bottle is safer for my seven-year old son to use so he doesn’t drop, break and cut himself with a glass bottle and second, anyone with strength or dexterity issues is going to appreciate a lighter bottle. It’s also not “single-use” in that it is intended to be refilled. It’s also a #1 so it’s a safe and curbside recyclable plastic bottle if it ever does need to be recycled or replaced.
I didn’t know I was going to receive sponges so that was a fun surprise. These are all commercially compostable, so they’ll be compostable in Austin, Texas in our curbside composting program. Plastno is in the process of getting the sponges certified BPI compostable. I am more of a cotton cloth girl for the cloth and sponge, but I will try them all. I use a coir/coconut fiber scrub sponge already and compost it when I’m done.
I completely approve these products and will be ordering more. So If you want to try these out, please do so. They ship out of New York. As I mentioned, the packaging is all recyclable, they even used paper tape which not all “green” companies do so they are definitely paying attention and working to do all the right things.
Let’s do some math!
Waste/Trash Bags
Plastno Waste Bag Tall: $0.60 per bag. Without any discounts/subscription, $18 for 30 13 gallon bags
Grove Co. 100% Recycled Plastic Trash Bags: $0.35 per bag. $6.99 for 20 13 gallon bags
HEB (Texas grocery chain) Field & Future Tall Kitchen Drawstring Trash Bags: $0.19 per bag. $7.74 for 40 13 gallon bags
Cleaning Tablets
Plastno Multi Cleaner Tablet: $2 per bottle. $6.00 for 3 cleaning tablets
Grove Co. Multi-Purpose Cleaner Concentrate: $3.99 per bottle
+Plus your own water for each cleaning tablet.
Clothes/Scrubbers
I feel that this is such a particular area for people that I will just recommend you do your own research.
Most sponges from brick and mortar stores: your grocery store, Target, Walmart, etc., are plastic. So you’re using plastics to clean your dishes that you will eat off of.
When picking out sponges pay attention to:
1) unit pricing per item
2) ingredients, for example if you have allergies to scrub ingredients like walnut or coconut that are in other brands.
3) how the sponge is packaged or not.
Plastno’s scrub tools are all unpackaged/loose, most scrubbers come in cellophane or other non-recyclable or compostable packing, defeating the purpose of a “green” scrubber if you ask me. PLastno’s items are made of loofah and cellulose, cellulose and cotton, or cellulose. No walnut, coconut, or plastic there.
Happy green cleaning!
#ecofriendly #sustainable #plasticfree #zerowaste #smallbusiness #plastno #cleaning