Thanks! I just found 7th Gen and Biokleen powdered detergents at FM, so I might try those first.
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I love the Biokleen detergent, been using it for years. And they are local, from Vancouver WA!
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Biokleen is the best! I love all of their products. I really like the cold water detergent. Also their dishwasher powder is great, too!
@Meowmalade and @mountainmustache29 - HTbF doesn’t like powdered detergent, so that’s out unfortunately. He says it always leaves residue.
That’s a bummer. I’ve never had a problem with Biokleen leaving residue, though I have with other detergents. Next time you’re in the area I can leave you a bit to try if you want.
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I actually use the liquid Biokleen soap, and haven’t ever used the laundry powder. They sell it in recycled cardboard bottles now, though of course the cap is still plastic.
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@Meowmalade that’d be cool, thanks!
@mountainmustache29 - oh interesting. I’ve added to the someday grocery list, since we’re pretty stocked up now.
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A low packaging/ zero plastic place just opened in my city. Right when I was almost out of laundry detergent!
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Speaking of detergent, has anyone tried soap nuts? I’ve been considering trying them once my detergent runs out (I use Better Life which I love but trying to cut down on plastic).
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I have! I liked them just as well as my normal detergent (unscented envirofriendly powder), meaning they worked great for me on everything but sports clothing made from all synthetic materials, which sometimes still had a faint odor.
Ultimately I didn’t buy more because I also have found that just water is good enough in the washing machine, with just a swipe of a wet bar of soap on the bits of clothing that need it. Which makes sense; my normal powder detergent is 1 Tbsp for an entire load so it’s completely diluted, and isn’t applied to the soiled spots themselves.
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I just got two rain barrels from my county program (not free, but lower cost) and plan to set them up this weekend.
Yay!
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Oh that’s awesome! And a good reminder to me that I need to do something about rainwater harvesting as the next step in my backyard work.
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Picked up (2) 55 gallon drum liners worth of plastic from the woods behind my housing development, got it in the recycling yesterday. I’ve also taken to yelling at the children who throw trash in the street. 5 more years and I can start the yelling about being on my lawn.
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Filled out my local council’s survey about waste reduction and what my priorities are for them in reducing waste. They made the mistake of having free text fields 
so they have received much free advice from me on how best to incentivise their residents in this regard.
Getting quotes on water tanks to harvest (some of) my rainwater and reduce the amount of treated water I need pumped to my house through the mains. In doing this, I came across the info that my city is now on 30% desalinated water 
yeah, we need to get better at water conservation and/or accept that this patch is too dry for this quantity of people.
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I’m afraid this is the reality. We can’t survive on current rainfall. We can get very, very good at water reuse, but rainfall is continuing to decline (in a pretty step-wise manner that is pleasing and horrifying to people who work with water).
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Oh I also forgot to mention that I have recently repurposed a whole bunch of junk, too much to list-I’m a little bit of a junker 
But ALSO I started doing small submerged composting pods in my garden – too early to tell how they are going to turn out, but it’s an easy effort and a good way for me to reuse plastics from grocery items, etc.
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What is this?? I am intrigued. I had an open-air compost pile at my last house and it was a pain to clean up when the new owner didn’t want it. I’m currently collecting my food scraps and take them every week to a drop off site 10 minutes away. Would love something a little more convenient!
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Hey, so this link is basically the idea for what I’m doing, but instead I’m using like take out containers with well fitted lids. I poked lots of holes in the container, but not so many that it lost any integrity (I don’t want it to break under the soil) I just toss a little food scrap in, toss a little brown (leaves or a little sprinkle of dirt, etc) and then reseal it.
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Wow, what an interesting idea! Thanks for sharing that!
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Thx! I use the plastic tub + lid that my powdered ice tea comes in. Just checked it this morning when I tossed in a piece of tomato. I saw a worm and it’s getting pretty soil-ish.
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