today i was thinking about my grooming habits and how they require quite a bit of plastic, from toothbrushes and toothpaste to the packaging for facial masks. can i get rid of this plastic?
one of those places where i use a bit of plastic is in the bathroom. first, keeping the hair from being an unsightly mass of greasy strands usually requires bottles of shampoo and conditioner. i went off shampoo a few years ago and…well, let’s just say that the results were not particularly commendable. since then, i’ve tended to use shampoo and conditioner again. this weekend, i’m going to try to make some of my own; but i do not know how that will work
there’s also no way i can go without sunscreen or skincare products. so i think that i’m a bit locked in there. i wonder, however, how i might reduce the use of my plastic. same for toothpaste
here i run aground on a problem:
the lack of places that sell grooming products in bulk
all my attempts to reduce the amount of plastic i use in the bathroom make me recall a time not that long ago when i was doing fieldwork in quanzhou and xiamen, fujian….
back in the day, there were a number of small stores that would sell shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, and various other skincare products in bulk. one would buy a reusable container and refill when needed. i doubt that one would find such places anywhere in china today. still, i wonder, wouldn’t this kind of store be a useful one? and why isn’t it available now that we have begun to feel an urgency around plastic in the oceans? how might we demand such stores?