Toiletries and using less plastic

[Paul1255]

When I started my own listing 18 months ago I bought hotel-style individual toiletries to leave in the guest room when guests checked-in.

Almost all guests would use them, take them home or comment on them- but I suppose only because I provided them...they were never expected!

Last year @Lizzie started a thread about plastics and going plastic free, which really made me think about my plastic and single plastic use.

Another community member, I think  @Kath9 in Australia suggested using large dispensers in the bathroom and then refilling those- and now I have run-out of those naughty little individual bottles I have purchased pump bottles for the bathroom and big 5 litre refills to top them up.

I have bought them for my own listing as well as all of the listings I manage, to try and do my bit.

I still feel bad, everything is still made of plastic (the bathroom dispensers, the big refills and the pumps) but certainly it’s less plastic than a new bottle every few guests and I hope it’ll make a bit of a difference 🙂 

What does everyone else do in their listings?

Paul :

[Lizzie]

Definitely, I second that! 🙂 Thanks @Paul1255 

[Paul1255]

Welcome @Ann72  :))

[Ann72]

@Lizzie  Sad news - my grocery store isn't a refill station after all.  But there are others scattered around Manhattan and Brooklyn and I'll try to seek them out this summer.  🙂

[Laura2996]

hey, i dont know where in ny you are but there is a zero waste shop called package free  in brooklyn and a grocery storycalled precycle. 

[Ann72]

@Laura2996 Thank you, I'll check them out next time I head out to BK!

[Lizzie]

These sound cool @Laura2996, what are they like? 

[Beth80]

@Paul1255 

I've only managed the reusable hand soap so far. The body soap is tiny wrapped in plastic. I was able to get some in little cardboard boxes but they seem to have disappeared. The shampoo and conditioner are in large bottles, plastic because that's all that's available. I'm quite jealous of the pumps on your big hugs! I have to wrestle mine with a funnel! 😞

@Lizzie  I think my travel bottles are 7 years old! Not very fancy but they are the perfect 3 oz allowed in my carry on. I'm also impressed that you have a local refill shop. Very cool!

[Paul1255]

@Beth80  indeed the pumps are amazing and make such a huge difference! I don't have them on my washing up liquid refill bottles as they don't fit- and refilling the washing up liquid is quite the drama but vey funny :))))

[Lizzie]

Yeah, it's pretty cool that we are seeing refill shops now. I've shared a photo from Sunday's trip above @Beth80 

[Stephen-and-Adam0]

Hi @Paul1255 

We do exactly the same as you with nice wall-mounted dispensers in both showers, filled  good quality

London Fine Soaps and Scottish Fine Soaps products from 5 litre bottles which we order from Amazon.  A few guests have asked what soaps we use as they enjoyed them so much.  Silver Buckthorn is a hit as it smells similar to Molton Brown Black Pepper.  We have a locked cupboard in the hallways where we keep all the hosting supplies.  

The refills make sense as we could not bear the waste creation of the miniatures (even though they look super-cute when displayed nicely).  Every little bit helps to cut the avoidable waste 🙂  

Adam

[Paul1255]

@Stephen-and-Adam0  that's really cool Adam! I shall check out those brands for next time.

And sensible to keep them in a locked cupboard!

[Ana1136]

We also use refillable dispensers, it is not only better for the environment but it is so much cheaper. I feel that mini bottles look fancier but just to illustrate, each bottle costs 0.8€ and we would have to leave at least 400 per month in all of our apartments, that is 320€ monthly, and the season here is 4 months, that means 1280€. And we get all our refills for the season for about 100€. It is a huge difference and with our prices we couldn't cover it. But so far no one has complained, I guess the dispensers work just fine and it is so much more convenient. We leave plastic bottles of water, I want to stop that too but we are debating whether to leave one big bottle (we don't have water bottles from glass here) or to leave nothing at all since the tap water is drinkable. 

[Paul1255]

Nice @Ana1136 agreed so much cheaper too!

I used to leave sealed glass bottles of mineral water in the room, but I ordered some 75cl sized glass refillable bottles which say "tap water" on the outside with a little drawing of a tap, and I refill those for each guest from the tap...the water here is perfectly fine to drink so that saves some £ too.

[Ana1136]

@Paul1255 that is a great idea, I will look those up! 🙂 

[Paul1255]