Disposables not yet ditched

Back in January, when I did my Thrift Week series on disposable items we've replaced with reusable ones, I considered doing a follow-up post on the few disposable items we still use, and what it would cost us to get them out of our lives. However, other and more time-sensitive topics absorbed my attention for a while, and so I never got around to it.

But in the past couple of days, a couple of things (which I'll discuss below) brought the topic back to the top of my list. So here's a quick rundown of the disposable items that I have not eliminated from my ecofrugal life, and why:

1. Almond Milk Cartons
Since we (mostly I) switched from cow's milk to almond milk, our household's waste output has actually risen significantly. Unlike dairy milk, which is cheapest to buy in recyclable plastic jugs, almond milk can be purchased most cheaply in plastic-lined cardboard cartons that can't be recycled anyplace that I know of. (The Almond Breeze website claims that its cardboard cartons are in fact recyclable for "nearly 12 million households in 26 states in the US," but ours doesn't happen to be one of them.) These cartons now make up by far the biggest component of our household trash.

Now, there are some brands of almond milk that are available in large plastic jugs, such as (again) Almond Breeze. However, it's not clear what type of plastic these jugs are made from. The fact that the jug is opaque suggests to me that it's probably a #5 plastic, which our curbside recycling (along with most recycling programs around the country) no longer takes. Unless there's a brand out there that comes in recyclable #1 or #2 plastic jugs, switching wouldn't solve the problem.

The only reasonable way to eliminate this source of waste would be to start making our own almond milk. However, research I did into homemade almond milk last year suggests that this would actually be quite a bit more expensive than buying it. Without the commercial thickeners the big manufacturers rely on, you have to use a whole lot more almonds per cup to get the consistency right. I calculated that using Kitchn's recipe, which calls for a ratio of one cup of almonds to two cups of water, we'd be paying around $8.57 for half a gallon of almond milk— roughly four times as much as we pay now. Assuming I go through about two cartons of almond milk per week, our cost per year would increase from around $210 to over $890. So that would be an extra $680 per year just to send less trash to the landfill — not to mention the environmental cost of all the additional almonds that would go into the homemade almond milk. It really doesn't make sense from either a financial or an environmental viewpoint.

2. Toilet Paper
It's now been almost exactly five years since I conducted my toilet paper tracking experiment, in which I counted how long it took me and Brian to go through a 12-pack of toilet paper and used that info to figure out how much TP we use in a year. After finding that it took us exactly 64 days to use up a dozen rolls, I calculated our usage at 68.5 rolls per year, for an annual cost of $25.66. Since then, the cost of Trader Joe's TP has gone up from $4.50 per dozen to $4.99, bumping up our annual cost to $28.46, but we're still not exactly breaking the bank on this stuff.

So I was somewhat baffled to see a Reddit post claiming that a bidet would "pay for itself in savings." The author argued that "the average person uses about 50 rolls of toilet paper a year...and a family of four spends about $250 annually on the stuff," and I thought, whaaaaaat? I realize our usage of 34 rolls per person per year may be a bit below average, and we're certainly paying less than the average person for each roll, but surely it can't be that big a difference!

Just to make sure, I crunched the numbers for the most extravagant, plushiest toilet paper I could find: Quilted Northern Supreme. This stuff is certainly a lot pricier than Trader Joe's, at a whopping $1.17 per roll. But even so, at 50 rolls per person per year, that's only $234 per year for a family of four. What does this poster think the "average" American family is wiping its tushes with, dollar bills?

Moreover, even if you accept the $250-per-year claim at face value, it's still unclear that a bidet would be a money-saver. In my initial research on this topic, I found that in theory, at least, a bidet is used not to replace toilet paper but to achieve "complete cleanliness" after wiping. Now, some people obviously ignore this advice and use the bidet for cleaning, but they still need to dry off afterwards. They've either got to use TP for that, which would use up at least half as many sheets as simply wiping, or use a towel or washcloth, which then has to be washed, adding to annual laundry costs.

Assuming that (a) you live with three other people, all sharing one bathroom, and (b) you're currently using the most expensive TP possible and actually paying a total of $250 per year for the family, and (c) you spend $200 for a bidet seat at Lowe's, and (d) you immediately start using it with reusable towels, eliminating your TP cost entirely, and (e) the additional water used by the bidet itself and the extra loads of laundry comes to no more than $50 per year, then this device could pay for itself in one year. But that's an awful lot of ifs. And it's quite clear that for my family, with only two people and a $28.46-per-year TP bill, it would take at least 4.4 years to pay for itself, probably longer. So unless the price of TP goes up a lot, or the price of bidets comes way down, I can't see this being cost-effective for us.

There is still, of course, the "family cloth" alternative: using reusable cloths for wiping, rather than toilet paper. But given the additional equipment and laundry required (basically equivalent to having a cloth-diapered infant in the house), it hardly seems worth the effort to save, at most, $28 per year.

3. Dental Floss
The last time I measured our household trash, back before the almond milk cartons swelled our waste stream, dental floss was actually a significant component of it. It was also a particularly annoying one, since it seems like you should be able to make dental floss out of something that could be composted. However, the cheapest brand I've ever found that meets this criterion is Radius, which is made from silk and costs $4.88 for 33 yards. The standard nylon kind we buy at the drugstore (or get free from the dentist) costs, at most, $2 for 100 yards. Assuming I use 18 inches of this stuff each night (Brian seldom bothers to floss, yet still somehow has better teeth than I do), we go through about 1.8 containers per year, for an annual cost of $3.65; switching to the silk stuff would increase this cost to $26.99. Considering what a small volume of waste we're talking about here, it really doesn't seem worth it.

There's one other alternative I've seen that would be completely waste-free: a water flosser, such as the WaterPik. A study I've seen on these suggests that they're actually quite effective at removing plaque — even better than string floss — so I don't think my teeth would suffer as a result. However, the water flosser has several disadvantages, starting with its cost. The top-rated MOSPRO flosser costs $40, equivalent to nearly 11 years' worth of dental floss. On top of that, we'd have a small ongoing cost for electricity to recharge its batteries. (There's one water flosser, the Carejoy, that doesn't require electricity, but it doesn't get very good reviews.) It's also much bigger than a roll of floss, which fits neatly in the medicine cabinet; we'd have to keep it out on the counter, where our cats would be sure to mess with it. Once again, this doesn't seem like a very good investment for the tiny amount of waste it would eliminate.

4. Cotton Swabs
The final disposable product in our medicine cabinet is cotton swabs. We use these for a variety of tasks: cleaning computer keyboards, dabbing antiseptic on a paper cut, small gluing jobs, and occasionally cleaning ears (yes, I know you're not supposed to do this, but honestly, what else are you supposed to use?). And to be honest, most of the time, I don't really count them as waste. We buy the swabs with cardboard cores rather than plastic ones, so used ones can simply go in the bathroom compost bin. So the only waste these swabs add to our household trash is the plastic container they come in, and since we go through maybe one package per year, that's not much.

However, using waste as a proxy for wastefulness obscures the real environmental cost of disposable products like these. In reality, most of the damage they cause comes not at the end of their life, but at the beginning. And cotton happens to be a particularly costly crop, using large amounts of water and pesticides. (Organic cotton doesn't use the pesticides, but it uses even more water and land, since it takes more plants to produce the same volume of material.)

This past week, I learned of a company that's actually making a reusable alternative: the LastSwab. Made from silicone, it can be washed by hand with soap and water and used over and over. It comes in a "basic" style with a nubby tip, and a smoother "Beauty" style with a fine point for applying make-up. The downside: both versions cost $16. They purport to "replace up to 1,000 cotton swabs," but considering that you can buy 500 cotton swabs at the store for about $3, the LastSwab is still more than 2.5 times as expensive — and unlike the paper-and-cotton swabs we use now, it can't be composted when it reaches the end of its life. So it seems unlikely that it would ever actually pay for itself. (The same company that makes LastSwab is also apparently working on a "LastTissue," which it plans to unveil soon via KickStarter. It's a bit confusing to me, since I thought a reusable tissue was called a handkerchief and could be purchased for a buck or two. But maybe they've come up with a revolutionary new alternative that millennials won't find gross.)


So there you have it: the four disposable products in my life that I'm not actively planning to replace any time soon. Of course, if a truly ecofrugal alternative to any of them comes along — something that's both less expensive and less wasteful — I'll cheerfully snatch at it. But realistically, I'm not expecting that to happen any time soon.