The 25 eco-friendly essentials you need in your home

Worried about the impact on the planet of your lifestyle? You’re not alone. Across the world, millions of us are re-evaluating our day-to-day lives, whether from opting for a flexitarian or completely plant-based diet to choosing sustainable alternatives to the products we’ve always used.

Choosing to live a more sustainable life feels like an increasingly essential part we can play in the climate crisis. Seeking out eco-friendly products that eschew plastics for natural components is a way to be sustainable every day and a key step that we can make to be more conscious consumers. After all, the impacts of single-use plastic (and the leeching of microplastics in waterways and, more worryingly, our bodies) are widely known, particularly as only 9% of all plastic waste ever created has been recycled. Buying products for the house that are built to last, rather than be thrown away after use is also a crucial step on any journey towards sustainable living.

Here at Superbee, we’re committed to supporting people around the world to become more conscious consumers. This is why we’ve put together this list of 25 eco-friendly products to help you on the road towards sustainable living.

Eco-friendly household products

When it comes to the home, swapping out single-use and reusable plastics (after all, plastics are derived from fossil fuels, which cause huge numbers of greenhouse gas emissions) is the key. Here are our favorite green home products.

1. Reusable plastic wrap

Plastic or saran wrap is such a handy kitchen tool. But did you know that every year Americans buy enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas? Unfortunately, it’s rarely recycled and, when incinerated, releases toxic chemicals such as dioxin. Derived from fossil fuels in the first place, plastic wrap is a no-no when it comes to a sustainable kitchen.

Our favorite environmentally-friendly alternatives are beeswax wraps. Made from organic cotton, mixed with microbial beeswax, tree resin, and organic coconut oil, they can be used to wrap leftovers, fruit, bread, vegetables, and pretty much anything in your kitchen (except meat). By doing this, they help prevent food waste and, because they can be reused again and again, reduce your impact on landfill. Amazing.

Check out our beeswax wraps.

2. Handy reusable produce bags

Ever re-used the flimsy plastic bag you got in the supermarket when selecting fruit or veg? We bet you haven’t – and that the bag ended up straight in the trash.

Cut out this waste with reusable produce bags. Ours are made from 100% GOTS organic cotton and come in a mesh design, which not only stretches to accommodate more fruit and veg but allows for air circulation to keep the produce fresh. You can even hang them in your pantry or cupboard for storage.

Check out our reusable mesh produce bags.

3. Packable organic cotton tote bag

Next time you head out shopping, whether to the local mall or the supermarket, it pays to bring your own reusable tote. Small enough to be packed down into your handbag, they can be whipped out at a moment’s notice when someone offers you a plastic bag: No thanks: I’ve got my tote.

Ours are made from the offcuts from our organic cotton beeswax wrap, ensuring every tote is as unique as you are.

Check out our organic cotton totes.

4. Beeswax sandwich bags

Whether you’re making a packed lunch for your kids, your partner, or yourself, there’s growing evidence that using a plastic lunch box isn’t a good choice for your health. Instead, harness the power of 100% natural ingredients by swapping them out for reusable beeswax lunch bags.

Made from the same blend of GOTS-certified organic cotton, beeswax, and a couple of other natural ingredients, they’re designed to be breathable, keeping your lunch in tip-top condition. Just wash them with gentle dishwashing soap under a cold tap and they’ll be ready for use again.

Check out our beeswax bags.

5. Colorful glass straws

Hate the waste when you get a drink to go and it comes with a plastic straw? Or fed up with cardboard alternatives turning into mush after a few sips? We know exactly how you feel.

We don’t believe that straws have to be a danger to our turtle friends, which is why we invented our beautiful colored glass straws. Perfect for hot and cold drinks, and supplied with an easy-to-use cleaning brush, they’re PVC-free and the prettiest way to slurp up a drink.

Check out our glass drinking straws.

6. Plastic-free dish scrubbers

How many dish scrubbers do you get through each year? The answer’s probably a lot – and we bet you don’t want to think about the impact on landfill of those unrecyclable sponges.

The most sustainable alternative is to use a 100% natural and biodegradable pot scrubber. We designed our kitchen loofahs to use soft but strong natural loofah fibers to be tough on your dishes but kind on the planet. After a month or two of use, they can go straight into your compost bin and will find their way back to nature. Marvelous.

Check out our natural dish scrubbers.

7. Eco-friendly kitchen cloths

Kitchen clothes can feel like indispensable cleaning tools, whether you’ve got messy little ones to clean up after or just like the ease of paper towels for scrubbing down your surfaces.

Not only can paper towels contribute to deforestation if they’re sourced from sustainable forests, but they’re often treated with harsh chemicals, bleaches, and dyes in order for them to absorb greater quantities of water and other liquids.

Switch them out for eco-friendly kitchen cloths instead. Ours can be used as cleaning cloths or paper towels; they’ll absorb liquids and then can be thrown into the washing machine to be used again. Magic.

Check out our reusable kitchen cloths.

8. Non-toxic laundry detergent

Worried about the impact of the chemicals found in your laundry detergent on both your skin and the planet? You’ve got good reason to be: unless a detergent is marked as 100% natural, it’s probably using synthetic chemicals, including phosphates, petrochemicals, and artificial fragrances, which can pose a risk to your family’s skin.

Swap out the nasties from inside your washing machine by instead switching to a natural detergent. Our Hexawash is an innovative alternative, using the power of science instead of chemicals to make your clothes sparklingly clean. Curious as to how it works? Read about the Hexawash here.

Check out our organic laundry detergent alternative.

9. Wool dryer balls

Tumble dryers don’t have the most positive environmental impact, but for busy families or those without outdoor space for drying clothes, they’re often an unavoidable necessity. Luckily, there are ways that you can cut down on the impact of tumble drying your laundry.

Dryer balls are a clever way of reducing the amount of time clothes need in the dryer. By moving around between the laundry, they create air pockets, thus helping the load dry up to 30% faster – which will save you both time and money.

Ours are made from unbleached, sustainably-sourced New Zealand sheep’s wool and can last up to 1,000 washes.

Check out our wool dryer balls.

10. Reusable coffee cup

Most of us need a cup of Joe in the morning to wake us up for the day, and a trip to our favorite local coffee shop is a daily ritual for many. But did you know that over 20 million trees are cut down each year to produce single-use paper cups?

An extremely easy switch is to invest in your own reusable coffee cup, which you can take with your every morning for that caffeine fix. Better still, many shops offer a discount if you bring your own mug. Win, win.

Ours are made from sustainable bamboo and highly durable stainless steel to make sure they last and last.

Check out our reusable bamboo mugs.

11. Picnic-perfect coconut bowls

Picnic lunches aren’t complete without packable tableware. But switch out environment-damaging paper dishes for reusable and plastic-free tableware.

We love our 100% natural coconut bowls, which are as perfect for the picnic table as for your morning smoothie and are completely chemical, BVA, and plastic-free.

Check out our handcrafted coconut bowls.

12. Reusable picnic cutlery

A picnic lunch isn’t complete without knives and forks, which is why a set of beautiful wooden cutlery is a necessary investment for your future sustainable lunches. We love this one from Etsy, made from durable Nanmu wood and in an elegant Japanese style.

13. Stainless steel water bottle

When at the office, gym, or running errands, keeping a refillable water bottle at hand is the easiest way of avoiding buying single-use plastic bottles when you’re thirsty – which is a boost for the planet and can also save you some considerable cash.

Stainless steel bottles like this one are durable and don’t transfer any taste from the bottle to the drink. They can also keep hot drinks warm for 12 hours and cold ones cool for 24.

14. Sustainable lunch box

If you’re a fan of taking yesterday’s leftovers to work for lunch, a sustainable lunch box is an essential tool for your zero-waste kitchen. Made from bamboo fiber, this bento lunch box has enough space for whatever tasty dish you’ve got to look forward to and is 100% BPA, PVC, phthalate, and latex-free.

Sustainable personal care

Sustainability isn’t just something to think about in your kitchen. Here are our favorite bathroom products that can help you turn your bathroom cabinet “green”, and rid your home of toxic chemicals and plastic.

15. Plastic-free dental floss

Flossing is an important part of your dental hygiene, but, like other plastics that find their way into our marine ecosystems, dental floss can be ingested by animals, causing slow and painful stomach issues and potentially death, or end up strangling them.

Be kind to our ocean friends with our organic corn fiber floss. Not only is it vegan and with a layer of bamboo wax to help it glide easily between the teeth, but it will biodegrade long before it can find its way into the oceans.

Check out our biodegradable dental floss.

16. Bamboo toothbrush

Savvy consumers have been wise to the environmental legacy of plastic toothbrushes for a while now, with one billion plastic toothbrushes thrown into landfill each year in the United States – some 25,000 tons of plastic waste.

An easy switch is to replace them with a bamboo toothbrush, which is far more sustainable thanks to bamboo’s fast growth and the fact it’s completely biodegradable. Our bamboo toothbrushes also come with charcoal-infused nylon bristles, which remove bacteria microscopically by binding to and then absorbing them from your teeth for perfect pearly whites.

Check out our biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes.

17. Plastic-free toothpaste

Next up in the bathroom cabinet for a spot of “greenifying” is toothpaste. On average, every toothpaste tube that contains plastic and metal takes 500 years to biodegrade in landfill. Just let that sink in for a minute.

The easy fix is to replace those pesky (and super un-environmentally-friendly tubes) for our dentos toothpaste tabs. Spearmint flavored and scientifically formulated to use only natural ingredients for deep tooth cleaning, they also come in a plastic-free, reusable aluminum tin.

Check out our eco toothpaste tablets.

18. Reusable cotton rounds

Soft, cotton rounds are a gentle way of removing makeup at the end of the day. But, even if they’re made from organic cotton (which uses 46% less CO2e compared to conventional cotton, and significantly less water), their environmental impact is worrying, as they can’t biodegrade due to the chemicals and bleaching agents used to make them.

Instead, introduce reusable organic cotton rounds to your bathroom, which you can use with makeup remover or water before popping them into the washing machine to be washed and ready for another day.

Check out our reusable organic cotton rounds.

19. All-natural body exfoliator

Plastic body scrubbers should have no place in your shower. After all, they can release microplastics, which are flowing into our water sources and, because they tend to absorb chemicals, are then eaten by aquatic wildlife before entering the human food chain.

Our natural body scrubbers are made from 100% natural loofah, which has great exfoliation properties for removing dead skin cells and leaving your skin feeling fresh and full of life.

Check out our shower body scrubbers.

Eco-friendly travel products

Heading on vacation? Just because you’re away from home doesn’t mean you can’t be sustainable, too. Here are our must-have eco-friendly travel essentials for conscious living away from home.

20. Sustainable travel towel

Whether you’re hitting up the beach or diving in tropical waters, a sustainable beach towel is the perfect accessory. We love this towel from Anaskela, which is made from recycled PET bottles and comes in a range of stunning colors.

21. Solid shampoo and conditioner

If you’re traveling hand luggage only or just don’t have a whole lot of space, investing in some solid shampoo and conditioner bars is a savvy travel hack.

Whatever your hair type, these solid bars from Ethique, which are equivalent to three bottles of shampoo or conditioner, will leave your hair feeling fresh and silky soft. They’re also 100% vegan and not tested on animals.

22. Recycled plastic sunglasses

Protect your eyes from the sun this vacation with a pair of sunglasses that not only look good, but do good too.

Italian brand Sea2see use recycled plastic waste collected from the ocean to design their super stylish sunglasses, giving a new opportunity for income to their collectors located in beachside areas around the world.

23. Recycled activewear and swimwear

For hiking or just exploring a new city, there’s nothing more comfortable than stretchy activewear, which can double up for beachside runs or slouchy days around the hotel.

Organic Basics is a company with sustainability at the forefront and have designed a whole range of comfy clothes made from GOTS-certified organic cotton, as well as recycled fibers such as nylon and cashmere. They also have a line of swimwear made from recycled marine plastics.

24. Mineral sunscreen

Ever wondered how many chemicals are packed into that little bottle of sunscreen that you slather onto your skin? Lots: and they can potentially be irritating to your skin, too.

Mineral sunscreens are a great alternative. Containing either zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, they sit on the top of the skin to shield it from damaging UV rays. Chemical-free, they’re also much better for marine environments, including coral reefs.

This one from Raw Elements comes in a recyclable tin, too.

25. Travel water filter system

Worried about drinking tap water when traveling away from home? It’s no wonder that many travelers find themselves relying on single-use plastic to avoid the risks of drinking unsafe water. But the environmental impact of bottled water soon adds up – which is why investing in a travel water filtration system is a must.

The Grayl is an easy-to-use on-the-go water filter and purifier, that can turn everything from tap water to river water into safe, potable water in seconds.