Nancy Weill is a long-time community volunteer and environmental activist, a chair of the Mercer Island School District Green Team, and a district “Earth Hero” award recipient. Her work has helped individual schools and the district reduce waste, increase recycling, and purchase green products.

Here’s a letter from Nancy to the community about some of her eco-friendly product recommendations on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day.

Happy Earth Day, Friends!

Last year, I made a pledge with our family to significantly reduce the use of plastic in our home. We have used the following products for an entire year and love them because they do not use plastic and significantly reduce our family’s impact on our planet.  

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider adopting at least one, if not all, of these products to remove unnecessary plastic from your life. 

Anything I listed below has been used on everything in our home meaning for:

• Dirty, smelly laundry
• My armpits
• Everyone’s bums
• Caked-on Dishes
• Sticky hands
• I-don’t-feel-like-showering greasy hair

We cannot run all the awesome Earth Week activities we had planned to this week because of Covid-19, but you do have the time to consider these products and talk with your family.  It feels amazing to stop buying endless plastic.  

Last but not least, The Discovery Channel is premiering a movie that your family can watch called The Story of Plastic. Watch it! Teach your kids why this matters!

Here are the links to all of the products:

Nancy’s Plastic-Free Product Recommendations

Dropps Laundry Detergent Pods – We use this company for laundry detergent and dishwasher pods because it comes in a recycled cardboard box. No more giant TIDE plastic tubs.

Tru Earth Laundry Eco Strips – This is laundry that comes in an envelop and is a thin sheet of soap. Really cool and works great on laundry!

Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper – This company sends you 50 rolls of recycled content toilet paper in a cardboard boxed wrapped in recycled content paper. No more giant plastic-wrapped toilet rolls.

Plastic-Free Dish Soap Concentrate – I am most excited to share this! It took me half a year to find this product because many others did not live up to the need! This is concentrated dish and hand soap that comes in a wax tub!  You just pour it into your current plastic bottle, add water, shake and it turns into the dish soap you need.  Then toss the wax into your compost bin because wax is compostable! SO you never need to buy plastic bottles of hand or dish soap again! It is fantastic!

Ethique Shampoo – One of the biggest issues of shampoo and conditioner bottles is that you cannot recycle them because no one takes the hour you need to properly clean it out. Therefore, it goes into the trash, even if you wish-cycle it and put it into the recycling. So … these bars are amazing and come in lots of scents/flavors.  It takes a little getting used to putting a bar to your head instead of liquid, but all my kids have now used it for a year and it works! Even the box the bars come in is compostable!

Package-Free Deodorant Stick – Personally, this was the hardest thing for me to find. I used many different brands before finding this one. It keeps my pits smelling good, and when it runs out, throw it into your compost bin because it is made of cardboard!

And one more thing! Here’s an important sign-up to reduce plastic in your home …

Nancy’s Plastic-Film Recycling Service Recommendation

Ridwell – I LOVE Ridwell, and we have used it for a long time. Ridwell is a company that started on Queen Anne with a father-son duo collecting plastic film that is no longer accepted in your recycling bins. 

If you look around your house and in your pantry, you have a ton of plastic … and none of it can go into the recycling. None of it.

But now, through Ridwell, all of the following can be collected at home and recycled. For $10 a month, Ridwell will pick up your plastic film up from you and will recycle it through a single-source company that can handle loose plastics. 

Here are the plastic film items they can take – as long as they are empty, dry, and clean:

• Bread Bags
• Plastic Bags
• Dry Cleaning Bags
• Grape Bags
• Cereal Bags
• Bubble Wrap
• Packaging Air Bubbles
• Zip Lock Bags
• Grocery Bags
• Prime Shipper envelopes
• Newspaper bags
• Produce bags
• Outter wrapping plastic (like about a bunch of toilet paper)
• Polybags
• 6-rings from sodas
• Plastic Food Wrap
• Frozen Food Bags (clean and dry)

The entire Mercer Island School District PTA was set to run a campaign to educate all of you about Ridwell for Earth Week, but sadly due to current circumstances, we could not do it. Thankfully the word has been spreading about this service, as many are becoming aware of it! Sign up today! www.ridwell.com

Please take the time to consider these products and subscribing to the Ridwell recycling service. It matters! ~ Nancy Weill