Less Waste: For All Menstruating Persons, with Lunette

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

It undertook a lot of internal debating (a few months worth, actually!) before I had enough guts (read as wits?) to start writing this review about my beloved Lunette cup. The hesitation, off course, came from a silly, socially-instilled instinct to be wary of ever saying the word period outside the context of grammar class, literary works, and historical recitations. We’ve been taught that periods are something to be ashamed of, and not talked about. (Also taboo, sharing personal stories about monthly cycles, esp. for the entire world to read.) But while the topic of Mother Nature remains uninvited to dinner parties with the in-laws, I figure that my blog already teeters between the norm and the unspoken, so I might as well bridge that gap here and feel all the more relieved about it. In fact, I would consider it a social responsibility to alert all menstruating persons of the existence of Lunette period cups (ah, that felt much better, writing it aloud), and to speak about Mother Nature openly for the sake of Mother Earth. Why keep the silence when half of the population consists of menstruating persons?

Before Lunette cups….

I struggled about the monthly wasteful habits I was engaging in. Specifically, single-use tampons in plastic capsules and the occasional single-use pads. TMI? Read on anyways. If you think about it, assuming each menstruating person uses an average of 4 tampons a day for seven days a week, twelve times out of a year, for thirty seven years, basic math tells me that each menstruating human uses 12,432 tampons over the course of time that Mother Nature chooses to visit. Multiply that number by all humans favoring tampons, and you’ve got a whole lot of tampon plastic applicators covering up that landfill. Now, not everyone prefers this method, so say they use pads instead. The math comes to something similar, and the visual of a piece of land covered with a mountain of pads is just as stark. So when I started to consider the planet’s needs and wants, I started to fret about my monthly decisions.

I considered many different alternatives.

First, I switched to recycled pads and tampons without plastic applicators. But still, knowing that I threw these away at the end of the day really bothered me. Then, I thought of the reusable rags that remind me of medieval times. A doable deed, but then I didn’t love the idea of walking around in soaked rags all day, and what of swimming? So then I looked into underwear that is made from materials that soak up the leaks. A fan of the new wave engineering, but then what of the smell? This post just gets worse and worse doesn’t it? And still, it didn’t solve my problem with the swimming. (Why the obsession with swimming you may ask. In high school, I was part of a swim class that required me to be in a pool every day, at a time when I was just starting recurring menstrual cycles. So yeah, the problem of periods and swimming still go hand in hand, and always will.) But as with everything that seems like it can’t get any worse, eventually, it gets better.

I found Lunette cup…

…right when I was about to give up. If I am being completely honest, what caught my attention at first was the fact that I could choose whatever color I wanted. This post is becoming all around shameless. For new users, what is a menstrual cup you may ask. For lack of a better image, think of a literal cup used to catch your flow. It’s reusable, safe, odorless, eco-friendly, and most importantly, comfortable. So comfortable I forget about Mother Nature all together, for up to twelve hours at a time! Which is such an upgrade from the typical 4-6 hours with other single-use tampons and pads.

The first question that I asked was, “How safe?” We’ve all been taught to care about the food that goes into our bodies, so why not the other things too? Lunette cups are made from medical-grade silicone that is FDA approved, hypoallergenic, toxin-free, durable, and isn’t harmful to human tissue. This Finnish company has thought of it all!

The next question obviously is how to use. The packaging comes with a very simple diagram with light verbage to walk every first user through the steps. After washing your hands (duh!), you simply fold the silicone cup and insert, allowing you to go about your day for up to twelve hours, worry free! Depending on one’s flow rate, you may have to remove and empty the cup more often than twelve hours. For convenience, there are two cup sizes, one larger than the other to accommodate heavier flows so that days are not bogged down with emptying cups. Once emptied, rinse, and repeat. The rinsing simply involves using cold water and then hot water. If you are concerned about needing to do this at a public restroom with only one common sink area, Lunette has got you covered with their Lunette CupWipes! But honestly, 12 hours is a long time, so as long as you remember to empty right before you leave the house and right after you get home, then there really is no need for the CupWipes. Then again, not everybody is a homebody. At the end of the cycle, I always boil my menstrual cup in a pot of water for 20 minutes. Lunette sends a small pouch with every purchase to store your cup in during non-menstruating days, which allows me to carry it around at all times, in case of surprise visits.

So now, the specifics…

…to the Lunette cup for me personally. TMI continues. And yes, I created questions for myself, then answered them. This is such a peculiar post…

Color: Pink! Erm, well, violet, technically.
Size: Lunette Size 1. This is the smaller size. I am 5’1″ and am barely over 100 pounds. I chose this one because to me, it seems it would be more comfortable for my petite frame.
How many times do you empty the cup? 4 times a day for the first few days, 2-3 times for the later days. I could probably empty it less frequently if I get the larger size.
How long have you been using the Lunette Cup? I have been using Lunette cup for the past four months. I can’t believe I have lived so many years without one!
Have you ever used their cleaning products? No, not yet. I find that boiling the cup upon first receiving it and after every cycle is sufficient.
Is there a time where you’ve found it inconvenient? Yes. Only once. When we traveled to Mexico City and I was not confident that faucet water was as bacteria free as I would like. I had to keep waiting for a time and place where I was able to take a bottled water into a private bathroom with me and use that to rinse the cup. This may have been the only time I would have bought the cleaning products, if I thought of it ahead of time.
Is it difficult to use? No! The learning curve is flat as a valley, it’s so easy! And it teaches you so much about your anatomy. I think we all need to start learning more about our bodies, in general, instead of always trying to hide away from it. I think everyone should give this a try.

For those interested in trying Lunette for the first time, use the code EarthDay18 to get 20% off of all Single Lunette Cups! Feeling charitable? Try the Charitable Buy One, Give One Menstrual Cup, benefitting girls and women in need around the world.

Getting to Know: Lindsey McCoy and Alison Webster of Plaine Products

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

This post is sponsored by Plaine Products, a company devoted to reducing single-use plastic waste in everyday bathroom essentials.

Lindsey McCoy and Alison Webster are the sister duo that co-founded Plaine Products. Lindsey’s determination to reduce single-use plastic coupled with Alison’s design background fostered a new way for people, such as myself, to enjoy bathroom essentials without the guilt of having to buy plastic bottles. Additionally, their products are vegan, toxin-free, child-safe, biodegradable and never animal-tested! They have now become my go-to source for staple items such as hair conditioner and lotion, two products for which I have not found a better alternative, thus far.

What inspired you to start Plaine Products?

For 10 years, I lived in the The Bahamas doing environment education work. While I loved living there, it wasn’t all rum drinks on the beach. On a small island, there’s no first world infrastructure to insulate you from the piles of plastic we are creating. You see plastic bags, bottles, and flip flops on the beach, in the water, spilling out of the landfills, and strewn along the side of the road. There’s even a place so full of plastic it’s called Junk Beach. The message that plastic lasts forever, no matter how long we use it, is much more obvious living there than it is in the States.

I wanted to start using less plastic in my life. I started taking action: carrying a reusable water bottle, reusable grocery bags, skipping the straw at the restaurants and bars. I looked for other ways to use less plastic. But I couldn’t figure out how to get those plastic bottles out of my shower. I couldn’t find any alternatives that worked for me and my hair.

As we contemplated a move back to the States, I realized that I might be able to solve my own problem. Even better, I might be able to help other people use less plastic in their lives. I pulled in my sister, Alison Webster, who has a design degree and strong opinions about the quality of her products. Together, we spent two years working hard to make it easier for people to get quality products without having to buy single-use plastic bottles.

Plaine Products 1

What is the mission or the goal of your company?

Our goal is to make it easy for people to get quality, toxin-free products without having to buy single-use plastic bottles. The less single-use plastic in the world taking up room in our landfills, spilling into our oceans, the better for all of us. And, although we didn’t start out to be a natural company, I’ve become a huge advocate of keeping harmful chemicals out of the products we put on and in our bodies as well.

I love that your product has natural ingredients. You guys are obviously not simply focusing on the environment, but also on the chemical make-up of the products people use on themselves too. What are your requirements for the ingredients that go into Plaine Products?

We spent a lot of time figuring out how to make sure the products themselves wer as environmentally friendly and as high quality as the packaging we decide to put them in. Happily, we found a manufacturer that is as committed as we are to natural products and ingredients. For example, originally our products had wheat and silk proteins, which were of concern to vegans and those with gluten allergies. While the silk proteins were from a biological source, our manufacturer was able to tweak the formula to remove those ingredients so that we could move forward without any concern from either of those groups. Our success thus far is not only because of the innovative packaging, it has also been because people genuinely like what’s inside the packaging.

What is the impact that we can have on the environment by switching to re-usable shampoo bottles? And why is using recyclable plastic bottles not a good enough solution?

While plastic is an amazing product, it doesn’t make sense for stuff we use once and then throw away. Companies use it because it’s cheap, but it’s only cheap because they aren’t paying for the cost of the waste it creates. More than 550 million shampoo bottles end up in landfills every year, and that’s just shampoo! While it’s great to recycle plastic, because it is downgraded when it is recycled, it can only go through the process once or twice before it heads to the landfill. Aluminum can be recycled infinitely and recycling aluminum actually uses less energy than creating bottles for virgin aluminum.

How are you guys working to create a circular economy?

Our whole model is circular. You order your preferred products. When your bottles are low, you order a refill, or you can subscribe and we’ll send the bottles automatically. When the refills come, you’ll switch the pumps over and send back the empty bottles in the refill box, while we at Plaine Products covers the cost. Then we clean the bottles, refill them, and reuse them.

As far as we know, we are the only company that pays for you to send your bottles back to be cleaned, refilled, and reused. Once the bottles have gone through several cycles, we’ll send them off to be recycled. The nice thing about aluminum, as opposed to plastic, is that when it’s recycled, there’s no loss in quality. It just turns right back into more aluminum. When plastic is recycled it is downgraded into a lower form of plastic until it becomes unusable and ends up in a landfill or the ocean.

Do you think that the environmental effects of the shipping of products (say from carbon emissions) outweigh the impact of plastic pollution at our landfills and oceans?

I always say if people have a local solution that’s working for them, they should keep doing it. This was created for people who didn’t have access to other options. That being said we are very aware of our carbon footprint. We use the US Postal Service so there are no extra trips made just to deliver our bottles. We are looking into integrating carbon offsets into our shop and we don’t ship internationally right now. Before we expand we want to find a partner so we can keep the bottles in country. Shipping them back and forth over an ocean doesn’t make sense.

I do appreciate that your product is available to me in particular, as I have also had a hard time finding a local solution to single-use plastic in my bathroom! As a follow up to the previous question, are there any plans to open stores, either in NY or across the country?

We already have formed partnerships with several existing retail stores, like the Package Free Shop in Brooklyn, and we hope our list continues to grow.

What new products can we look forward to?

We just added a travel size body lotion and we completed a successful Kickstarter campaign, so keep your eyes out for our face wash and face moisturizer, available on the site this summer!

Out of curiosity, what other ways do you personally reduce plastic waste in the bathroom? Any actionable tips?

I started Plaine Products so that I could get single-use plastics out of my bathroom. Up until that point, I hadn’t found another solution that worked for me. In addition to using our products, I have a bamboo toothbrush and I make my own homemade toothpaste (which is much easier than it sounds!).

I am SO glad you mentioned the toothpaste recipe! I cannot wait to try it out for myself. Lastly, are there any books, podcasts, articles, documentaries or other resources that you would recommend to people who are interested in reducing plastic waste?

There’s so much good stuff out there.Some of my favorite bloggers (all are also on social media), are Going Zero Waste, Be Zero, Litterless and Zero Waste Nerd. There’s so much information out there and so many accessible ideas on ways to get started. I think people should focus on progress, not perfection. Pick one area to reduce plastic and see how that goes, celebrate the successes and don’t get hung up on the time you use single use plastic, it’s hard to avoid! Like anything else, it comes with practice.

Earth Day is this coming Sunday, April 22! To curb your plastic waste for Earth Day and every day, try out one of Plaine Products’s bath essentials. Or order them travel sized for your next vacation. This Earth Day, there will be a site-wide sale from April 20th to April 22nd, where all Plaine Products will be 22% off with the discount earthday at checkout.

Thank you for supporting the brands that support The Debtist.

Zero Waste Tumeric Red Lentil Fritters Tomato Bowl with Tahini Dill Sauce

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

Rumor has it that my co-worker’s wife makes the best lentil soup, and vegan friends have sworn that lentils make for an amazing alternative to meat, whether in burgers or in meat-less meatloaves. So when Mike came across a recipe for Lentil Fritters and voiced a willingness to try a vegetarian alternative to meatballs, I decided to give it a go. This recipe in particular included tumeric, a spice that previous to this post, I have not tried for myself, despite seeing it on every shelf at Mother’s Market and Whole Foods in every edible form imaginable. The benefits of tumeric still escapes me, so anybody able to shed light on this is entirely welcome to! Either way, while curiosity killed the cat, in this case, it got two humans to try a vegan meal in a normally very-non-vegan house.

Happily, I was able to get all ingredients in zero-waste fashion from the bulk aisle of our local Whole Foods. Initially, there was no inkling amongst the both of us that lentil was a grain. For some reason, I always imagined a leafy green. But we finally found it after a quick Google search, and carted away red lentils, chia seeds, and unhulled sesame seeds in self-brought containers. Determined not to buy pre-packaged tahini sauce, I decided to be generous in the sesame seed purchase, so that I could make tahini from scratch at home. And in my efforts to continue with the zero waste, we used some day old bread to create the bread crumbs that we needed to add some texture to the fritters. Biased-ly enough, any recipe that allows me to curb landfill waste is a great one! So I hope you enjoy the nutty, seedy, earthy fritters atop a refreshing bed of salad as much as we did.

Ingredients:

Seedy Lentil Fritters

1 tsp oil
1/2 cup onion
5 cloves of garlic chopped
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1/3 tsp ground cardamom
1/3 tsp or more cayenne
1/2 cup red lentils, washed and drained
1.5 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 cup packed chopped spinach
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Tahini Dill Sauce

3/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
3 tbs olive oil
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried dill
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne

Bowl

Lettuce
Chopped tomatoes & cucumbers

The Process:

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook until translucent, stirring occasionally.
Add all the spices and drained lentils. mix and cook for only a minute.
Add salt and water and cook for 11 minutes partially covered. Uncover, fold in spinach and parlsey and cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until the lentils are cooked and all the liquid is absorbed. The mixture will be soft. Taste and adjust salt and heat.
Add chia seeds and sesame seeds and mix in. Chill the lentil mixture for half an hour (in our case, we just placed it right in the fridge!)
Meanwhile, make croutons from day old bread using our Basic Crouton Recipe. Once croutons come out of the oven, crush them using either mortar and pestle, or a rolling pin.
Preheat the oven to 425 deg F / 220ºc. Mix in 1/4 cup breadcrumbs in the lentil mixture. The mixture will be soft but should get easily shaped into soft balls without too much sticking or squishing.
Once the lentil mixtures have been shaped into fritters, place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Use a pastry brush to rub olive oil over the surfaces, for an extra crisp texture. Bake for 20 minutes.
Blend everything under tahini sauce in a food processor, starting with toasted sesame seeds and olive oil. Add the rest of the ingredients after the tahini sauce has reached the desired consistency. Taste and adjust, adding salt and lemon as needed. For a garlicky dressing mix in 1/4 tsp garlic powder.
Assemble the bowl with greens, juicy tomatoes or cucumbers, and as many Lentil fritters as you like. Drizzle dressing generously.

This makes way more fritters than necessary for a party of two. Good news is that they refrigerate quite well. Reheating in a toaster oven makes them good as new, so batch cooking these babies can really come in handy on a busy day. I would also venture to predict that future self will be substituting these for beef patties, on the regular.

Refill, Reuse, Rejoice with Plaine Products

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

I’ve already said my piece here regarding reducing plastic waste in my daily hygiene routine, by switching to bars of shampoo and conditioner and soap. But what of lotion? What of wintry dry skin, flaking away at the shudder of a cold, harsh winter wind? We live in sunny Southern California, but nonetheless, sensitive, scaly skin prevails in this dry desertland. Surely, there is no lotion bar? At the very least, I have yet to discover it.

There is, however, the introduction of a new company called Plaine Products. Focused on the idea of reusable containers, sisters Lindsey and Alison Delaplaine created a way to offer shampoo, conditioner, body wash, AND lotion in aluminum reusable bottles. The stuff itself is quite lovely and aromatic, with two scent options. A rosemary, mint, and vanilla combination for the fall and winter, and a citrus lavender for the spring and summer, or so I like to think. Associate with the scents whatever seasons tickle your fancy. I must admit that I was ready for an alternative that would allow me to switch back to liquid conditioners. Bar soap shampoos are fine in my book, but my hair was starting to hang a bit too heavy, giving it a sadder appearance than my cheery personality would like. Nothing Plaine Products couldn’t save. After one day of switching to liquid shampoo and conditioner, the flounce of the hair has been returned. And the lotion has got my skin feeling silky, without my conscience feeling plastic-guilt. It’s a thing, I swear!

The concept behind the refillability (not a word?) of the bottles is simple. It’s a wonder why it is not more widely implemented. A subscription can be shipped to your door in a box (made of 95% post-consumer waste and 5% post-industrial waste), which can act as the same vessel to return your already used and empty bottles back to the company. The bottles are then refilled, thus giving them a new life. You can opt to order the new bottle without the pump, if you already own a pump that’s easily reusable. The box is reused, the bottle is reused, and the plastic pump is reused. Multiply that to account for shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion, and we’ve got ourselves quite an impact. Currently, face wash, hand wash, and face moisturizer products are in the works.

In an effort to be all around environmentally friendly, the contents are well considered. The products avoid animal testing of any kind, is devoid of sulfates, parabens, and pthalates, and is designed to biodegrade more easily than typical, chemical products. The specifics of the contents can be found here, if microanalysis of such details are your thing, just as they are mine. Proudly vegan, the main component of their products are none other than Aloe Vera. The same extract that my mom would scrape from the plant leaves and weave into our hairs before a night’s rest. Less sticky, less messy, less fuss and crying and wails of discontent (sorry mom!).

I must admit, I do still have to deal with the internal struggle of whether the back-and-forth shipping of subscriptions really outweighs the long-term consequences of the plastic that never degrades. The elusiveness of the topic at large feeds the frustration I feel when well-intentioned actions are unclear in their effects. It’s as if a cloud is purposefully shifted above the whole matter, making it difficult to really measure the impact of hauling our goods versus increasing plastic waste, which alternatively blankets our ability to measure the opposite as well. While we could discuss this topic for a long time and perhaps stay stagnant in our search for an answer, I would like to say that for now, Plaine Products gives us plastic-avoiders a welcome alternative. As does nixing shampoo all-together, a step I admittedly am not ready to make.

Care to give them a try? Order your first Plaine Products today! TheDebtist readers will receive 10% off of their purchase when the code thedebtist10 is entered at checkout. The shipping was quick, and hassle-free, with an option to subscribe to their products for regularly spaced deliveries, if simplicity is kind of your thing.

This post was sponsored by Plaine Products. All opinions are my own.