We have got to a point in time where we all know what we should be doing: being more environmentally conscious. Whether that’s cutting out single use plastic, reducing our carbon footprint or helping our animal friends in the rainforests. We need to be swapping things out and changing our habits.
There are so many options now for re-usable everyday items like household and shopping resources. They are becoming more and more popular (our favourite places mentioned later); but if you haven’t realised already, we LOVE inventions and new exciting products. So, we have scoured the web and found some unique and innovative new products to use every day that can help you become more conscious of the changing planet that we live on, and also satisfies our need for cool inventiveness…
1. Re-usable straw – The Final Straw
Reusable straws are huge at the moment, with a lot of today’s eco-anger directed at the single use plastic variety. The Final Straw was the first of its kind and had a massively successful Kickstarter campaign which led to be the most popular choice on the market.
2. Aquaponic eco farm (fish tank)
This is essentially a nearly entirely self sustaining fish tank, that grows herbs and plants at the same time. The waste that the fish produce provides nutrients for the growing plants above; and the plants take the waste away and provide clean water for the fish. It creates a closed-loop eco-system that means less water is used to clean the tank. It also has lots of other benefits:
– Less energy used without the filter
– Cleaner air by growing plants indoors
– You can grow herbs, reducing single use plastic by buying in a supermarket!
These fish tanks come at very different prices; we found one on amazon at a reasonable price.
3. Eco friendly facial hair trimmer – The Manmower
The Manmower is is a pocket-portable beard trimmer that produces no waste (except your hair). There’s no changing of blades or plastic to dispose of. It’s a fail-safe way to touch up your face, maintaining a single length and comfortably trimming away hairs, tidily, on the plane, at a festival or on the way to a meeting. After many successful Kickstarter campaigns, the Manmower has evolved to suit the needs of any stubble loving person. Check them out here.
4. Indoor Compost bins
Compost bins are essential because food doesn’t biodegrade the way you think it will in landfill, it’s too compact and doesn’t get the oxygen needed for the process. Composting is a great way to make sure we are saving room on the planet and putting those nutrients back into the Earth. But not everyone likes to take a trip to the garden every day to deposit their left overs, or let the collection stink up the kitchen. You can buy sealed, smell proof indoor bins everywhere, but we like the look of these ones. However if your budget reaches £400, we found a cool little device called The FoodCycler that does all the composting in one. It takes kitchen scraps and turns it into nutrient-rich soil in 3 hours!
5. The Sprout Pencil
We love this! This is a pencil made from 100% natural materials and contains seeds in the bottom. Once the pencil can’t be used anymore, plant it upside down in soil and watch it grow into herbs, veg or flowers. They’ve got so many options on their fun website and are doing their bit to reduce waste and grow more plants.
6. Silicone stretch lids
A no-brainer for leftovers. Using these stretchy lids to cover almost any container, bowl or left-over fruit eliminates the need for cling film that takes up to 1000 years to decompose. Silicone isn’t made from harmful ingredients, is durable so will last you years, can be incinerated into its harmless original forms AND won’t degrade into microfragments in the ocean. Basically the complete opposite of the plastic we use. Bestreviews.com did the hard work for us and recommend ModFamily Silicone Stretch Lids.
7. Dyson Hair Dryer
With the average hair dryer taking around 12-15 minutes to dry hair completely (those with lower wattage taking more time), energy used and money spent can add up. Dyson has completely re-invented the hair dryer into an efficient and innovative tool. The new technology mean it cuts drying time in half, contributing to saving money and saving energy.
If £299+ isn’t in your price range, we found an interesting alternative. Ecotools Ultimate Air Dryer Brush is a patented diffuser-like hairbrush with a unique design. It dries hair 40% quicker meaning again, less energy used! We also love how just changing the shape of something can produce something so innovative and useful.
8. Soda Stream
An invention that has been around for a while, but with lots of advantages. By carbonating your own drinks, there’s no need to buy a fizzy drink in a plastic bottle.
9. Tap adapter – Retromix
A simple invention but sometimes those are the best. If you have separate taps in your bathroom or kitchen, you most likely waste a lot of water by trying to get the right temperature (before being scolded or frozen). This patent pending adapter fits onto both taps to mix the water, reducing water consumption by 43% and energy by 35%. Sometimes small is mighty.
10. Water saving shower heads
Shower heads have evolved over the years and are now responsible for most of the saved water in households. Ecocamel.com is a great place to find one that suits you and save the world one shorter shower at a time.
For a larger budget, we found the God of all new showers. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, The Nebia Shower have shipped nearly 20,000 showers to 55 countries and saved over 100 million gallons of water. It is developed through atomisation, which is the process of breaking up water into tiny droplets. You get just as drenched but saves up 65% of water per shower. They are currently re-inventing their original design, you can check it out on Kickstarter now.
And if you want to significantly reduce single use plastics and products, andkeep.com and peacewiththewild.co.uk have some amazing things to swap them out with.
If you have an invention you think could make a difference, send your idea in for a free review here.
