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Zero Waste Shaving. This picture shows a safety razor from above.

Zero Waste Shaving

Posted on October 3, 2016April 22, 2022

The ‘usual’ shaving blades are often single use. And where do these single use items end up? Right, landfill. That just so happens to be the place where I don’t want to see them. What’s the alternative? The safety razor, the zero waste way of shaving!

My Shaving Waste

When I went through my trash to see what’s mostly in there, just like with my cotton pads, I saw all those awful single use razor blades. And so, I went to look for an alternative and found a safety razor quite soon. I ordered one new at bol.com (a massive Dutch site which sells basically anything).

Safety Razor

Yes, unfortunately I bought this item new (even though I try to avoid buying new things, because new things have the biggest negative impact on our planet). But as a zero waste beginner, the idea of a secondhand razor didn’t really appeal to me. And with little experience in zero waste shopping yet, I also thought I was never going to find a secondhand safety razor. Anyway, bol.com. I simply bought the first simple safety razor I could find. I figured there wouldn’t be much of a difference. Boy, I was wrong! Stupid, stupid, stupid. I received the safety razor and a big part of it is black plastic (which is non-recyclable and ew, plastic). I just hope this plastic will last me a lifetime then (in my head that makes up for it a little bit).

zero waste shaving

 

The safety razor I bought cost me 47,37 euros at bol.com. Yes, this is a loooot of money for one razor. But here it comes, because why did I buy this safety razor and how does this apparently crazy thing work? To make it more visual I added some photos of my safety razor. The thing you see is basically just the shell. This is the thing you reuse and inside of this you will place the blade. You only change the blade and so it is zero waste!

zero waste shaving

Zero Waste Shaving

The old waste:

– Hundreds (thousands?) of single use razor blades thrown away in a lifetime. They are made out of plastic, which is made out of oil. Oil is a non-renewable resource and burning things made out of oil pollutes the air and warms the climate. Recycling is not the solution, I’ve written more about that here. Besides, recycling is not even possible since single use razor blades aren’t made out of one material and so you can’t separate those and recycle them yourself.

The new waste:

– Bye bye buying new plastic! That’s a win itself. This safety razor will last me forever and so I never have to buy plastic razor blades again.
– The blades are the only waste, since these do need replacement. They’re made out of stainless steel and are 100% recyclable. You have to order those stainless steel blades and I’ve done this twice now. My best guess is that one blade lasts me 3 months. It really depends on how often you shave and how you take care of the blades. Drying them after use is one way to make them last longer.
– The blades I bought are from Astra and cost me 7,50 euros for 30 blades (from this site, this is not an affiliate link!). That lasts me 7,5 years! That’s 1 euro each year for shaving (I use soap as a shaving cream in addition). I choose to buy 30 blades to save transporting emissions (rather than buying 5 blades each time and them being send to me 6 times, this now happens in one ride when I buy 30 blades). I chose the blades from Astra because they’re packed in cardboard and paper (which are both renewable and 100% recyclable). Mind you, if you’re looking for another brand, watch out, some suppliers send the blades in plastic.

That investment from 47,37 euros will be returned because of the low costs of the blades and it’s all zero waste!

Good luck with zero waste shaving!

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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ABOUT ME

 

when a teen goes green

Hi! My name is Romee Hoeksma and I am on a journey to an eco-positive life. An eco-positive lifestyle is a lifestyle in which I have a more positive than negative impact on the beautiful planet earth. On this blog you can follow my journey to a life with only positive impact. At this blog you can find all sorts of things, from tips to recipes to personal experiences, but most of all fun (I hope!). I write about how I want to change the world, but don’t look at it as if I’m judging you. If anything, I like responses from my dear readers the most, so don’t hesitate to contact me or respond to any of my posts!

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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