The one with the zero waste grocery store

I am so lucky to live in a city that has a zero waste grocery store. The Mighty Bin is the amazing labor of love from, Isabelle DeMillan. This is a storefront grocery store in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego. 

The idea is that shoppers bring their own clean containers and refill from hundreds of items sold in bulk. When I arrive, they weigh my containers and either write the weight on the bottom, or use an elastic band to add a tag that electronically holds the information about the weight. As I fill each container they add the item to my tab until I am ready to check out. 

BYO Containers:

Unlike other grocery places, where bringing my own containers makes me an unusual customer, at the Mighty Bin it is totally normal, accepted, and encouraged to for me to walk in with a collection of bottles, canisters, and canvas bags to fill with my groceries. They even accept donations of bottles and jars to give to people who don't have containers, or need an extra one. These get cleaned and sterilized at the store before becoming available to customers. (I donate bottles to reduce our recycling, and so they get reused.)

The reason I love The Mighty Bin is because they have items I can not find in bulk anywhere else. Yes, I live within a mile of a Sprouts, and they have great bulk bins for many of my regular items, salt, sugar, flour, rice, oats etc. The Mighty Bin has all those things too, but there are specific things I can't find in the bulk section of other stores that are available there. Plus The Mighty Bin has liquid things that I can not buy in bulk anywhere else. 

Bulk items I can find there that I can't find elsewhere: 

Arborio rice, baking soda, roasted garbanzo beans, dried blueberries, pretzels, spaghetti and other pasta shapes. 

Liquid items that are hard to find in bulk elsewhere: 

Olive oil, vinegars, sesame oil, maple syrup, honey, dish soap. (I love being able to buy vinegar this way for cleaning, cooking, and laundry.)

They also have a rotating variety of frozen items, which I really appreciate. 

And there is a peanut butter machine we are eager to try once we use up our back stock of peanut butter in jars. 

Here is their full list of products they carry. 

The Best Grocery Store:

The Mighty Bin also partners with lots of local businesses organizations to recycle plastic, collect e-waste, offer classes, order flowers or subscribe to a community supported agriculture box. Check out their Instagram feed for the latest events and ongoing initiatives. 

If you live in the San Diego area a trip to the Mighty Bin is a fun adventure in shopping without packaging. It's a great way to reuse containers you already have. I encourage you to make it a regular part of your grocery rotation. 

Oh, and they were recently voted Best Grocery Store by San Diego Magazine's Reader's Picks. Yay!

The one with the shampoo bars

 In 2021 I did a favor for a friend. It involved getting up early, waiting around, and then managing a tricky delivery. I also watered some plants in the process. But none of that is the important part. 

The important part is that my friend thanked me for this favor by sending me a great starter set from The Earthling Company. This is definitely up there in list of great gifts I was not expecting. The set included, a body bar, a face bar, a shampoo bar, a conditioner bar, a cute little wooden soap dish and a sisal soap saver bag. 

Note: That link above will get you $10 off your first order over $30. 

Conditioner, shampoo, body bar on 8" soap dish. 

Thus was my introduction to the concept that shampoo could come in a solid form. Okay, I already knew that, but I certainly had never seriously considered trying it. I loved it. That shampoo bar lasted months, and then I ordered four more. Those carried me through the rest of 2021, all of 2022, and I just started using the last one here in the beginning of 2023. So five bars have been all the shampoo I needed for the last 21 months. When the Earthling Co. says their bars last 3-4 months, they are't lying. 

And the conditioner bars last even longer. I bought equal numbers of shampoo and conditioner bars, but now I am on my last shampoo bar, and I still have two extra un-opened conditioner bars ready to use next. (One will be on the soap dish next week. The current bar is almost done.)

I am exclusively using and specifically recommending the bars from The Earthling Company. I was gifted a shampoo bar in a store from a brand whose other products I really enjoy. That shampoo bar was not a good fit for me. I did try it for a few weeks thinking any high quality shampoo bar should be the same as another. It was not  and I went right back to my Earthling shampoo bar. My hair was so much happier when I did. 

Tips: 

-I keep my bars on a long soap dish just outside my shower. See picture in this post. This keeps them drier and I think that helps them last longer. 

-I've heard people say to lather your hands and not apply the bar directly to your head. I rub the bar all over my head. It's fine. It rinses clean. 

-I don't have to wash my hair as often when I'm using this shampoo bar. I went from almost daily washing, to going at least three days and sometimes four between washes. My scalp just produces less oil. (There are actual chemical reasons for this based on the ingredients in the bar.)

-Eventually my shampoo bar always breaks in half. I keep using one half and the other half becomes my "travel size" bar. I wrap it in a scrap of fabric and throw it in my toiletry bag. It dries quickly after a use. 

-The shampoo bars travel well. I tend to not travel with the conditioner bars. They are softer and can melt in a warm car. I have a spray on, leave in conditioner that I use when I travel. 

Trash: 

-None really. The bars come in small cardboard boxes. I store them in those until I'm ready to use the bar and then I recycle the little box. I love that I can store a year's supply of shampoo and conditioner bars in less space than one shampoo bottle used to take up. 

-I am usually able to use up a bar completely. Eventually it does break into small pieces. But I just keep rubbing those around on my head until I loose them. 

A post like this should probably include a hair picture, so here is mine. I washed my hair last night and went to bed with it slightly damp. The only products I've used on it for the last two weeks have been Earthling Co. shampoo and conditioner bars.