5 picks · vetted plastic-free
The best plastic-free dish soap and brushes
The scrubby side of a sponge is plastic, and it sheds into the sink as it wears. Solid soap and plant-fibre brushes don't.
Washing up is quietly plastic-heavy: a bottle of liquid soap that is mostly water, plus a synthetic sponge whose green scrubbing layer is polyester or polyurethane foam. That foam breaks down as it scrubs, shedding plastic straight into the sink and onto the dishes you just cleaned.
A solid dish soap block and a plant-fibre brush cover the same job with nothing to throw away and nothing to shed. The block outlasts several bottles, the brush heads are compostable, and the whole setup looks better on the sink than a crusted plastic bottle.
Dish Soap Bar
Curved Dish Brush, Union Plant Fiber
Bamboo Dish Brush
Wipe and scrub without plastic
Cellulose dishcloths replace both paper towels and plastic scourers, washing clean hundreds of times, and a cellulose-and-loofah sponge composts at the end instead of shedding foam.
Common questions
- What is wrong with normal kitchen sponges?
- The soft body is usually polyurethane and the abrasive layer polyester, both plastic. As you scrub, tiny fragments wear off into the water and onto dishes, and the sponge is thrown away every few weeks. Plant-fibre brushes and cellulose sponges wear down into compost instead.
- Does a solid dish soap bar actually clean dishes?
- Yes. You wet the brush or a cloth, swirl it on the block to load it, and wash as normal. The block is concentrated soap without the water and the bottle, and one typically outlasts two or three bottles of liquid.
- Do the wooden brushes get gross or mouldy?
- Not if you stand them up to dry between uses, same as any brush. The heads are usually replaceable, so the wooden handle lasts for years while you swap just the plant-fibre bristles.
- What about the dishwasher?
- Dishwasher detergent in cardboard or refillable formats, plus these hand-wash tools for the pots, covers the whole sink plastic-free. Skip the single-use plastic-wrapped pods where you can.
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