In our daily lives, we often use many products that offer comfort and convenience without considering their environmental impact. Many of these products have hidden costs that are detrimental to our planet. These everyday products we rely on contribute to pollution, resource depletion, and climate change. Understanding the environmental impact of buying and using these products is essential for a sustainable future.
Read on to learn the most common 11 everyday products that harm our environment.
Tea Bags
Who would have thought your innocent-looking tea bag could harm the environment? But it does. Tea bags often contain polypropylene, a type of plastic used to seal them, which doesn’t decompose. The United States is the leading tea importer, with imports valued at approximately US$520 million. Interestingly, an online survey revealed that 51% of the participants use only tea bags when preparing tea at home.
Fast Fashion
The fashion industry is one of the largest polluters in the world. Consumers buy more clothes often but wear them less, leading to significant waste and environmental degradation.
America alone produces approximately 11.3 million tons of textile waste, 85% of which ends up in landfills in the U.S. and abroad. Chile’s Atacama Desert has become a massive landfill full of old, discarded clothes from Europe and America.
Batteries
With technology entering every space of our homes and lives, batteries have become an indispensable household product. Batteries power many devices but contain toxic metals like cadmium, lead, and mercury.
Approximately 2.2 million liters of water produce just one ton of lithium batteries. Furthermore, improper battery disposal leads to these harmful substances contaminating the environment. Sometimes, batteries erupt into flames and can be a significant fire hazard. Americans discard over 3 billion batteries yearly, producing 180,000 tons of hazardous waste.
Household Cleaning Products
Many household cleaning products, including floor, carpet, glass, and toilet cleaners, contain chemicals such as alkylphenol ethoxylates that are harmful to the environment.
These substances can enter waterways, harming aquatic life and contaminating drinking water. Though Americans are gradually switching to eco-friendly and biodegradable cleaning products, traditional chemical-based products still rule American households.
Personal Care Products
Do you know that you are scrubbing plastic into your body every morning? Personal care or hygiene products such as face washes, toothpaste, body scrubs, shampoos, lotions, and cosmetics often contain microbeads and harmful chemicals.
Microbeads are tiny plastic particles that can pass through water filtration systems and enter oceans and lakes. These are then ingested by aquatic life, harming them. Though the United States banned the production and sale of rinse-off cosmetics containing microbeads, existing products still pose a threat.
Disposable Coffee Cups
American coffee culture is clogging landfills and polluting the oceans. A survey revealed that 27% of American participants drink at least 2 cups daily at home, while 20% preferred to-go coffee daily. The disposable coffee cups that most big and small coffee chains and service station vending machines provide coffee in are lined with plastic, making them difficult to recycle. A plastic cup takes 500 years to disintegrate, contributing to the ever-growing plastic waste problem.
Menstrual Products
Menstrual products, including sanitary napkins, tampons, and cups, are non-biodegradable. They pollute landfills and water bodies by leeching harmful chemicals like phthalates, parabens, dioxins, and environmental phenols. It was estimated that 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons are discarded annually in the U.S. alone.
Meat Consumption
The meat industry contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and water consumption. In 2021, 30 billion pounds of beef were consumed in the United States, an 8.7% increase from the previous year.
Paper Towels
Paper towels have proved to be convenient in kitchens, taking care of drying hands, cleaning up spills, and wiping kitchen surfaces. While convenient, paper towels contribute significantly to deforestation and waste. According to some significant data, 321.87 million Americans used paper towels in 2020, a figure set to rise to 331.16 million in 2024.
Hair Color/Dyes
Hair coloring products often contain chemicals such as ammonia, PPD, toluene-2, 5-diamine, peroxide, and parabens, which can harm the environment as they are washed down the drain. These chemicals can contaminate water sources and affect aquatic life. In 2022, hair coloring sales in the United States touched US$ 1.67 billion.
Non-Recyclable Packaging
Non-recyclable packaging includes snack wrappers, cellophane, food pouches, and packaging to protect beverages, cosmetics, and cosmetic products. This packaging is often made of non-biodegradable materials like plastic resins, which are non-recyclable, contributing to the growing waste problem. In 2018, out of the total plastic containers and packaging generated, only 13.6% were recycled.
