Is No Poo Environmentally Friendly?


On the surface, hair washing with natural products seems a great idea, but is No Poo environmentally friendly?

There has been a huge rise in the number of people moving away from traditional shampoos, to using more natural products to keep their hair clean and healthy. But is this cleaner for our planet too?

No Poo hair washing means removing traditional shampoos from our hair care regime. Natural products such as baking soda, apple cider vinegar, soapnuts, and other natural alternatives are used instead. Silicons and sulfates are no longer required, so No Poo can be seen as a more environmentally friendly approach.

Keep reading to find out how being No Poo can help the environment, not only your hair.

Is No Poo Environmentally Friendly?

Reducing our impact on the environment is becoming increasingly important as climate change hits the headlines more frequently.

Going No Poo to remove the chemicals from our hair care regime, and keep our hair healthy in a natural way must surely help the environment too? Let’s investigate.

The No Poo movement rejects products that contain sulfates and silicon, amongst others.

Natural products are used to keep hair clean and healthy, including these firm favorites:

  • Aloe Vera
  • Reetha
  • Bentonite Clay

No Poo is often be thought of as environmentally friendly, due to the following reasons:

1. Fewer Man Made Chemicals

Fewer chemicals end up in the environment.

2. Less Chemical Production

Silicons, sulfates, parabens, etc are not used in the No Poo regime, so demand for them is reduced leading to reduced production.

3. Fewer Plastic Containers To Landfill

As traditional shampoos are rejected the need to produce plastic shampoo and conditioner bottles is also reduced. Therefore, fewer plastic bottles end up in landfill sites.

4. Less Plastic In The Oceans

There has been an increase in natural products being used to keep hair clean.

This is great news since it means that the minuscule bits of plastic included in shampoo products to scrub hair clean are no longer being washed down the drains.

The reason this is beneficial to the environment is that the drains lead into the watercourse, which in turn lead to our oceans.

5. Fewer Emissions

From reduced production to reduced shopping journeys, the emissions linked to the manufacture and use of traditional shampoos fall substantially when consumers move to No Poo products.

Environmental Downsides Of No Poo

Although on the surface it may seem that No Poo is the most environmentally friendly way of keeping your hair clean, there are some points to note:

Non-Domestic Products

Reetha (soapnuts) need to be imported, so can end up having a large carbon footprint in terms of air miles.

Packaging

Some No Poo commercial shampoos still use traditional plastic packaging.

No Poo Recipes

Whilst we may reduce packaging related to traditional shampoos, the household products we use will all still have packaging. This, unless recyclable, will end up in a waste site.

Conclusion

No Poo can be environmentally friendly if care is taken to use locally produced products and those which have packaging that is recyclable.

If No Poo products are manufactured internationally then the carbon footprint from shipping will make the change from traditional shampoos on environmental grounds moot.

Katrina Stewardson

Hello! My name is Katrina Stewardson, and I've been obsessed for almost ever with discovering the best natural hair methods for my own hair. For years I longed for one website to tell me everything I needed to know about the amazing No Poo Method movement. I just couldn't find one though, so I decided to create it myself! I dearly hope this website will save all you lovely ladies (and gents!) from wasting hours scrolling the internet looking for natural hair-related information like I did.

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