Soap, who knew?

This is a topic of concern to many of us and particularly young people in today’s world. The issue is so vast that we can feel helpless and powerless in our response. An approach we can take is little and often. The older generation will remember the boycott of South African goods in the era of Apartheid, or the fashion protest about the fur trade. In both these examples the power of the consumer played a big part. In our Christian lives we recognise the power of prayer. We probably practice this more often as an individual act rather than as a collective action. But our individual prayers combine as a powerful act. It would seem possible therefore the in terms of the Environmental challenges we face that we can take a little and often and individual actions to play a part in bringing about beneficial change.

Each individual can choose their own action such as adopting meat free days in our weekly diet, or becoming vegetarian. One small change which our household has adopted is using ‘Bar Soap’ instead of liquid soap. In general terms, bar soap has a lower environmental impact. In relation to packaging, the plastic container is less easily recycled and can use up to twenty times more energy than the production of paper wrapping for bar soap. Liquid soap uses Petro-chemicals in both the manufacture of the soap and the packaging. However, the vegetable oils or animal fats used in bar soap need to be produced by sustainable farming techniques.

When examining the cleansing effect there is no significant difference between bar soap and liquid soap. Bar soaps, gram for gram, cost twice as much but last six times longer. We can, by taking this action save money and play a part in efforts to combat the environmental impact of climate change. Combining everyone’s individual actions whichever little and often approach we take could be as effective as the totality of our individual prayers. Please choose your own consumer action plan. However small the effect we can all gain from the satisfaction of ‘doing our bit’ and the planet may benefit also.