ZERO WASTE TOILET ESSENTIALS // sustainable toilet paper, bidet options, hygiene & cleaning 

Me: Italian girl always thought that bidet was essential The rest of the world: "bidet" 👁️👄👁️

My air fresher is open the window .. works a treat 🤣. Great video x

I really want to get a bidet and also use reusable cloths to get away from using toilet paper as it is such a waste. You are an inspiration.

On my exchange year in Japan we had a toilet, there was a sink with a water tap on the toilet cistern. So everytime I flushed the toilet the water tap was running and I washed my hands with the water running to the cistern. This was great, cause I used the water twice (handwash and flushing the toilet). Never found something like this in Europe. But it's so simple and sustainable.

Girl! You know, I'm from Italy, I was so grossed out when I found out that not everyone had one bidet in their home. What?? Ahah couldn't live without my throne 👑👑👑

I havent needed to use a bathroom bin in years (since I started using reusable menstrual products) but I remember being so uncomfortable when a place didn't have a bin in their bathroom so I really appreciate that you still have one in your bathroom haha!

A quick comment to augment your point about solid soap. I live in the remote wilderness of 🇨🇦 where we are on a septic system (no public sewer system). To keep the good bacteria functioning in our septic tank we cannot use any harsh cleaning chemicals or antibacterial anything. We use mild all-natural solid soap. I have read that when it comes to washing your hands, soap does not actually “kill germs” it is merely a lubricant that “lifts germs” up off the skin. It is the friction and vigorous rubbing of the skin, and then rinsing of the hands, that “removes germs”. I’m not a scientist who can back up this argument but I have been washing my hands like this for most of my life and I never get sick, so I’m sticking with this theory. I have also read that the same technique is true for washing fruits and vegetables... use friction and rinse!! Great video Gittemary, thank-you for all the awesome info.

Bidets are awesome. My apartment complex, however, does not allow them. Not to be defeated, I took up this challenge. I use an 8oz repurposed squeeze bottle. Also know as offgrid bidet, backwoods bidet or granny bidet. Used with the companion reusable pee cloths, it’s clean clean clean! January challenge was to see how little tp I needed. Just 2 rolls😁🎉

I literally love you so much because you're willing to try and/or consider doing things that most people are like "ew no way" You just share everything possible, and I'm forever thankful! Love from USA, MO

I have a butt shower, this handy hose which is attached to the water input of a toilet. The cold stream wakes me up every time :D For air freshener I light up a candle when I start my business and blow if out when I leave the bathroom. Works like a charm. Sometimes at night I just light up the candle instead of turning on the lights. Talk about romance :D

I find toilet brushes gross. I put on gloves and use a rag to clean. Then I wash the rag. Geez...that's gross, too. There's no way around it...the toilet is gross! Bidets are the best! I use a wash cloth to dab dry. My bidet isn't heated & right now there's snow on the ground. I still prefer the bidet over tp. Thanks Gittemary, great video!

As a parent who uses cloth diapers, and cloth wipes.. 🤷🏻‍♀️ the idea of cloth toilet paper just doesn't freak me out lol. I have a bidet. So my bum is already cleaner then my kids is before I wipe her 🤣

For those of you who are too short for their toilet (can barely touch the floor), instead of buying a fancy especially made plastic toilet stool, keep an eye out for stools at thrift store. Keep in mind how much extra height you want, you should have your knees above hip height for healthiest bowl movement, but whatever is comfortable for you.

In Finland bidet showers that are connected to the sink were popularised in the 1980s. Most if not all toilets in homes built in the last thirty years have one. They can also exist in public toilets, the kind where there is a little sink in the stall. Unfortunately the apartment I grew up in (built in 1986) and my current student housing (built in the 1960s) have had one.

I think another alternative to normal toilet brushes are one that are made out of silicone. You can clean them better and that's why you can use dem longer.

The coastal ecosystems of mangroves, seagrass meadows and tidal marshes mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and oceans at significantly higher rates, per unit area, than terrestrial forests. I haven't heard anyone talk about this topic and if only everyone knew how much coastal ecosystems benefit our lives. I had no idea about how much we as humans relied on nature and the magnitude of destruction we are causing until I worked as a conservationist a few years back, it was a huge eye opener and schools all over the globe need to be teaching all students the importance of conservation.

If you have old perfumes (ones you no longer use) you can use those instead of air fresheners

your channel is my new favourite obsession

I've been using a portable bottle bidet called Happy Po, which was invented in Germany. I love it and the toilet paper shortage during the 1st lockdown 2020 didn't bother me at all :) it safes so much tp and if we'd have poo on our arm, we would use water and soap to clean it as well. Why use paper only for the bottom? And I just use a wash cloth to pad dry.

I absolutely love the content you produce! It's refreshingly honest & real which is not always the case. I've slowly started implementing zero-waste in my life and it's by no means perfect, but baby steps. I can not wait for your english translated book to come out! Lots of love from an American subscriber!

When I visited our local water treatment plant they were very very clear with us not to flush *anything* but waste and paper because it causes problems with treatment and/or clogs the filtering screens.

Ohh I'm so excited for your book!

I love my Tushy bidet! My husband and I use it and reusable cloth wipes. We have a small wet bag by the toilet and just empty it into the hamper when we are doing laundry. We also are cloth diapering our second baby, so cloth wipes are pretty normal for us. Saves us so much money and are SO eco-conscious. ❤

I'm living in a Muslim country and washing your self with water is not a choice but a must here, we don't use bidets, instead we have water hose near to the toilet seat. You can easily attach a hose to water reservoir of your toilet.

The sass level in this video is perfect 👌 Thank you for the awesome tips as usual, Gittemary! 😀✨ Du er en stjerne! :)

Living in Turkey, when you need to eat spicy food every single day, a bidet with cold water is a blessing !!!!!

I use a bidet attachment in conjunction with Who Gives A Crap toilet paper, made from recycled office paper. To clean my commode I use white vinegar.

It could be a storytime about your journey with poop matter !!! *haha, Kidding* I love how inspirational you are and useful your videos are. Thanks!!!

I did your course, really enjoyed it

Thank you for sharing! We love bamboo products too

I love your videos! I especially love your transition into veganism. But most importantly, I thought you were gonna be that perfect esthetics of zero waste and the birds braid your hair every morning but you are honest and so human and so helpful. Thank you for your videos!

I made the switch for reusable cloth toilet paper. Not my family tho but one of 3 is a start. I handmade small flannel cloth i use for pee and still use recycled paper tho for poo but once a day against many pee breaks. It s a win i think

I can’t wait to read your book!! 💚

Brilliant video, thank you 😁 you make me laugh so much, and you're super informative 😁

Hello from Uruguay! I’ve been using the bidet since birth haha luckily for us is super common, like from my grandparents era or more! Highly recommend !!

Make sure you dry well after using the bidet, to prevent all sorts of issues.

Got my husband a Tushy for his birthday (this week!) so I'm super excited to try it out! Progress.

When using pads or period pants between showers u need to cleans (don’t have access to a bidet landlords in Au are usually anti bidet.) So I have soft bamboo washers that are gentle on delicate skin that I wet. This works well til shower time. Just rinse with soapy water and put in bucket with pants / pads.

I was literally listening to this video while making clothes to dry myself with after using my bidet. So yeah!

I love my tushy bidet, when I lived in Miami i had the 2 thrones which could be awkward. I've used the warm & cold water bidets but imo bc of the pressure I don't think the cold water is noticeably different, & w/ the tushy it's cheaper & easier to install to get the cold✌️🌱

I'm Italian and I love bidet! 😂💕 I miss it so much because I live in UK...

Oh my god it’s the same bidet I use! I love this Aynola bidet, I’ve done something to make it super practical to use at home which is use a large water bottle or a large vase or basically any large jar/water source 😂❤️

Now that I live in Italy I am so happy about having a bidet no matter where you live, I don't understand how it is mostly an Italian thing!!

Love this! We are currently building our tiny house with a composting toilet, so no flushing! Due to that I can't use a bidet as easily, because everything needs to be separated 😅 but I'm looking at options and this hand held bidet might work 😍😍 just hard to get (affordably) in New Zealand... :(

Interesting, I didn’t know Denmark doesn’t have bides. In Finland basically all toilets have them. Here they are small hand held showerheads that are usually connected to the sink as a water source.

Air fresheners- i put essential oils and some alcohol and water in a glass spray bottle and use that. I don't like the sticks because you have to get new sticks from time to time, so the first option seemed like less waste Love the video!

We don't buy air fresheners at this point either. But since our bathrooms are not well-ventilated, I just fill an old (clean) hair product spray bottle with water and 8-12 drops of mint or citrus oil. Just shake and spray as needed! Works great to freshen up laundry, as an added bonus.

If you don’t want to by a bidet but want the bidet experience...I found an old plastic waterbottle (the ones u squeeze to get the water out, that u have to the gym) in one of my closets....and it works as a bidet...👍🏾

In Portugal bidets are a staple in almost all homes and since moving to Belgium I don't think I have never missed something so much 😭

Thank you for this video! I love my bidet at home and find the portable bidet idea really interesting, would love to hear about your experience trying to use one in public restroom situations. 😬 I have a bidet bottle from hospital after having my kids so maybe that’s just as well. One last idea: would shaved bar soap work for those without access to liquid bulk soap? I saw a company selling soap pellets a few years ago at a substantial price markup and thought “why not use a kitchen grater and bar soap?” 😂

I am from Malaysia and it’s extremely common to find bidets in public restrooms. Generally in Asian countries a bidet is an essential!

So I forget which video it was but you said that there isn’t much of an alternative to fireworks so I did some research and drones are becoming a big thing in more earth friendly fireworks!! I just really wanted to say that lol love your content 😊☺️

Here in Finland a bide is a normal in our country, you can find them in hotels, in partments or even a bublic bathrooms. We tho use them more for bathroom cleaning rather than to it acual use it self, they mostaly are locatied next to sinck.

My parents used reusable toilet paper when my sister and I were babies because we had cloth diapers, so it was very easy to wash both at the same time. My mom got a bidet for Christmas, except the toilet seat on the toilet we want to install it to is being very stubborn so we've had some difficulty installing it 😅

Looking forward to your book in English! Greetings from Ohio, USA!

I can't wait for your book in English!

here in Indonesia, it is considered weird if you use only toilet paper. most homes use water as their main cleaning agent and toilet paper/a towel

So we all know Gittemary look like Emilia Clarke, but hearing her say "The Throne" is just *chefs kiss* HAHAHAH, I miss GOT obvsly. Not zero waste related comment ✌️

We do cloth, in fact old t-shirts that developed holes etc, and they last forever. The gross situations only happen every once so ofte😬and get cleaned asap. Same as with babies, really. Thing to remember: wash hot, bec of hygiene. And if you have a basin in your loo, you can use them wet. My daughter hates regular paper, it chafes, and I also noticed, ahem, no paper bits left behind🤭....

Could you please make a video on how to recycle correctly? E.g. what belongs to paper and what not (like receipts which I did not know). I think there are plenty of things that I could do better in regards to recycling properly.

So close to 100k hell yehhhhhh Xxxx

If you want to try a bidet'ish riutine before maybe investing in one, it's pretty simple; a cup of water (a childrens cup is good - some of us dont have thighgabs, so it's easier ;) ). Push your pelvish a bit forward when you've done your business, poor it from front to back and wipe. I learned tjis trick in the hospital following my c-section birth (because your first visits to the toilet is gonna hurt, regardless if you've given vaginal birth or if you've had a catheter due to c-section). It's much more gentle to the skin. I dont use it when going nr.2, but it works well with nr.1 - and I do it every day. Also, fabric toiletpaper for nr.1 is great. Clean cotton cloth , just closed at the edges on the sewing machine is great for wiping. I have an old nappy bin with cold water and salt it in. I throw them in there because it prevents smell and drags out whatever fluids is in there (goes in with my cotton pads etc.). When you do your hot, sanatizing wash (and yes, you NEED to do hot sanatizing washes with things like dishrags, cleaning rags etc.to get the bacteria out) throw them in-there and there you are :) Ckean and fresh!

#LetPoopsBePoops hahahaha this video was a lot of fun and I love the light-heartedness of it. I'm from the US and thought bidets were the weirdest thing when I moved to Japan but now I'm obsessed and it inspired me to buy my own attachment! I'm gonna be making an installation video on my channel 😂

I use our bidet to make foot baths xD I didn't know what it is for a long time

you just inspired me to get a bidet!

Amazing video! I am also a dane and I'm so inspired by you and your channel. I am really getting more focus on how to reduce my waste, and have also invested in a couple of more sustainable swaps, and I am a vegan as well:) I know the video is a couple years old, but I hope you can answer me couse I'm really curious:) do you think it would be more sustainable to use reusable toilet paper and washing it each time after use, or to use sustainable made toilet paper? hope that u can give an answer. Thank you for the great content!

We don't have a bidet and use recycled paper toilet paper for bums but I have been using home made reusable cloth for urine for 3 years. I would never go back.

About bidets isn’t the thing that cleans our bottoms get bacteria on it because of flushing with the lid down?

I'm curious what is impractical about the bidet you use now. I would like one myself, and the portability seems like a plus, but maybe there are aspects I'm not thinking of? I've seen cheaper, squeeze-type bottles, so maybe how that compares to the one you have would be interesting.

If you buy and install a bidet on you existing toilet I would love to see a viedo about that 😍

Cloud Paper is based in Seattle,WA and I wonder if it makes sense for me as a European to buy toilet paper in the US and ship it to Europe... is that sustainable?

My husband self published a book through Amazon. Please look into that.

THANKS for this and for being so cool about this topic!!! i seriously don't get why people make such a big deal about it because we all do it? so why have this huge taboo about toilets... i don't get it 😂 anyway, i wanted to add a (maybe) weird thing i do myself because it's zero waste: i make my own toilet cleaning gel! i've filled up my old toilet gel plastic bottle so many times by now, and it makes me strangely proud to display upon my toilet 😂😂 p.s. super excited about your book coming out in english, i can't wait!! 💕

in india, bidets are supper common, and the most common type of bidet is one where it’s basically a hose for your bum. Also, if you can’t get a bidet at the time, but like the idea of using one, you can use a mug and fill it with water and use that to clean your bum.

Ahhh!!! I can’t wait for you Book to be published in English. I really hope you find a good publisher soon. Do you think your English book with also be a ebook?

I'm a Finn, living in the Northern Europe, and bidets are normal here. Almost every toilet has a bidet even in public restrooms. Some claim it a Finnish invention (I don't know if it's true). I'm just wondering how you have never seen one in Northern Europe. Surely some of our neighbours use them too. But still having them everywhere, we don't necessarily use them. I know some people who use them for health reasons and some use them for cleaning the sink etc but not for replacement to paper.

What's the liquid cleaning you said you have been using for years to clean you toilet?

I have to comment, because I live in Finland and bidet is so common thing here!

7:52 in Russia we don't have toilet paper in schools or universities at all 😂 zero waste

I had the kind that attached to the toilet but i had to wiggle around too much to get it to the right spots. Now i have a handheld sprayer that u can adjust on pressure. It is SO MUCH BETTER!! i dont use tp at all. I use little squares of washable flannel. I use the bidet mostly when it's a number 2 situation. Lol. Then dry off with the cloths. ZERO PAPER WASTE ? and also tp money waste

I had a look on their website. But I saw they only ship in the US.. how did you get those in Europe then?

I'm sorry, but when you said "the throne" I just thought about you dressed as "Daenerys Targaryen"... 😂 I know I'm not the only one that thinks you look like Emilia!! 😅

As a Swede living in the U.S I miss bidets

Todays autotext highlight is "bathroom magician"

You.mentioned bio bags at the end, can you link to what brand you buy from?

In Finland bidet is totally normal and almost every one has it installed to the sink 😂

Hi! Could you recommend a good bidet apart that the one you have? I tried to look for the brand of yours, but the page seems a little dodgy, and I am really afraid of wasting money and not receiving anything. As I live in the UK there are no bidets here and I am madly in research for one that is great and as eco as possible. I'd love one like yours, small and portable.

I always thought you looked like Emilia Clarke from game of thrones so it's really nice to hear you say "the throne" so many times

Hi Gittermary, may I ask is your book going to available in digital form please?

🙌🙌bidet toilets!!

im going zero waste but use reusable tp, just use toilet paper during my period same with unpaper towels. as well as tissues went to jankerchiefs

Bidet is just a shower for the lower area. I wish I had one!

I like the idea of a bidet for cleanliness, but will someone please explain exactly how it works? I get the idea of water washing your butt, however, I can only picture me with a hosepipe spraying water all over myself, and down my legs. Do you dry yourself afterwards? So many questions here.

Always appreciating the well researched content :) just one remark, working on the field: pesticides are not bad per se, are needed to grow the food we eat and fed to the current world population. Hazardous pesticides and unregulated pesticides by contrast, should and are being constantly reduced in the EU :)

Hand bidet is very good clean the area better🤣

This is a really stupid question, but does anyone have advice for switching to solid soaps? I've been using re-fillable liquid soaps from my bulk store to cut back on waste, which I know is fine, but bars would really be ideal in many respects and last much longer. I do like the dish soap bars so far, but in general, I just find soaps become very... unpleasant. Are there ideal means of storage? Does this differ for a hand bar versus a shampoo bar? The last time I had a hand soap bar, it constantly grimed up my sink or a ceramic holder to the point where it needed constant cleaning every other day. I can deal with this in one instance, I guess, but not so much all over the house. It also feels unusual to rub my germy hands over a soap in order to clean them, especially after someone else has recently done the same, and especially during this pandemic with COVID-19. Is this actually an issue at all from a sanitation perspective? Probably not, given Gittemary's helpful explanation about the safety of soaps in the home versus public. But I'm more uncertain how effective it is for cleansing, because I do actually have a staphylococcus immune condition where I'm trying not to spread this to my skin--or I'm trying to remove it from my body skin through regular washing as the first defence (otherwise I need to introduce chemical-y medical products in plastic bottles anyway). No doctor has ever told me not to use bar soap, which I should stress, so if bar soaps work effectively for bacterial removal, not just dirt, then that's definitely fine!! I have so many questions that seem outrageously stupid for something so simple--it's soap, omg--but I'm pretty sure answering them would open up a world of use, haha. People have been using soaps for centuries, so I'm definitely the one doing something wrong.

Not only do I listen to her videos for her info but mostly just for her voice/accent. Lol sorry if that's weird.

I genuinely didn't know that even if you use toilet paper still you can still reduce it with a bidet!

Is the English book out yet?

I'm sorry, did you say you would upcycle your toilet brush? Into what exactly? Not a brush for cleaning other things I hope