The Plastic Razor

My second zero waste change might seem like a small one, but it has a large impact. I read a HuffPost article about the negative impact of plastic razors which lays out the argument to move to a more sustainable option quite well. The razors themselves are very difficult to recycle as is the plastic packaging. You could send the razor back to TerraCycle, one of the few programs that accepts these types of plastics, but then you are creating more waste through shipping the razors back to them. As the article notes, it adds another step to recycling which most people are unwilling to do.

The other option the article mentions is the one I decided to pursue. I purchased a steel safety razor with replaceable blades. I will never need to replace the razor itself, just the blades as they wear out. My razor is a Merkur safety razor which only cost $28.88 plus a 10 pack of razor blades which was $9. That averages to just under $4 a razor if I was buying a disposable set. Online you can get Gillette for about $2.30, a razor which in the short term would be cheaper, but it wont take long to make back the money on the permanent razor with blades that cost only 90 cents from here on out.

In addition to the long term cost savings, I will no longer be dumping any plastic waste into the landfill. Just one small blade, which I would be anyways with a disposable razor. I weighed an old plastic razor I had and it was .34 ounces. I used about two per month (a lot less than most people would probably tolerate). That is just over 8 ounces of plastic that I throw away per year, but over an average lifetime expectancy that would equate to over 38 pounds of plastic that I personally throw away. In 2018 it was estimated that 163 million people use disposable razors. If they are all like me, that’s over 83.5 million pounds of plastic being thrown away each year just for shaving. So while its a small dent in the grand scheme of waste, its one more step towards zero waste that was easy to make.