Monday, June 16, 2008

Non Off Gassing Shower Curtains?

I'm actually pretty disturbed to find out that my vinyl shower curtain is not only made in an environmentally irresponsible fashion but is also actually off gassing every time I have a shower. The majority of the off gassing is apparently taking place in the first month of the shower curtain's out of the package life. What kills me is that when I replace it it's just going to go to the landfill and not decompose. It's more likely that it will leach the chemicals into the ground. 

I've long wanted to get away from as much plastic and other synthetic items as possible but I still find myself not even aware of such items as shower curtains. It didn't occur to me to consider that the brand new vinyl shower curtain put up for our moving in made such an environmental impact. We had glass shower doors on our last owned home which I suppose is an alternative option if you have a conventional modern bathtub enclosure. In this home we have a beautiful claw foot tub so I need to find non off gassing shower curtain.   

A quick google search comes up with a few interesting articles:

It looks like I can buy an alternative from Ikea, Sears...
Pricer options include:
Dream Design's Hemp Curtain
Organic Canada's Hemp Curtain
Organic Lifestyle's Hemp Curtain

I imagine it wouldn't be hard to make your own either. After seeing the general price of a hemp/cotton alternative and the fact that I'd need two to fully enclose my claw foot tub when showering, I think I'll do just that. Make my own. Stay tuned for future pictures and perhaps a tutorial. 

2 comments:

dilling said...

it's hard, isn't it? so tiresome reading every label and wondering...

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this! I stumbled into your blog, and just happened to notice a link to your shower curtain post. I'd never thought of using hemp for a shower curtain, but that's what I'm going to do, too.