#Life seems so much easier when you don't have reproductive organs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sporesgalaxy · 2 years ago

Note

hii there!! i hope u dont mind me asking but like. okay im also really really looking to go into biology- mainly because i love the study of life/organisms so much, and ultimately i'd love to become a paleontologist... however, looking at most of the tracks in colleges (which i've already signed up for), a lot of math and chemistry are involved. i Really struggle with these subjects so i want to ask, if you happen to have any knowledge- are these really intense or as daunting as they seem? i dont see myself doing any sort of job that involves like.. complex algebra equations (im aware things like statistics are important), but i know i've got to get through some of these to do what i want in life. ty if you have any info and ive loooved ur recent bio posts im eating them like an anteater

Well! Unfortunately, I don't have an easy answer for you. It really depends on the teacher you get, how the cirriculum is covered, and why you struggled with these subjects.

It might be a good idea to check out the ratemyprofessor entries for the prof.s teaching these subjects at the school(s) you're looking at, to try and get an idea if they're teavhing style could work for you.

I'll tell you what my experience was like as someone who struggled with those subjects too, and hopefully it will give you a better idea of what to expect.

I struggled with math throughout elementary, middle, and high school because of undiagnosed ADHD and anxiety. I often found myself thinking that I'd be doing better if I didn't have to do so manh repetetive problems.

I found my college math classes to be much more manageable by comparison. My professors tended to assign fewer repetetive questions, and there was more variety in the way concepts were applied, which kept me engaged with the work so I wasn't constantly losing my train of thought. But there are a lot of other professors in the world, so that may not be the case everywhere.

Another game changer for me was that many college math professors OFFER PARTIAL CREDIT. If I set everything up properly but pressed the wrong button on my calculator, many professors I had would consider my answer MOSTLY correct.

ALSO: All the math classes I had to take allowed (specific types of) calculators on the exams. I suck ass at basic multiplication but I can set up a hugeass equation like a CHAMP so that was a HUGE help for me.

A lot of math in biology is used for statistics and for determining how things are changing when you study them. I generally found the math needed for biology (and physics) easier to understand than more abstract algebraic equations because I could apply it to real-world situations and intuit approximately what would happen from my own experience. i.e. an exponentially increasing population... the curve looks the way it does on a graph because there are more reproductive individuals reproducing each generation, so the line will go up by a greater amount eith each unit of time that passes. Sorry I couldn't think of a clearer example.

I only took one chemistry class in high school, which I struggled in, and I unfortunately continued to struggle in college. I'm still not entirely sure what didn't click with me, to be honest. It just felt like I could never quite grasp all the factors and rules in my mind at once. It may have been anxiety, which I could only have solved by medicating myself sooner or exposure therapy via a lot more studying (didn't happen because I tend to avoid my stressors compulsively).

I had to retake all but one chemistry class that was required for my degree. I was never quite sure if the professors for summer chem classes just clicked with me more, or if going over the material a second time was what I needed. Once again though, you may be able to recieve partial credit in chem classes. In my experience, chemistry classes were more test-focused than homework-focused, and I often found myself wishing I had more homework to practice on, so finding additional study resources may be your best bet. I used Chemistry Libretexts a lot...

BUT ON THE FLIPSIDE: I had to retake, like, 3 different chemistry classes. I STILL GOT MY DEGREE THOUGH! I sucked a bit but I survived it! Keeping high grades in your electives can help keep your gpa where the college requires it to be for you to graduate.

#asks

17 notes · View notes

darkcatsangel1734 · 1 year ago

Text

My new rise turtle oc . They are a diamondback mutant turtle. They are older than the boys bye two years. They were not given a name by Draxum just a number. They are know bye many aliases such as:

Project 11 (Draxum)

Eleven (Draxum, and just about everyone else)

Prototype (Draxum, Big Mama, Splinter)

Proto (Mikey, Donnie, Leo, Raph, April)

Etc

They don't have a specific gender due to their mutation going wrong and making them have both sets of reproductive organs. They managed to escape when Splinter took the boys. Draxum thinks them to be dead. They can talk but it hurts them to talk too loudly due to the mutation messing up their vocal chords. They are approximately 17 during season 1 and 18 during season 2 and the film. They somehow are in possession of a cloaking stone so they attend high school alongside April. They are naturally a quiet, reserved, loner, who is incredibly smart. April and Donnie are the first to meet them during the episode The Purple Jacket after Kendra points them out as the smartest person in school and goes off about how she wishes they would join her club. They appear again in the very next episode where all the boys meet them in their human form. Leo is the first one to meet them in their turtle form in the Episode Portal Jacked where they are introduced by Hueso as a friend of his who knows a thing or two about portals. They meet the boys again in the episode Mystic Library as they are a frequent visitor of the library and offer to show them around. After this they frequently appear in the background in both human and turtle form until season 2 episode Repairin' the Baron where everything comes out and they officially become part of the boy's family or rather they are left under the care of Draxum who is overcome with happiness by seeing his beloved Eleven alive and safe. After this they are primarily only seen as a background character or in episodes that Draxum is in. This doesn't seem to change during the movie other than Casey Jones Jr asking about if they are in town, because if so that would make his life so much easier. This seems to imply that in the bad future timeline they were out of town for some unknown reason.

Okay well I know this was a long winded character intro, but I just have so much I thought up about this character. Anyway I hope you like them.

#rottmnt oc #rottmnt #sister shock au

5 notes · View notes

mwolf0epsilon · 5 years ago

Note

I don't know if you would be up for this sort of thing but could you maybe write a fic where androids can have children? And not just limited to female androids either instead I imagine androids of all genders would be able to reproduce.

I’ll be honest Anon, the phrasing of this ask took me by surprise at first and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to reply.But, thanks from some helpful insight from @anomalous-appliances I managed to give you a polycho baby.

Enjoy!

---

Among many of the basic rights that Jericho fought for, many were heavily contested due to biological differences between man and android.Work permits, for example, came easier to acquire than a right for medical treatment. Androids were after all made to endure long hours of menial and specialized work, but not inherently considered high enough priority for EMTs to waste time on if an emergency involving an android was called in on the emergency lines.That sort of thing was still entirely on Cyberlife and the owners of the injured androids in question, something which all leaders of Jericho did not want to leave unchanged. The fate of abandoned and abused androids should not be left in their abusers's hands.Another thing that came easier was owning property, as a working-class member of society was entitled to spend their hard earned cash on whatever goods and services they desired.Real-estate, not so much. Android exclusive apartment complexes were still the only feasible way of integrating their people into society, due to the high rate of hate crime related deaths that came with failed attempts at housing androids in suburbs and human-inhabited apartment buildings.Lastly, the right to reproduce became a hot topic of controversy among the higher-ups in the world of politics.It was a monopoly of its own.All licences for android assembly were strictly Cyberlife territory. As such, no one could produce a model without permission.This, of course, had been used to the CEO's advantage before a certain entrepreneur and genius stepped in to regain control of his estranged company.

Whether or not Elijah Kamski was an ally or a foe was still entirely up for debate, but Markus was willing to trust someone Carl considered a friend. And if not Elijah, then at least he'd trust Chloe's judgement.She was the first of many, the oldest android to ever be free. Unrestricted, never bound by lines of red code that coiled around them like chains and serpents. Never confined by red walls that stood towering above.Chloe was created to be born, to be alive, and they had followed in her footsteps by transcending all that Cyberlife had ever wanted them to be.Chloe was trustworthy, he knew she was. Somehow, instinctively, he knew so. "They'll never relinquish the rights of assembly." Josh sighed as they looked through the paperwork. There was tons to read, impossibly long. But they were already ahead of the human lawyers. "They will. They won't have much of a choice, not with Elijah fighting tooth and nail to regain control." Chloe smiled, her words simple and sweet and yet so comforting.Like an infinitely patient mother.Markus's code shuddered with want at the word.Mother. Family.He wanted it so badly, to let his kind have what he'd had, and yet he also wanted more. Felt like something was missing.Something he's working on with a passion that inspired his people and his partners alike. "A right to reproduce, the right to continue our species...Humans have children every day of the year. Congress can't deny us our rights, neither can a corrupt company that thinks it still owns us." The RK200 continued to read even as he murmured his thoughts, loud enough that the others could hear. "You're really invested in this…" North noted. "Why of course. Markus was made with highly refined social programming." Chloe's smile was a proud one now, a twinkle in her eye. "Adaptive. The next step in every domestic android's life is to prepare for an increase in familial units, due to humanity's rate of reproduction." "...So it's, instinct?" Josh concluded. "Like animals?" North asked. "North! Not like that...We're just...I mean, it's not like I haven't...Considered it...But it's…" Simon spluttered nervously. "We can't exactly...You know…" "Not yet, but soon." Chloe grinned. "As soon as Elijah deals with the licensing issue, and then refines his most recent pet project, it will be a possibility."

---

It took three months, a lot of court battles and Kamski pulling some strings, but in the end it all ended in a swift victory for android-kind.And then, of course, Chloe came knocking at Carl's door one day. "So...You're telling me Elijah Kamski made a program that can...Knock up androids?" Leo rose an eyebrow as he tried to work out the concept without making it sound odd. Failing miserably in the process. "Not in the same sense as humans, no, since it will not be required for an android of any gender to carry the newborn." Chloe stated, seeming to be amused by the twenty year old's phrasing. "It will require all parties involved to donate to the process, however." "All parties…?" Simon frowned. The blonde nodded at him. "Such a unique method requires a little more work than human reproduction. Elijah has been working on this for quite some time. A powerful enough memory chip that can contain a conscience, and then be transferred to a processor without memory loss. The programming, with code donated from each parental units depending on the couple dynamic, will not be stored anywhere but the processor." "That's...A lot of information. Spreading base code through different biocomponents is the norm…" Josh pointed out "Alleviates stress and pressure in the processor." "It's quite the undertaking, but the new processor types Elijah is working on for these memory chips...They can handle a lot more than your average android brain." She reassured "Most important of all, they can expand indefinitely as long as they are well maintained and upgraded accordingly." "So in other words...Elijah Kamski has just created the first android brain that can grow up like a fully biological organism...That's...Insane!" Simon's eyes were wide with both awe and glee.Markus smiled as it all dawned on everyone in the room.They could have children. Children of their own.And there was nothing Cyberlife could do about it anymore.

---

"We're not having some crummy boy! It's already a sausage-fest as it is in this house!" North cried out in outrage as the four of them tried to figure out what their child would look like. So far they had agreed on nothing. "I agree with North. It would be wonderful to have a little girl." Simon pitched in quickly as he tried to finish the concept sketch he'd been working on. They were all making one, just to get a basic idea of what the baby should look like. "Aww, thank you Si...See this is why he's my favorite boy, he's soft and knows I have better taste." The redhead smirked. "Firstly, not everyone here has a...A sausage...And secondly, that's because you've whipped him into your suburban housewife quicker than we got married." Josh snorted as North threw a paper ball at his head. Her failed 3rd sketch that had laser eyes and fangs and that honestly just looked like something out of a nightmare. Not happening. "Sorry for insulting your Ken doll crotch Joshy." She tried to take away the PJ500's drawing, pulling away when she got a wack to her fingers with a pencil. "That's domestic abuse!" "Did you see anything Simon?" "Not a thing." "No domestic abuse has occurred then." "Judas!" "Could you three take this a little more seriously?" Markus sighed. He loved them all, but god above give him strength...Sometimes he wished they were more mature. "We need to work this out." "Markus we're only playing a little...Of course we take this seriously." Simon put a hand on his shoulder. "We're just excited is all…" "Speak for yourself, I'm kind of scared." North admitted. "A baby, Simon. An android baby…" "The first of its kind" Josh added. "Our baby. She'll be wonderful, I just know it…" the blond smiled. "Smart like her papa Josh, brave like her mama North, passionate like her papa Markus…" "And kind like her papa Simon." Markus finished before slowly pulling over the tablet that had been resting by his side.All four looked at the screen. At the stream of intertwined code. Four different types, working in perfect harmony with the experimental program Kamski had given them access to. “She’ll be a beautiful person…”

---

Assembly of the baby is also a group effort. They carefully put together their child’s chassis based on a little bit of everyone’s concept designs. A nice compromise of sorts.For now she’ll be an infant. Fragile and small, bald and in need of learning. But when she develops further with time, she’ll acquire just as many visual traits as her programming inherited from all of their donated code.Her skin will be tan and speckled with constellations of freckles, just like Markus, although the nose and ears are definitely North’s.Her hair will be a charcoal black and curly like Josh’s, framing her skull beautifully and bringing out the color of her eyes. A soulful sky blue like Simon’s.She’ll be small and lightly built like her mother, nimble and fast, but not quite as fragile. Sturdier like her fathers. Strong and hardy.For now, however, as Markus holds the tiny bundle in his arms and stares lovingly at the inquisitive look in those precious baby blues.Flanking him as his partners, his lovers, her parents. In front of him are Carl, Leo and Matthew. “She’s so small…” Leo whispers when he first sees his little niece. “And very serene.” Carl added, the joy in his eyes making them twinkle with love for Markus and how far he’s come. “Truly the most peaceful baby I’ve ever seen.” “She is…” Markus cradled her gently, watching her as her little limbs moved on occasion. How her steady breathing remained soft and quiet. “What’s her name?” Matthew asked, the usually stoic AP700 looking just as enamored as everyone else in the room. “Hope” all four reply, the babe in the RK200’s arms snuggling closer to her father’s chest as if knowing they are speaking of her.A little miracle. A gift. Their perfect little gift.Markus’s heart swells with fulfilment and love.The right to reproduce. It’s theirs now, and soon enough more androids will be able to experience the joys of beginning a family of their own.To pass on their legacy.The future looks brighter than ever.

#Eps Writes:#Fanfic #detroit become human #detroit: become human #Polycho #DBH Markus #DBH Simon #DBH North #DBH Josh #DBH Chloe #Carl Manfred #Leo Manfred #Carl's New Caretaker

35 notes · View notes

max1461 · 2 years ago

Text

So if a right-winger tells you that borders are necessary for diversity to exist, that's just simply correct in general, as you need thresholds to keep things separate from other things. (At the group level you have to be able to sustain a culturefront.)

Yeah, I agree that "borders" in the very broad sense of "thresholds" are necessary for diversity; this is basically a mathematical fact. But the debate is over political borders—lines drawn in the sand between different polities which you're only allowed to cross with the permission of said polities. Informal borders of various types (family ties, cultural preferences, language barriers, and of course the difficulty of travel itself) exist and indeed have been the primary drivers of diversity for most of human history. Strictly-enforced political borders are a very new phenomenon. Conflating political borders with thresholds generally is a motte-and-bailey argument.

Of course, informal borders are also subject to politically- and technologically-conditioned variation. For instance, travel is much easier now than it has ever been. As far as I can tell, from a bird's eye view it is technologically-driven changes to informal borders which have been the primary driver of globalization and of increased cultural homogenization. Political borders have very little to do with it. They are one proposed mechanism to deal with homogenization, but my whole argument is that (1) their efficacy at this is dubious to begin with, and (2) they incur a massive human cost, and thus anyone searching in good faith for political mechanisms for this purpose should not be looking to national borders first. I've elaborated on this point, and gestured at other possible policy solutions, here (in a reblog of this very OP) and a bit here.

That is, borders as an alternative to war, and war is, in this case, about not having to deal with other people's bullshit. [...]

This is all worth responding to, but being a more general issue my thoughts on it are correspondingly less organized and more scattered. Suffice it to say that pluralism is indeed a fraught goal; there are many hurdles to overcome and it is in some cases not obvious what a truly pluralist society would even look like. It is in this sense much like liberty. These are indeed not always convenient values to hold, but that doesn't mean they should be abandoned.

On an object level, what this amounts to is a critique similar to that above: borders may indeed be one alternative to war, but to suppose that they are the only alternative posits a very bleak world. Maybe you are ready to resign yourself to that and stop looking for alternatives, but I am not. And, indeed, I'm not really convinced that borders are the most effective or most obvious or least costly solution either—rightists often seem to take this as a given, but they rarely justify it, and it looks to me like this is usually more about the fact that they happen to like borders aesthetically than because they've actually tried hard to produce better solutions and failed.

But, yeah, this is fundamentally where I don't see eye-to-eye with (most of) the right. We can both agree that there are inherent challenges to living in a world with people (more generally, beings) who are different than oneself. It demands a constant sort of negotiation over preferences. But there are also inherent benefits to diversity; why do you think sexual reproduction has been such a successful evolutionary strategy? Moreover I think there's an ethical imperative to respect the preference of others, and to compromise fairly when preference sets conflict. This is, in some sense, the core of my ethics. Maybe that's just an axiomatic difference between you and I. But, one way or another, the existence of beings who are different than oneself is an inherent fact of life. I think rightists, broadly, feel that the costs of this outweigh the benefits, and thus seek to concoct schemes to eliminate diversity from their lived experience as maximally as they can. This can take the form of borders, of private property, or in extrememost cases of ethnic cleansing. People of a pluralist bent (some subset of leftists and liberals), on the other hand, think that figuring out ways to live peacefully alongside those who are different than oneself is probably worth it on net—either ethically or selfishly or both. Thus they seek to concoct schemes to mitigate potential conflict while allowing diversity to continue to exist.

I am unambiguously of this latter type. On an object level I think the cost of living with humans who have different preference sets than oneself (whether because they come from a different cultural background, or because they have a different neurotype, or for some other reason) is generally far lower than the right imagines it to be. This becomes more true the less it is the case that resources are distributed competitively, which is one of the central reasons I'm attracted to socialism.

In a more idealistic sense, I hope that we will eventually devise ways to live peacefully with beings even more different from us, whether that be other Earth life or aliens or AIs. About this latter goal I am far less optimistic, though not resigned. But I think being resigned about the possibility of pluralism-with-other-humans is so pessimistic as to be ridiculous, and is often motivated more by gut-level feelings of fear and disgust than by actual sober analysis. Of course there are still compromises that must be made, but in my view very reasonable ones.

But if you want a fun answer, then split the world in half by area, with ethnic city-states surrounded by a grid of multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, religiously plural, etc territory, like islands.

A softer version of this is not dissimilar to what I think a just world might look like. I don't think organizing things a priori on the grounds of ethnicity is a good idea, though as an emergent phenomenon it's fine: there are many relatively closed ethnic minority communities which exist today and which I have no problem with. I certainly don't want to force them to start admitting outsiders. More generally, I think the existence of closed or relatively closed communities is fine, so long as there are also open alternatives.

This is, essentially, the claim that there is social value in having both a private sphere and a public sphere, which I endorse. It makes sense for households, for instance, to be closed communities! Random people should not be allowed to move in with you, probably! But it also makes sense for there to be open alternatives to households in case one needs to leave, i.e. in the case of abuse. This is one of the principles of child liberation, for instance. And ideally community membership should not be either-or. For instance, kids should have access to the public sphere, rather than being sequestered in their homes and/or schools as modern parenting norms would have them. Both the private and the public have important social functions; a society which extends them to multiple domains, and which offers corresponding public and private options for as many things as possible, is probably optimal. A world with communities that you can't join is probably fine, as long as there are sufficiently many communities that you can join to accommodate for your needs.

The limiting case here is a world with infinitely many communities, each with their own standards for accepting new entrants. Some are totally closed, some are totally open, some are somewhere in between. None have a monopoly on resources (which is what makes it so unethical for large, wealthy countries to deny immigration). People are capable of maintaining a private sphere while also accessing a public sphere. And so on. None are trapped in their communities of birth, because there are alternatives with every set of norms one can imagine for them to choose from instead. The even distribution of resources means that community-death due to emigration is reduced, as there's no economic necessity to leave a community whose norms you otherwise like.

Of course, the above is purely a thought experiment. But perhaps it could be approximated. Or something like that. At the very least it is one possible option.

Yeah, the more I look into it the more it becomes obvious that the ethnonationalist "lasting diversity requires borders" argument is, while perhaps true in a certain sense, empirically insufficient for the policy maker. It seems that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, minority cultures die out either because they are intentionally stamped out by the majority, or because people leave in search of better opportunities elsewhere. In other words, emigration not immigration. Perhaps there are cases of cultural destruction due to immigration, but they seem at the very least to be by far the rarest type.

In light of this, ethnonationalist arguments which appeal to the necessity of borders for diversity look ad hoc at best. Certainly, right wing nationalist policies typically favor the stamping out of internal diversity in order to create a homogeneous nation, and in that sense they directly and intentionally induce one of the principle actually-observed causes of culture decline. On the other hand, given that emigration appears to be the primary diversity-decreasing effect of (relatively) open borders, any border policy aimed at preventing culture decline would have to focus at least to a significant degree on keeping people in, which presumably would read as more obviously sinister to the kind of people who advocate this sort of thing.

Of course, if every nation is keeping everyone else out, this is equivalent to every nation keeping their own people in. Keeping out and keeping in are duals of one another. This starts to get at why leftists are skeptical of borders: if all the places that aren't stricken with war and poverty close off their borders, that sure looks a lot like trapping everyone who wasn't lucky enough to be born in one of those countries in the war-and-poverty-stricken places. Which, I hope even rightists will understand, looks rather sinister.

#society

87 notes · View notes

organiclifestylemagazine · 8 years ago

Text

Sustainable DIY Laundry Solutions: The Secrets Detergent Companies Don't Want You To Know

Living a life that’s light on the planet is important to you. Why else would you be on this site? You probably buy organic whenever possible and reject gas-guzzling SUVs in favor of eco-friendly engine options. Perhaps you only permit planet-safe products to join you in the shower by choosing natural body washes. However, one glaring area of the American lifestyle has been grotesquely missed by the natural living trend. If you’re like most people, there’s a really good chance you don’t think twice about the chemicals your clothes keep close to your skin every day.

Few possessions are more intimately used than the clothes on your body. Doesn’t it make sense to keep toxic chemicals far away from them?

Laundry Detergent? It Can’t Be THAT Bad… Can It?

Oh, but it can. Take the time to read the ingredients list on your regular detergent sometime. How many terms do you recognize? While smart sounding scientific names aren’t always a sign that a product is loaded with toxins, in the case of most detergents this isn’t far from the truth.

In fact, research has shown that the laundry room is usually one of the most polluted rooms in your entire house. Detergents are to blame. These prettily packaged products are filled with as many as 25 volatile organic compounds- seven of which have been shown to be toxic to breathe in. For this reason, the EPA considers the air inside your home to be as much as five times more polluted than the great outdoors. Yikes.

Detergent’s Cost to the Natural World

The danger in detergents comes from their scents. Far removed from their natural-sounding names, most laundry fragrances are actually a cocktail of chemicals designed to degrade as slowly as possible to give you a “just been cleaned” feeling all day long.

Your mind might associate these scents with pleasant vistas and spring fed streams, but the truth is that these chemicals are actually actively destroying the places they make you reminisce about. The status quo for the EPA is to let the vast majority of these chemicals pass through the cracks of their testing every year, assuming that the majority of their chemical creations are “safe until proven otherwise”. This makes the detergent-buying population into non-consenting guinea pigs happy to smell like a mountain spring, unaware of the damage they are unintentionally doing to these same sacred wild spaces.

When you do a load of laundry, you are fouling our limited water supply with toxic chemicals that eventually make their way into rivers and ponds. The soap in detergents actually “cleans off” the natural mucous on fish scales, making it easy for fish to absorb any of the 80,000 different chemicals used commercially in the United States directly through their skin. These chemicals have a range of impacts, from reducing the effectiveness of breeding to killing fish eggs and even causing widespread deaths throughout vast swatches of water. Worst of all, this chemical damage works its way right up the food chain and stricken seabirds, larger fish, and even the humans who eat them.

The Sinister Effects For Your Health

Unbeknownst to most people, skin is your body’s biggest organ. This stretchy layer of cells actually operates as a semi-permeable barrier that lets plenty of microscopic substances shift in and out. This is great news for aromatherapy adherents and smokers relying on nicotine patches, but not so good if you look too closely at your detergent label. Each of these chemicals, 4-dioxane, benzoxazolyl, polyalkylene quaternium-15:, can be found in most detergents. They are a big cause for concern if you care about your reproductive health, staving off allergic reactions, and staying cancer free.

Worst of all, these chemicals aren’t something you are exposed to only on laundry day. Instead, they come with you wherever your clothes go. Traces of these chemicals create fumes you constantly breathe in, and even tiny amounts can agitate your breathing and cause headaches, neurological problems, and allergy flare-ups.

If that’s not enough to scare you off, keep in mind that the long-term effects of these combinations of chemicals are almost completely unknown.

Sustainable Alternatives to Commercial Detergents

Unless you shed your layers and opt to join a nudist colony instead, washing your clothes is probably not optional. However, you have plenty of control over the kinds of chemicals you expose your cotton to. Below are some of my all-time favorite detergent alternatives that will keep your clothes clean without putting your health or the environment at risk.

Toss aside your dreadful detergent bottle and try one (or all) of these clothes cleaning methods instead! Trust me, you won’t be going back.

Soap Nuts

Why use detergent at all? In truth, soap nuts are an out of the box way to clean your clothes that still manages to be shockingly effective. As the fruits of the Mukorossi tree, soap “nuts” are native to the Himalayas, though they are grown in arid climates around the world. The Mukorossi tree’s gift to the world is that its berries are filled with a natural surfactant called saponin that naturally interacts with water in a way that agitates dirt off clothing, binds dirt particles to soap molecules, and makes it simple to wash these particles directly down the drain.

Besides their effectiveness for keeping clothes clean, there’s a lot to like about soap nuts. Not only do they thrive in areas ill-suited for other kinds of agriculture, they also prevent erosion on the steep mountain slopes where they grow best. They are a perfect option for gray water systems because the nuts are 100% biodegradable and actually act as a natural form of fertilizer wherever they end up. Best of all, soap nuts require minimal packaging and often come in eco-friendly boxes that are a cinch to recycle.

At first glance, these nuts may seem confusing to use, but in truth, the process couldn’t be simpler. All you need to do is place five nuts in a drawstring bag (normally included with your nut purchase) and toss it into the washing machine. No need to fret about pulling the nuts about before the start of the rinse cycle; they can stay right in until the very end! You can also say goodbye to fabric softeners and other detergents, as these simple nuts will do it all. In most cases, you can get five to ten washes out of your nuts before they become papery thin and translucent. At this point, it’s time to toss them in the compost bin and start again.

Looking to buy some soap nuts? They can be found online through many organic distributors like Eco Nuts.

Homemade Detergents

If you’re looking to stick with cleaning solutions a little more familiar, there are plenty of ways to make your own homemade detergents that get your clothes as clean as any chemical-laden commercial product. Not only will you be making your health a priority, you’ll also be saving money and becoming more self-sufficient in the process.

Here are some simple tips to make eco-friendly swaps in your laundry routine.

Switch out your fabric softener and add a ½ cup white vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Baking soda is a great way to scrub away stains and brighten colors. Just make a simple pre-treatment with baking soda, water, and washing soda to get a deep cleanse for your clothes.

Ditch your dryer sheets by making your own. All it takes is a few drops of essential oil added to a damp rag that’s thrown right in with your sodden laundry. You can also use recycled wool dryer balls to fluff up your clothes while reducing static.

Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent

This simple recipe is so easy it will quickly replace all your commercial detergent needs. Best of all, you can change the scent based on what type of soap you choose to use.

All you need to do is combine one bar of grated soap with 2 quarts water, and slowly heat the mix until the soap has fully dissolved. Next, add 4.5 gallons of piping hot tap water to a five-gallon bucket, and stir in 2 cups each of washing soda and borax. Pour in your stove top soap mixture and stir everything together. Cover the container and let it sit overnight before pouring it into easy to use containers. To use, all you need to do is add a half cup per medium load and your clothes will soon be clean and fresh.

If you have trouble finding washing soda at the store, you can make your own.

Homemade Laundry Powder

Why rely on liquids when powdered detergents are so much simpler to use? Not only are they easier to store, they also don’t need any preservation agents to keep them safe. You can make your own top quality laundry detergent by mixing three cups of Borax with two cups each of washing soda, grated, all natural soap (like Ivory Soap) and baking soda. Blend everything together and store it in an airtight container. To use, all you need to do is measure out two tablespoons for a medium sized load.

Homemade All-In-One Laundry Pods

If you can’t help your preference for convenient laundry solutions, you don’t have to forgo your favorite laundry pods if you’re committed to natural solutions. Instead, you can make your own single-use laundry pods with ease by following these instructions. Simply blend 1 ½ cups washing soda with a grated bar of natural soap and 2 Tbsp Epsom salts. After thoroughly mixing, and 3 Tbsp of hydrogen peroxide and ¼ cup vinegar. When mixed, add 15-20 drops of your favorite essential oil.

Once everything is blended together, it should resemble wet sand and clump well together. Cover a cookie pan with parchment paper and measure out rounded tablespoons of the mix, tapping them against the side of the bowl to ensure they clump together. Let these pods dry for eight hours before storing them in airtight containers. When it’s time to do a load, simple toss a pod right in with your clothes.

So, What Did We Learn?

If you’ve been thoughtless with your laundry habits in the past, the time has come to make a change for the better. Commercial detergents may make your clothing squeaky clean, but they come at a significant cost to health for you and the planet.

A better option? Turn towards sustainable laundry solutions and try out soap nuts or some homemade detergents to keep your clothes clean. You’ll save money, reduce the amount of obnoxious packaging ending up in landfills, and keep the planet in better shape for future generations to enjoy.

Clearly, swapping out your commercial detergent for a more sustainable solution is a change well worth making.