Many everyday plastic items can expose you to toxic chemicals and microplastics, through what you touch, what you eat and drink, and the air you breathe. This page shows the items worth swapping, room by room, with safer alternatives for each.
Plastic Swap Ideas
Reducing how much plastic you handle and ingest, one area of the home at a time. Search an item or pick an area below.
Start here: 5 easy swaps
High-impact, low-effort switches. Tap one, make the change, and tick it off.
Areas identified
Places where everyday items can usually be switched to safer materials.
Kitchen
Cookware, food storage, wraps and bottles, the biggest plastic-contact area for most people.
Bathroom
Shampoo bottles, toothbrushes, makeup, the bathroom is one of the highest plastic-packaging rooms in the house.
Closet
Clothes, hangers, storage containers, synthetic fabrics and plastic organisers are the main concerns here.
Bedroom
Bedding, pillows, mattresses and air fresheners, 7–9 hours a night of exposure adds up.
Laundry
Detergent pods, dryer sheets and fabric softener, chemical inputs on every wash.
What plastic does to us
Plastics don’t just pile up around us, tiny fragments and the chemicals in them get into our bodies. Here’s what the research shows so far (and where it’s still uncertain).
They get into our bodies
Microplastics have been detected in the blood of most people tested (~77% in a 2022 study) and even in human testes.
Leslie et al., Environ. Int. (2022) ↗ · Hu et al., Toxicol. Sci. (2024) ↗
Mostly from food, water & dust
Everyday exposure comes mainly through what we eat and drink, plus household dust and heating food in plastic.
Jahedi & Jaafarzadeh, Toxicology Reports (2025) ↗
Can your skin absorb plastic chemicals?
Yes, to a degree. The additives that make plastics soft or stable (mainly phthalate plasticisers and bisphenols such as BPA) aren’t locked into the material, so they can rub onto skin and be absorbed. The clearest example is the BPA coating on thermal receipts: studies show that handling a receipt transfers BPA onto the hands and through the skin, and that using hand sanitiser or lotion first can increase how much passes through.
One study found that BPA absorbed from a single skin contact can stay in the body longer than the same dose swallowed, because skin acts as a slow-release reservoir and the chemical skips the liver’s first pass of detox.
Phthalates cross skin too. In a controlled chamber experiment, people absorbed measurable amounts of two common phthalates directly from the air through their skin, roughly on par with breathing them in, and smaller, lighter phthalates pass through more easily than heavier ones.
Honest context: for most people, eating and drinking are still the largest routes for these chemicals, and a lot of skin-contact plastic (like a hard phone case) is fairly inert. Skin absorption matters most with prolonged contact, heat and sweat, and items that hold leachable additives, for example soft PVC and vinyl (some gloves, watch bands, bath mats, raincoats), fragranced products, and thermal receipts. BPA and phthalates are studied as endocrine (hormone) disruptors, and the long-term human health picture is still developing, which is why cutting avoidable skin contact is a sensible, low-regret step.
Sources: Hormann et al., PLOS ONE (2014) ↗ · Liu & Martin, Environ. Sci. Technol. (2017) ↗ · Weschler et al., Environ. Health Perspect. (2015) ↗
Compounds & toxins worth knowing about
Short, plain-language explainers, what it is, what it's used for, and what it may do. Each links to a peer-reviewed source.
Microplastics
What they are: plastic fragments smaller than 5 mm (nanoplastics are even tinier), created as larger plastics break down.
Where they come from: drinking water, especially bottled, plus seafood, salt, and indoor air and dust.
What they may do: they've been detected in human blood, lungs and placenta; lab and animal studies link them to oxidative stress and inflammation. Human health evidence is still emerging.
Source: Jahedi & Jaafarzadeh, Toxicology Reports (2025). peer-reviewed ↗
See affected kitchen items →
Bisphenol A (BPA)
What it is: an industrial chemical that can act like a hormone (an “endocrine disruptor”).
What it's used for: mostly polycarbonate plastics (~70%) and epoxy resins (~25%), rigid plastics, the lining of food cans, and thermal-paper receipts.
What it may do: it can mimic estrogen; research has associated exposure with reproductive, developmental and metabolic effects.
Source: Molina-López et al., Animals (2023). peer-reviewed ↗
See affected kitchen items →
PFAS / PTFE
What they are: a large family of extremely long-lasting synthetic chemicals, nicknamed “forever chemicals.”
What they're used for: non-stick cookware coatings, water- and stain-resistant fabrics and carpets, food packaging, and firefighting foam.
What they may do: most exposure is through food and water; studies associate PFAS with thyroid, liver, cholesterol, immune and developmental effects.
Source: Mišľanová & Valachovičová, Life (2025). peer-reviewed ↗
See affected kitchen items →