Homemade soap to make our habits more sustainable

I have always been conscious of respecting the environment and especially on not wasting resources. Water is our most precious resource on earth and, while 1 in 10 people don’t even have access to fresh water on a daily basis, we still waste it A LOT. My internship in EduCare as a SWASH intern gave me an opportunity to think about how to reduce our water usage. In a sustainable development approach, the reuse of grey water is a huge part of the solution to this problem.

In an ideal world, we would be able to have a cyclic system in our houses where no water is wasted. Unfortunately, we put so many toxic compounds in our grey water that we can’t use it for much, except for flushing or cleaning. So how can we solve this? How can we improve the quality of our grey water in order to use it for a possible garden? Where does all the toxicity come from?

And the answer is simple: imported chemical detergent. We use soaps and detergents on a daily basis for our bodies, our dishes and our home without even knowing their exact composition. And, most importantly, we don’t understand how those chemicals will affect us and our environment. So, to improve the quality of the water we put into the ground after washing, we need to know what exactly we are using to wash it.

Before all the big corporations came along with their fancy soaps, what did we use to clean our stuff? As for many times in environmental conservation research, I had to turn to our old traditional ways. Let’s make homemade soap!! By wanting to solve an issue, I could also link it to other aspects of eco-friendly living and broader sustainable development! By producing soap locally, we are reducing the plastic packaging coming into the village. Also, this can become a microfinance activity with women of the village producing this soap and selling it! Finally, we can improve the village’s health by limiting the amount of toxic chemicals used on a daily basis!

For this, I was lucky that our local liaison Manoj had a recipe for homemade soap. His auntie produces homemade soap for the whole family of 60 people! This soap is used for washing laundry, dishes and the house. To make this soap even cheaper, they use the black frying oil from Manoj’s snack shop. So this soap uses waste oil as a resource, which makes it even more a sustainable eco-conscious product!

To make a batch of around 20 squares of soap, we start by dissolving 250g of caustic soda in 1L of water. We mix this and let it to rest overnight. The morning after, we add 1L of black oil (soybean), mix everything for 30 mins and we get creamy liquid soap! The caustic soda actually reacts with the oil to form what we call soap. The proportions are calculated so no caustic soda is left unmixed since it’s corrosive so not really what you want as a soap! We finally leave the soap to dry overnight and, when it gets the expected texture, we can cut it and start using it! We had some troubles with the soap being a bit oily for laundry but we are always improving the recipe! Moreover, I found out there are so many great recipes for soap out there so it can be adapted to all different wants and needs! 

Water and caustic soda

Adding the black oil

Creamy state of the soap

Home-made soap is not the only option, as there are hundreds of ways to clean without any chemicals that pollute your body or your home! Lemon is a great natural disinfectant and is actually what many industrial soaps use as main cleaning agent. Sand is great to use to scrub dishes or house surfaces in order to remove any stain. Ashes are also traditionally used to clean the dishes in Sikh temples. Indeed, ashes contain hydroxide anions which is the compound we use from the caustic soda. So, when they mix with the oil present in dirty dishes, they actually create mini droplets of soap on the plate. So, when the plate is rinsed, all the dirt has been washed with the ashes! Some studies have been made to address eventual health issues caused by these alternative methods. But the important thing when using any method is to weight the pros and cons and understand how each method impacts your health and environment. 

I started this project by trying to reduce water waste, and ended up learning so much more about sustainable alternatives. This experience made me rethink all my habits and re-analyze the products I use on a daily basis back home. We need to choose better and healthier care products not only for us but for our future children. We’re surrounded by all these products that are supposed to be the greatest cleaning agent ever but where does this come from? Advertisement plays a huge role in this and it’s important to become more responsible customers. Let’s challenge the big companies and ask for better products, that don’t spoil our health and our precious water and earth! It’s crucial to think about the impact that every single one of the products we buy has on the environment. From this experience and from seeing other habits here, I understood how new is not always better and that in some cases, our grandparents had it figured out all along.

After a whole night

Cutting the soap

Final result

Debora Cortez Miranda - Portugal

SWASH Project Manager and Center Administrative Manager in Gajner 

How my experience in EduCARE has changed over time

Did the time fly or did it crawl? I honestly can’t tell. The last six months have not always been easy. I’ve cursed India, I’ve loved India, but in the end I’m leaving EduCARE feeling pretty good. I didn’t always embrace this experience, but about half way through my internship my attitude started to change for the better, and I think this can best be demonstrated by my very different coordinator’s retreat experiences.

Back in July I attended my first coordinator’s retreat as the new Center Manager for the Paro center. I was a little stressed and overwhelmed at the time, so I was looking forward to going to a new center in Rait, and learning from the other veteran managers. When I arrived in Rait the other interns were busy with meeting the waste department and setting up new waste facilities. I thought “wow, their interns do so much more than Paro! They have a strong project and get things done! Why can’t we do that?” That night the interns cooked mixed veg for dinner, with so much variety, I thought “wow, they have pumpkin and carrots! I wish Paro had as many vegetables as them”. Everything annoyed me little by little. The next day I woke up with the infamous Delhi Belly (my first time experiencing said illness) and I spent the next three days in the toilet stall of the Rait house with some serious bowel issues (“wow, even their bathroom is nicer! I wish Paro had a toilet like this”). I was miserably sick (I even missed the last workshop of the retreat because I had passed out with a half eaten piece of bread in my hand) and between trips to the bathroom I was on the phone with interns back in Paro trying to mitigate conflicts between the team. I just wanted things to be easier. I wanted my team to get along and do their work; I wanted to spend a normal amount of time on the toilet; and I just wanted things to be better. I left the retreat weakened physically and mentally and ready for a holiday (a holiday at this point would just mean a burrito, a smoothie, and a western toilet).

Cut to my second retreat in the middle of October. I was coming directly from my holiday and going to Khuri outside of Jaisalmer. I was so excited to see all of the old coordinators I’d gotten to know, and the new ones who had just arrived. I was so stoked to tell people about my trip and to talk about the projects that were breaking out of Paro. I celebrated my birthday with 20+ co-workers who surprised me with a chocolate cake (no easy feat in the Indian desert), and we slept in the desert under an incredible night sky. The workshops may have been long, but I felt I had a lot to contribute. I had a project that was uniquely my own, I knew the organization better, and I was enjoying myself. Jokes were still made that I was a plagued mess at the last retreat, but I laughed and embraced the Khuri toilet stall happily.

 Celebrating my birthday in the Khuri desert with all of the Educare coordinators

Two things occurred between these retreats, and I owe them a lot. First, I met Daniela; second, I found soap.

Daniela was a new intern that arrived a few weeks following my IBS filled retreat. When I met her, everything was “amazing” and “beautiful” and I thought it was “too much”. Surely, she couldn’t truly find everything “amazing” and “beautiful” when I thought everything was “overwhelming” and “difficult”. But after Daniela came with me back to Paro, and it was my turn to give her a tour of my Indian home, the constant exclamations of amazement and beauty started to resonate with me. She’s right! It is incredible that when you walk down your street complete strangers invite you in for chai and start a dance party! And it’s super cool that the migrant community greets us with hugs and practical jokes when we enter their home! Daniela made me realize I was being negative about an experience that offered so much positivity and beauty. And at the same time that Daniela changed my outlook, I found soap. 

Playing with the Paro kids during Laura and Daniela’s center tour  

Finding a project I felt good about gave my time in India a new purpose. I no longer felt I was floundering, but I had something to work toward that could produce tangible results. And having Daniela in the back of my head reminded me to appreciate the opportunity. While I still don’t feel like I’ve finished what I started, and I have so much I want to keep doing in terms of making soap with the community; Daniela reminds me to revel in what I have accomplished and embrace the relationships I made with the community. I still have a list of goals for the soap making project that I hope another intern will take on, but in the end I embraced the work that Paro did, I embraced the vegetables in our town, and I’ve embraced that India does stuff to your bowels that sometimes is funny…after the fact.

With Geeta, Sonya, and Vide, our soap makers and Restore girls at my final Restore opening

Madeline - USA

Center Coordinator and Microfinance project Manager, Paro (Punjab)