Somehow this plastic scrubber made it past the no plastic sign on our driveway. First, I don’t like how it feels on my hands and, second, it sucks and I just wanted to say that. That little cactus root scrubber has survived for 2 years of intense outdoor kitchen living. Its still going strong but what’s good is that I don’t care if a piece of root falls off the brush. We live in the forest where there are many root friends for it to party with. The ugly(!) plastic scrubber is on its third week and clearly already crumbling its gross green plastic bits into our earth.
Plastic Manners 
Re: scrubbers. People give me those plastic mesh onion bags and I fold and sew them into scrubbers that last at least a year. If the stitching wears out, I just restitch them. Reusing plastic is an option that you may not appreciate, but these are great scrubbers!
And can you buy a sewing machine that is not made of plastic?
I came to your blog via My Plastic Free Life…BethTerry suggested I transpose my comment over here. Not sure it belongs after this post, but maybe it does.
I like your blog and I admire your diligence and I think you are entirely right that we, all of us, need to start sweating the small stuff. But as I read your writing (and I did, right back to the first post), I found myself getting more and more depressed and honestly slightly ticked off. The thing that got me was the frequent references to plastic as “vile” or “gross”. My lips — and my child’s lips — DO touch things like the plastic lids on our reusable cups. I grow vegetables in plastic pots on my deck, because I don’t have anywhere else, and it seems ridiculous to scrap those “vile” but remarkably functional pots while they still have a useful life. I doubt we’re poisoning ourselves. I’m doing my best. All or nothing zealotry is both off-putting and impractical for most of us, and the reality is that if all of us were making an effort, things wouldn’t be so dire that we needed to think in absolutes. And anyway there is no free ride; anything we consume comes with a cost. Yes, plastic is forever, but so, really, is the environmental devastation from clear-cutting or wild-crafting on a grand scale, or mining aluminum.
I’m taking the opposite approach to plastic in my life: I’m thinking of it as something precious, necessary for many applications but too valuable to be wasted. It helps.
I just got directed to your blog. I’m completely with you on the no plastic thing – completely. Well except for the fact i’m writing on this here computer. though if it’s any consolation: it’s not mine! No that doesn’t really cut it.
Anyway, those darn plastic green scrubbers, we have them infesting homes and supermarkets here in Australia too.
But that cactus scrubber? Oh that’s one of a kind, just fantastic, i love it!
Check out the Knapp-made stainless steel chain mail pot scrubber for cast iron.
I have made an experimental pot scrubber using rings from The Ring Lord, I used square wire rings, so the corners would scrape more aggressively. Good for stainless pots, though not as agressive as a wire scrubber.
Where did you get your cactus root dish scrubber?
Dollarama has started carrying biodegradable scrubbers, but they don’t last nearly as long as you describe your cactus root as lasting.