Going plastic free is becoming more mainstream as activists show us just how much plastic is floating around the ocean and how our rubbish is damaging wildlife. Some of the images and videos are hard to watch. One area where many people think it's impossible to make the transition is in the laundry. We have been working hard on providing more eco friendly choices in our natural cleaning products range, with biodegradable dish cloths, coconut and walnut fibre brushes and scrubbers and more. Buying organic soap nuts removes the plastic bottle of laundry liquid from the equation but what about when you get out to the clothes line. Plastic pegs are dirty cheap, but they crack, get brittle in the weather and have a short life span. The two main options are wooden or bamboo pegs or stainless steel pegs. Both have their pro's and con's.

Wooden or Bamboo pegs

The benefit of wooden or bamboo pegs over stainless steel is their price. They can be relatively cheap (wood usually cheaper) and are easy to use. The bamboo or timber will perish over time, and for those who leave their pegs out on the line, this will happen very quickly and it's not advised. The reason we only sell bamboo pegs here and not wooden pegs is the tannin in the timber. When timber gets wet, it can release tannins (the colouring in wood) on to your clothes. The amount of tannins found in bamboo is significantly lower and it's far less of a problem. If you're hanging up a lot of light coloured clothes, wooden pegs can be a staining issue.

Stainless Steel Pegs

No staining, no perishing - these are an investment for life, which brings us to the #1 issue with stainless steel pegs, their price. They start at around 50 cents per peg (in our 201 grade from the brand Wire Pegs) and go up to close to $1.50 per peg for the marine grade in the same brand. From Pincinox Pegs, (pictured at the top of the page) they're between $1.70 and $2.00 per peg depending on how many you buy at a time. Do you need to spend $2.00 a peg when there's a 50c option? This is completely a personal choice. The Pincinox Pegs are shaped more like a standard peg which many people like. They have also been manufacturing them for 50 years with no warranty claims. Hand them down to your grandkids. The Wire Pegs brand come in three grades. You can read the grade guide on our plastic free clothes pegs page to learn which grade will suit your conditions. Do they get too hot to handle in the Aussie summer? No they don't. We have multiple customers who live in the tropics who have used the Wire Pegs brand on 40+ degree days with no issues.