What can you do?
The best way to decrease the impacts on our environment is to stop using antibacterial products in such high quantities. Ideally, the only times in which antibiotics should be used is when someone is sick with an infection that is actually caused by bacteria. Doctors' first response to someone who is sick should not be antibiotics, this should actually be a last resort. The other time should be in hospitals, only for surgery prep and the cleaning of "clean rooms", where there cannot be any form of irritants.
As a replacement for antibiotic soaps and gels, you could use antibiotic free soaps. Soap without antibiotics function better than cleansers with antibiotics because they are not killing much of the bacteria, they are simply rinsing them off of your skin. Normal soap, based on the way it functions, is antibacterial on its own. Regular soap, like bar soap for example, is designed to create suds which trap dirt and bacteria inside the bubbles and make it easier to rinse everything away (Hickok 2021). The way this works is bacteria get stuck on the oils and fats that are on our hands and cannot be simply washed away with water due to the oils and fats inability to mix with water. Soap, on the other hand, is composed of both "water loving" and "oil loving" molecules. This means that when the oils and fats, and as a result the bacteria, get stuck to the "oil loving" part of the soap, they become trapped in the bubbles and all that is left to be exposed is the "water loving" part of the soap, which makes for easy rinsing.
Then, as always, recycling plastic is also an option. This reduces the amount of plastic produced, but it also can prevent small amounts of leaching of antibacterial agents into the land surrounding landfills. While more people are beginning to recycle, the fraction of plastics recycled is still alarmingly small: in 2018, only 3 million tons of the United State's near 35 million tons of plastic was recycled; 27 million tons were put in landfills (EPA 2021).
Additional Websites
100% Natural Soap | Seatree Cosmetics | Handmade in the UK
Organic Skin Care & Natural Hair Care Products | Chagrin Valley Soap (chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com)
These websites provide antibiotic free soaps that use plastic free packaging (they also have ecofriendly bathroom and hygiene products as well)
FDA updates on hand sanitizers consumers should not use | FDA
Show Me the Science – When & How to Use Hand Sanitizer in Community Settings | Handwashing | CDC
Hand-washing: Do's and don'ts - Mayo Clinic
These websites provide more information on why soap that does not contain antibiotics is better, as well as why soap is better than hand sanitizer