Photo: Alibaba.
You can take a jug to buy detergent in bulk at Debra’s and keep refilling the smaller bottle you keep by your sink.
For a few years now, I have been refilling the plastic bottle that my dishwashing liquid once came in. For a while I bought a concentrate online. Now I take a clean jug into Debra’s Next Door, pump the detergent into the jug, and refill my smaller container for months.
Today’s story is about big brands trying to get into the act.
Susan Shain reports at the New York Times, “Every week, Angela Espinoza Pierson looked at her recycling bin — filled with detergent jugs, shampoo bottles and clamshell containers that once held strawberries — with mixed feelings. Sure, it was a lot of plastic. But it was going to be recycled.
“Or so she thought. Then her husband sent her some articles revealing that less than 6 percent of the country’s plastic gets recycled, and that even recycled plastic can only be reused once or twice. Ms. Espinoza Pierson, who lives in Buda, Texas, was shocked. …
“Determined to cut back on her plastic consumption, Ms. Espinoza Pierson got a starter kit from a company selling refillable household cleaners. In it were tablets containing concentrated hand soap as well as multi-surface, glass and bathroom cleaners — and four empty containers. She filled each one with tap water, then dropped in a tablet and watched it dissolve. If she is happy with the cleaners, she will order more tablets but reuse the containers. No new plastic required.
“Given plastic’s detrimental effects on the environment, nearly three-quarters of Americans say they are trying to reduce their reliance on single-use plastic, according to Pew Research Center. Since plastic is everywhere and avoiding it altogether is extraordinarily difficult, some, like Ms. Espinoza Pierson, have revived a once-customary practice: refilling containers rather than disposing of them. If just 10 to 20 percent of plastic packaging were reused, a report from the World Economic Forum estimates, the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean could be cut in half. …
“Over the past few years, Windex, owned by SC Johnson, introduced concentrates that dissolve in water; Dove began selling a deodorant stick that slots into a reusable case; and The Body Shop added refill stations to half its American stores.
“These are tiny experiments in a country that generates nearly 500 pounds of plastic waste per person, per year. But Matt Prindiville, the chief executive of Upstream, a reuse advocacy organization and consultancy, says his organization has seen the number of reuse-refill start-ups grow from a dozen in 2019 to more than 150 today.
‘If you asked me about this three years ago, I wouldn’t have guessed at how quickly the interest in the sector has blown up,’ Mr. Prindiville said. ‘Not just from the do-gooders, but from the biggest brands in the world.’
“American beverage companies switched to single-use plastic containers during the 1970s, largely because it saved money, said Bart Elmore, an associate professor of environmental history at Ohio State University. No longer would companies have to collect or clean refillable bottles.
“Since throwing things away, rather than cleaning and reusing them, was convenient, too, it seemed like progress. … Manufacturers and consumers alike fell in love with the lightweight and unbreakable material. More than a third of all plastic ever produced has been used for packaging, most of it created and disposed of in the same year.
“Today, the pressure to reduce corporate carbon footprints is forcing a second look at all that plastic packaging. ‘Reuse, for some types of products and packaging,’ Mr. Prindiville said, ‘can put a huge dent in reducing those climate impacts.’
“Household cleaners seem particularly primed for a refill revolution. Whereas shampoo and conditioner* involve complicated chemical formulas, many cleaners can be easily concentrated and reconstituted with water. In fact, that’s what makes up the bulk of traditional cleaning products, leading Mr. Prindiville to describe the current system this way: ‘We’re just shipping around water. And that’s dumb.’
“In contrast, the concentrated surface cleaners sold by Grove Collaborative each contain 1 ounce of liquid, far less than a standard 16-ounce bottle of ready-to-use cleaner, and thus require less fuel to transport.
Grove’s spray bottles are meant to be reused, and its concentrates are packaged in glass or aluminum — materials that, unlike plastic, can be recycled over and over.
“Grove’s products are now on shelves in more than 5,000 stores, including Target, CVS and Walmart, and the company has seen its net revenue from refillables grow by more than 600 percent since 2018. But with $322 million in total revenue, it is a tiny player in the $30 billion home care market.
“The Clorox Company, on the other hand, has a huge reach. Last year, the $7.1 billion company, which sells products in 100 countries, stepped into the refillable market with cleaning spray concentrates that can be emptied into a reusable plastic spray bottle. (Packaging accounts for more than half of all trigger spray manufacturers’ greenhouse gas emissions, transportation for another third.) …
“Not everyone is as enthusiastic. Jan Dell, a chemical engineer and founder of the anti-plastic pollution organization The Last Beach Cleanup, noted that many cleaning products are housed in PET or HDPE, two types of plastic with relatively high recycling rates. So she is less concerned about them — and far more concerned about the packaging of other products.
“ ‘Where these companies should be focusing is on this vast portfolio of everything else that isn’t recyclable, that is single use and that often becomes plastic pollution,’ she said, pointing to SC Johnson’s Ziploc bags and Clorox’s Hidden Valley ranch dipping cups. ‘This is just a classic example of big corporations doing a stunt over here on something that’s not the main issue to distract from all the single-use plastic they’re pushing out.’
More at the Times, here, including the response from Clorox.
*Note that shampoo and conditioner in a soap-bar form work just fine.
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