You Say You Want a Revolution

With all the awareness about the dangers of single-use plastics to our environment and to the health of all living beings, why aren’t household and personal care brands offering alternative packaging for their products? 

Reduce, reuse, and recycle puts all of the work of sustainability onto the consumer. Companies need to re-evaluate how much they are contributing to the cycle of waste production in our consumer chain and address the mess they help create.

The topic of climate change is controversial in some circles (it doesn’t exist!), and overwhelmingly dire in others (it’s too late—the sky is falling NOW!). The details of global temperature fluctuations may still mystify modern scientists, but whether you personally believe in climate change or not, there is substantial, and somewhat common sense, evidence that human activities increase carbon emissions, and carbon emissions are causing, at this time, the temperature on earth to increase. 

Scientists recommend that humans should use less fossil fuels, e.g., coal, natural gas, and oil, to help cut down on carbon emissions. Many of us already change behaviors toward that goal. We limit flying or live in a city where we don’t have to rely on driving. We might set the temperature of our homes, down or up, to heat or cool our houses less. There are many ways we can cut down on consumption. But, coal, natural gas, and oil are also used to make many, many every day products. Especially products that require a lot of energy to produce.

Natural gas and oil are used to make plastic. According to this National Geographic article: “The amount of plastic packaging on U.S. products (not just on personal care items) has increased by over 120 times since 1960—with almost 70 percent of that waste piling up in landfills.”

Food packaging, cleaning products, beauty and health products are all, overwhelmingly, packed in plastic. From a health perspective, research is increasingly showing the dangers of microplastics and plastics being ingested by humans. How then do we address our use of plastics on an everyday basis?

The Eternal Life of Single Use Plastics

Every few months, you use up your Tide laundry detergent and throw out the container, only to replace it with another hard plastic Tide container. Every couple of months, you finish your liquid hand soap, and throw out the hard plastic container, only to buy another one. Every month or so, you come to the end of the toothpaste…. We can go on and on. 

We may think our plastic waste is being recycled, but in large practice that isn’t true. Consider this from a blog post: “If plastic can be recycled, why is plastic waste such a big threat? In the US, despite the good-natured people who put tens of thousands of tons of plastic in the recycling bins every year, only a paltry 8.7% of this waste is recycled. The rest is incinerated or sent to either a landfill or abroad.”

Can’t we devise more sustainable options? And if so, then how do we change behaviors?

Demand Drives Change

We have seen industry-wide changes when it is beneficial to the companies making the products and when consumers demand change.

Let’s look at plastic water bottles for an example. Bottled water saw a huge surge in sales in the 1990s as consumers became aware of water quality and contamination issues in our public water supply. Bottling companies, and their marketers, used this fear to position bottled water as a healthier and cleaner alternative to tap water. Plastic became the go-to material for the convenience of transporting this higher quality water to you or to take with you.

Over time, discarded empty plastic bottles piled up; water bottle caps were found in the stomachs of birds, and humans were found to have elevated levels of microplastics in their bodies. The public outcry led to bottled water companies trying to use less plastic in their containers or to use recycled plastics. Consumers changed their habits by refilling bottles. Thus the reusable water bottle industry has grown into what it is now, giant Stanley cups and all. In recent years, multiple companies, including industry behemoth Poland Springs, are now offering bottled water in aluminum screw top (reusable!) cans. “Boxed Water is Better” and “Just Water” are packaged in cardboard containers and available for purchase at grocery stores and pharmacies throughout the U.S.

Beer used to be bottled in glass, but as it became more expensive to recycle glass, beer companies switched to cans. Aluminum is easier and more cost effective to recycle.

Another example of consumer pressure changing an industry can be found in the beauty industry. Remember when cosmetics were routinely tested on animals? It wasn’t until the 1980s that this practice was widely questioned. The “Leaping Bunny” logo first emerged in 1996 to indicate non-animal testing. By the 2000s, educated consumers started demanding large companies like L’Oréal, Lancôme, Maybelline, and others stop testing their products on animals. Beauty product companies began certifying their products as such, and now there’s an effort among major companies internationally to completely stop animal testing.

But What About the Packaging?

As a consumer, I wonder if we can extend this concern for living beings to the materials these products are packaged in. Cleaning and personal care products are overwhelmingly housed in single-use plastics. We’ve seen consumers advance change by demanding better. Why isn’t there more sustainable packaging in cleaning and personal care items?

In researching this article, I was encouraged by how many companies create non-plastic cleaning and personal care items. However, being able to conveniently and routinely access these products is another issue.

As well, these inroads are not all leading forward. Some companies that were making less plastic packaging appear to be pulling back on that.

For instance in  2021, Fast Company reported that, “The deodorant industry, in particular, produces over 15 million pounds of plastic waste each year, so brands are reconsidering the way they wrap their products.” What happened to that effort?

In my personal experience, peak use of cardboard as a product container seemed to be that same year. I live in a suburban/rural area; the nearest retail stores of any type (grocery store, pharmacy, and big box retailer) are about a 15 minute drive from my home. In 2021, I noticed that Target offered deodorants in cardboard packaging. Despite contributing to market demand by purchasing them, I found that Target didn’t always carry the same products when I went back.

To lessen driving, I tried to online order products that offered non-plastic packaging and then schedule all my deliveries for the same day. To avoid relying on big box stores or Amazon, I tried subscription services.

However, no one company offers all the products I’m looking for in one place, and therefore, I need multiple subscription services. Additionally, a lot of these companies offer limited selection. For instance, scents tend to come in “unscented” or “lavender.” One of my kids has a lavender skin sensitivity leaving me with just “unscented” as an option.

But given all the education consumers have on the dangers of single-use plastics to our environment and to the health of all living beings, why aren’t more companies capitalizing on the potential to distinguish their products by offering alternative packaging? 

A sustainable retailer for household and personal care products that is an alternative to Amazon could feasibly capture a sizable market eager to support the effort. Or a series of adjacent businesses could partner to fulfil the need for environmentally-friendly household and personal products from creation to packaging to delivery. This model seems to be on the horizon, but right now limited to specific niche markets.

For instance, Thrive Market has set itself up as an alternative to Amazon, but many folks haven’t heard of it, and it has run into issues with quite a few negative reviews on the Better Business Bureau website. It requires a yearly subscription, and its website doesn’t easily let you browse or trial the service.

Will there come a time when I can go to Target with my empty Tide laundry detergent bottle, and use a spigot to refill from a large vat, thus truly reusing my plastic container? There are similar options for refilling beer or dry goods in some select boutique stores or co-ops, but so far there is no mass movement toward this sort of shift in how we transport and consume. That should have already happened, so why hasn’t it? 

Sustainability and being eco-conscious/eco-friendly are some of my core values when it comes to buying goods for my home, body, and family use. Research for writing this article, even with all my years of experience, was overwhelming and frustrating. Putting the burden on consumers is not the best long term solution. We need better alternatives.

Sources worth citing:

• Amazon alternatives
• Zero waste, sustainable product reviews
• BBC Your carbon footprint explained

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Evelyn Hafferty Fischer