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.
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Or so she thought. Then her husband sent her some articles
revealing that less than 6 percent of US plastic gets recycled and that even
recycled plastic can only be reused once or twice. Espinoza Pierson, who lives
in Buda, Texas, was shocked. “All the plastic that we thought was getting
recycled, it’s not really, and it’s just going to sit there,” she said.
Determined to cut back on her plastic consumption, Espinoza
Pierson got a starter kit from a company selling refillable household cleaners.
In it were tablets containing concentrated hand soap as well as multisurface
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
Espinoza Pierson, have revived a once-customary practice: refilling containers
rather than disposing of them. If just 10 percent 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.
More than one-third of all plastic ever produced has been used for packaging, most of it created and disposed of in the same year.
Although environmentally minded consumers have long been
able to refill containers by making their own concoctions or shopping at
certain stores — like the now-proliferating number of zero-waste boutiques —
finding mass-market refillable products has been more challenging.
That has started to change. 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 US stores.
These are tiny experiments in a country that generates
nearly 500 pounds of plastic waste per person, per year. But Matt Prindiville,
the CEO of Upstream, a reuse advocacy organization and consultancy, said his
organization has seen the number of reuse-refill startups 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,”
Prindiville said. “Not just from the do-gooders, but from the biggest brands in
the world.”
‘We’re just shipping around water’US 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. An ad for Toss’ems, a
single-use baby bottle introduced in 1971, summed up the ethos with a question:
“In this disposable age, is there a reason for the non-disposable bottle?”
Manufacturers and consumers alike fell in love with the lightweight and
unbreakable material. More than one-third of all plastic ever produced has been
used for packaging, most of it created and disposed of in the same year.
“Reuse, for some types of products and packaging,” Prindiville said, “can put a huge dent in reducing those climate impacts.”
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,” 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 is what makes up the bulk of traditional cleaning products, leading
Prindiville to describe the current system this way: “We’re just shipping
around water. And that’s dumb.”
A growing refillable movementIn contrast, the concentrated surface cleaners sold by Grove
Collaborative each contain 28g of liquid, far less than a standard 450-g 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 refillable 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.
Switching from ready-to-use trigger sprays to concentrated refills could cut cleaning manufacturers’ greenhouse gas emissions from trigger sprays by at least 58 percent
The Clorox Co., 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.)
This product has been in the works since 2019, when Clorox
pledged to halve its virgin plastic and fiber packaging by 2030. Jodi Russell,
the vice president of research and development for Clorox’s cleaning division,
was one of the people tasked with making it happen.
Along with her colleagues, Russell, who is a chemical
engineer, spent the better part of three years formulating the concentrate,
developing the supply chains to manufacture it and sourcing longer-lasting
bottles and spray triggers.
Although refillable account for just 5 percent of all
trigger-spray sales, Russell is eager to see that figure grow. Concentrated cleaners
not only help manufacturers lower transportation costs and reduce their carbon
footprint, she said, but also help retailers by reducing the need for shelf
space for bulky bottles.
But research commissioned by Clorox notes that unless all
manufacturers adopt refillable, consumers will be confused, ultimately,
Russell said, “destroying all of the economic value”. That has led Clorox to
become somewhat evangelical about concentrated refillable, hosting
presentations at conferences and funding an assessment that showed that
switching from ready-to-use trigger sprays to concentrated refills could cut
cleaning manufacturers’ greenhouse gas emissions from trigger sprays by at
least 58 percent.
The rocky road to a refill revolutionThe biggest roadblock to refills, however, may be consumers.
While Americans say they are concerned about plastic, persuading them to switch
products — especially to ones that require an extra step and have a higher
upfront cost — is another story.
Kate White, a professor at the Sauder School of Business at
the University of British Columbia, studies what motivates consumers to adopt
pro-environmental behaviors. Beyond the perceived inconvenience of refilling in
general, she said cleaning routines are deeply ingrained, noting, “If you use
Tide, it’s quite likely that’s what your family used.”
Another challenge is that unlike cars or clothes, cleaning
products are literally hidden under the sink. This reduces “social influence”,
which White called one of the “main drivers of sustainable behavior”.
“We don’t want reuse to be the new organic, where you have the wealthier part of the population consuming one way and everybody else consuming a different way.”
To that end, White said refillable could receive a boost if
they become “connected to a particular identity”, especially one that is
“bougie or fancy”. But that is a fate environmental advocates are trying to
avoid. As Upstream’s Prindiville put it, “We don’t want reuse to be the new
organic, where you have the wealthier part of the population consuming one way
and everybody else consuming a different way.”
At the moment, most refillable products are more expensive
than their ready-to-use counterparts. A Grove starter kit, for example, costs
much more than a ready-to-use spray from Mrs Meyer’s, a brand also marketed as
“natural”. But refills cost slightly less, which allows consumers to recoup
costs over time if they continue reusing the bottle. “We don’t have the scale
today to deliver at the lowest cost,” said Stuart Landesberg, a founder of
Grove and the company’s CEO. “But it’s not like we’re making a Tesla, and
everyone else is driving a Camry. We’re in the same ballpark.”
Russell of Clorox is confident that costs will shrink as the
refill market grows. The company had to invest in consumer marketing, new
manufacturing equipment and additional packaging with user instructions — costs
that could eventually fall. According to research commissioned by Clorox, the
market will reach a tipping point when concentrated refills account for more
than half of cleaning spray sales. “That’s really when the scale is unlocked,”
Russell said.
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