A Little Change in Product Design with Big Environmental Benefits

With a little creativity, an incredibly simple change in a product’s design can provide enormous ecological benefits.  Seventh Generation, one of the world’s top brands of green cleaning products, is now shipping its Natural 4X Laundry Detergent in bottles made of cardboard as opposed to the usual plastic. These bottles, both recyclable and made from recycled material, greatly reduce the ecological footprint made by the production, transportation and disposal of the detergent.

How does this new bottle work? The detergent is contained inside a slim plastic pouch inside the paper-pulp bottle. Constructing a rigid plastic bottle takes up three-times as much plastic resin as one of these thin flexible pouches. This new packaging design is deceptively humble— it generates a number of ecological advantages throughout the supply chain. One gallon of water is used for every 37 bottles made with plastic—and every 76 bottles made with cardboard. Furthermore, 161,000 plastic bottles can be shipped in 6 shipping trucks, while the same number of cardboard bottles can be shipped in a single truck. Finally, a good portion of plastic products end up in the dump. In the U.S., in fact, only 29% of plastic gets recycled. By contrast, 81% of cardboard gets recycled.

With a bit of outside-the-box thinking, some interesting solutions can be found to the environmental challenges faced by many companies. The new initiative being launched by Seventh Generation is just one of these interesting solutions—hopefully more are sure to follow.

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