Was scrolling through facebook and one of my friends was gushing about this Earth Saving Paper Detergent Bottle they saw in the store. Not wanting to first poke at the fact that their picture was of the bottle on the shelf rather than in their cart. Guess even saving the earth isn’t worth the extra mark up. But, I was wondering how they solved the problem of storing liquids in paper without the paper getting soggy and falling apart.
While I expected some kind of Earth Friendly save the Bees waxed interior to the bottle, I was wrong. They are just wrapping a plastic container in paper. While they may save a smidgen of plastic doing this, this is far from the paper bottle that they appear to be and many of the less perceptive Tree Huggers are buying them for. This is just deceptive marketing and it should call it out.
That all said, there is already a solution on the market for not using plastics to hold your detergent, buy powdered detergent. Don’t fall for the hype and I hope everyone has a good week.
In addition, products like this which meld plastic and paper together cannot be recycled (to the extent that anything is actually being recycled nowadays).
When you look into the whole recycling trade, I don’t think our import duties are the reason. They may be the catalyst, but I would bet the reason is the environmental and health cost of the the recycling process. Here is an interesting 2013 article explaining how China likely receives the vast majority of all Plastic waste intended for recycling and how it is handled in Wen’an County.
Seems the real costs are being pushed onto poor labor and the environment. This place is a polluted trash land now and I bet the government is not happy with it anymore. Before the trade wars started there were already whispers in many industries in China changing regulations at their core. I’ve personally watched this in the last four years of the fireworks importing markets.
Here are some pics of Wen’an County so you can see what we are talking about. The real face of recycling.
