I love when products are concentrated. It's a win win situation for both you and the environment. First, you don't have to use as much so you're saving money; second, it takes at least twice as long to go through a bottle so it's putting less garbage in our landfills.

Well if you recycle the bottle it doesn't go in the landfill either. The other benefit to the super concentrated stuff is they can ship more per trailer load saving on shipping costs by reducing the number of trucks required to deliver the product.

I find it truly amazing a mere sixth of the amount of liquid I used in the past does same job. Top loader expired and front loader uses less, concentrated even more so. It is nice that companies are thinking of the larger picture. As consumers we have to reward them by exercising our purchasing power!

That's right---all of the above.
People don't believe me when I tell them I use 1 tbsp. per most loans. I can watch the discharge wash water; I see some light suds.
Our clothes are sharper in appearance; all the detergent is rinsed out (that's why the clothes appear brighter).
Also adding 1/2 to 3/4 cup 20 Mule Team Borax boosts the detergent and lets one use less softener.
Win, win.
Add the 1/3 water usage per most load and we can't lose.

concentration is good.

I guess the next step will be refillable containers. Even with concentrated formulas there is a lot of waste generated by one use packaging and recycling is only a little better.

Why not bring your own container to the store and have the product dispensed in the quantity you want to buy?

Probably some technical hurdles to clear but it sure would save a lot of waste.

A friend I work out with is a hair stylist. She says her salon does just that with their hair products Chris. I know it is an Aveda salon and not sure if they do it for all products but at least for many the customers bring back container for refills....such a great idea...most of those containers would last soooo very long.

We have a bath and body place here that does that. The name is Body Time (used to be Body Shop until the BIG muntinational Body Shop came in to the area).

They sell plain old generic plastic bottles and small glass bottles for the essential oil perfumes. Everything except some of the facial products are refillable. They sell lotions, hair care products, body washes, etc. Another BIG plus for me is that everything is unscented so I can add EO scent if I want.

I really love this place and would love to see more like it!

I think one of these days before too long we actually will be green.

I was just thinking about the complexity of this at the grocery store level though. Part of the problem is the variety of products we have available and expect these days. It does make for a competitive environment but also an inefficient one.

Laundry soap for example: liquid or powder? how many brands each -5? How many subtypes within each brand -3? We may have 30 choices available just for laundry detergent. How do you dispense all that and then keep track of the customers choice?

I guess it would create a lot of low skill jobs like -grocery store product dispenser. It would probably be better to create jobs than to create waste though.

Personally I wouldn't mind less choice. All I really want is one product that works well but is as inexpensive as possible.

Variety makes things complicated. It seems like if we all used the same washing machine it would be a lot cheaper, easier to get parts for and cheaper to repair.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris Stewart2:
I think one of these days before too long we actually will be green.

Personally I wouldn't mind less choice. All I really want is one product that works well but is as inexpensive as possible.

Variety makes things complicated. It seems like if we all used the same washing machine it would be a lot cheaper, easier to get parts for and cheaper to repair.

Lower prices, smaller choice sounds like Sam's Club, Costco and BJ's.

One brand of washing machine, sounds like the excellent products that the Soviet Union produced. Competition isn't perfect but it beats the communist system any day of the week. Without competition quality would never improve. I'll take the cheapest car built today over anything built in the 1970's from a quality, durability, performance, gas mileage and features perspective.

quote:

Originally posted by Sparky:
One brand of washing machine, sounds like the excellent products that the Soviet Union produced.

yeah, the USSR is the first thing that came to my mind also. But still it seems like we ought to be able to have competition and innovation without all the redundancy and waste of our current system.

It's probably more a matter of just rethinking the best way to do things. As with all green ideas, the results is usually a better product that is friendlier to the environment. I can not think of any reason why we can't have both innovation and efficiency.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Chris Stewart2,

I was dumb struck when I read, on this board, that I was using a jillion times more washing liquid then I needed. I love the new results.

I love this board.

I thought I was doing enough by waiting until my dishwasher was full before turned it on, but this really opened my eyes. 1 tsp? I can only imagine how long a bottle would last. Thanks for sharing!