A few weeks ago I was talking to my friend Tara about deodorant options, as one does (ahem), and I noted that even the organic, no-aluminum, supposedly earth-friendly brands have a lot of plastic in their packaging/applicator.
Very much a lot. Check it out at your local shop, or just take a good look at a deodorant stick you already have. By weight, okay, that semi-solid lump is probably heavier, but by volume there is definitely more plastic than product.
Given that only 9% of plastic gets recycled where I live… that’s not good.
If only we could refill the actual deodorant part into a reusable applicator, I thought, and did some Googling.
Turns out I am far from the only person who has thought that.
I decided to try out Dove’s offering, which, strangely for a major brand name (soft launch?) is only available online. Because it has no push-the-product-up mechanism, the refillable container is much smaller, which might be an added bonus for travel. The refills themselves come in plastic pods (the light green thing in the photo above), but Dove assures us that they use 80% less plastic than the single-use packaging. Okay, but… it’s still plastic? Definitely something to improve upon in the future.
The toothbrush is, believe it or not, from Colgate, and has one of the coolest-looking handles I have ever seen on a toothbrush. See how they snuck the infinity symbol in there? Plus, somehow, it all those looks and it’s very comfortable to hold while brushing. When was the last time you were brushing your teeth and actually thought, “wow, I love how the angle on this toothbrush lets me control the way I apply the bristles to my teeth and gums?”. I’ve been doing that every morning since i got this toothbrush.
Again, there is still plastic, in the black replaceable head part. Certainly that part couldn’t be aluminum like the handle, because I’ve touched the top of the handle to my bottom lip while I was brushing my back teeth, and it’s way more substantial than something you would want to poke around your mouth. But again 80% reduced plastic, but not 100%. Maybe at least someday soon they will switch to hemp-based plastic or something (not sure if that helps with garbage breakdown, though).
For both of these items, if they had been launched thirty or even ten years ago, I would be more impressed. I guess the good news is that they are around, they are being made by major manufacturers, and they have both been designed so the plastic could be eliminated entirely, eventually.
I just hope that the “eventually” part comes sooner.