Making Cleaning Packaging Cleaner and Greener

With the likes of cleaning influencers like Mrs Hinch and Stacey Solomon, cleaning your home has never been so on-trend. But its rise in popularity on social media has brought to light concerns about the amount of chemicals and single-use packaging we use to keep our homes clean. However, with help from manufacturers, like us at Greyhound Box, and our clients at SoluPak, we are developing solutions that’ll help to push positive changes to this industry.

What’s the Issue with Cleaning Packaging?

Many people think we need the most aggressive chemicals in our cleaning products to guarantee our homes are spotless. But this isn’t true. In fact, many chemicals from cleaning products pollute our waters and air, with their perfumes and sprays contributing to high levels of volatile organic compounds which are harmful to the Ozone. Yet it’s not just what the products are made of that can cause damage to our planet – it’s the single-use packaging they come in.

In the UK, it’s estimated that 5 million tonnes of plastic are used every year, nearly half of which is for packaging. The heavyweights in the cleaning industry tend to add unnecessary single-use packaging, contributing to landfill sites across the UK. As we know, aerosol cans and plastics, which are used heavily by the cleaning industry, are not easy to recycle and are slow to biodegrade.

But brands are starting to move away from harsh chemicals and single-use plastics, adapting their ingredients to become less harmful. Brands are also rightly bringing out refillable, reusable, and recyclable products to avoid the tonnes of plastic waste.

How the Cleaning Industry’s Cleaning up its Act

Recently, some of the cleaning industry’s biggest names have made efforts to change their formulas and reduce the single-use nature of their packaging. Febreze has a long list of ingredients they won’t use in their products to help protect the environment, including toxic chemicals like phthalates and benzene that are commonly found in many cleaning products. Instead, they opt for alcohol and water which do just as good of a job of keeping our homes clean and smelling fresh.

So, Febreze are making changes to the ingredients in their products and that’s really great. But like many other cleaning brands, there’s still a way to go when it comes to their packaging – mostly, the single-use nature of it. Febreze did recently bring out a range of refillable options, but despite this positive change, their refillable range still comes with plastic outer packaging.

Greyhound Box and SoluPak

At Greyhound Box, we are helping businesses create more sustainable packaging thanks to our bespoke packaging designs. A cleaning brand that’s ahead of the packaging game is soluCLEAN by SoluPak who make eco-responsible commercial cleaning products. They use polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) film sachets to counteract the need for single-use plastic. As you dissolve the sachet, the film becomes a part of the biodegradable cleaning solution, so nothing is wasted. Their products also control the amount of chemicals being used per clean, helping people not overuse them.

soluCLEAN themselves use ‘bottles for life.’ Their reusable nature means there’s less need to keep buying single-use plastics, and we love this! These bottles are also made from recycled plastic and are lightweight in nature, meaning they take up less space during transportation which contributes to the all-important cutting of CO₂ emissions.

Adding to this, we’ve provided SoluPak with the outer corrugated cardboard packaging designs that they use to transport products safely and sustainably. All of our materials are recyclable, responsibly sourced, and FSC-certified, meaning the forests where the materials have been managed in a way that preserves biodiversity!

To learn more about our partnership with SoluPak, click here.   

How to Clean up the Packaging for your Cleaning Products

More businesses in the cleaning industry are tackling the ingredients they use. But we know there’s always more that can be done. soluCLEAN are a great example of a cleaning brand taking a fully sustainable approach in all aspects of their business, from their game-changing products to their packaging. And we’re here to support you in taking the first steps in creating sustainable packaging options!

To learn how we can support your switch away from single-use plastics to cardboard, get in touch.