articles/be_more_smol_email-header.gif
back

Purge the plastic… it’s time to clean-up laundry

8 July 2022

The theme for Plastic Free July this year is Turn the Tide and it’s highlighting the huge impacts group action can have. Sound familiar?  It’s what we’ve been saying here at smol since we started…when large numbers of us come together to make little changes, smol things can make a big difference.   

This Plastic Free July we are championing a Switch to Plastic-Free Laundry day. 

Of course our brilliant smol customers enjoy 100% plastic-free laundry already and have now helped save over 850 tonnes of plastic by using our wonderful laundry capsules, but sadly the majority of the laundry industry is not the same. It is bursting to the brim with virgin, single-use plastic.
 
 

Last year alone, the UK Laundry industry sold 150 million packs of detergent for washing our clothes with most of these in single-use plastic bottles and tubs.

We now  know that most of this plastic is in fact NOT recycled. It is incinerated, sent to landfill or worse still dumped into rivers that carry it off to our oceans. The small amount that is recycled can only be recycled once, making it a HUGELY wasteful material.  

Companies must join consumers and say NO!

Multinationals like Unilever still sell billions of single-use plastic bottles, sachets, and packets worldwide despite knowing this waste isn’t properly managed. Their packaging becomes pollution, harming us and the planet. 
 
It’s time for the other companies to turn the tide too and it’s why we started smol. We were simply fed up with the big guys making little to no apparent  effort to improve. Here at smol we know that clean clothes doesn’t have to involve plastic and it’s why we believe our plastic-free laundry packs can make a big difference. 

A smol revolution.

When we launched smol back in 2018 our aim was to take something that all of us needed to buy, and work to find every way possible to make it better. Better for customers AND better for the planet. There was no shortage of areas in which we felt we could improve. 

 
 
We called it our smol revolution and when it comes to our laundry packaging, there is no better example of how smol things really can make a difference. Our wonderful customers are now helping save over 30 tonnes of plastic every month, simply by switching from the big brands to our plastic-free alternative.
 

We can’t pretend that ditching the plastic was easy. We are a small independent business with a teensy budget for design and innovation (certainly compared to the big brands) BUT it was something we were determined to do. Some of our customers will remember that we originally launched in 100% recycled plastic packs, but with a lot of blood, sweat and tears (yes, literally all of them) we went plastic-free for our laundry packs in 2020. A UK first  in capsules, hooray!  

So where next for smol? 

We’re on a journey that involves reducing our plastic even further. Whilst we only use 100% post consumer recycled plastic in our bottles, and love it when customers return these for re-use… we know it’s not enough. We’re already looking at plastic-free alternatives and can’t wait to make this change as soon as we can. Watch this space!

As for those other laundry brands….  

We hope other brands follow us into cardboard packaging and we’ll be thrilled to see them make this change because we know it’s possible! But it needs to happen faster and customers need to have as many plastic-free options as possible.  

You’ll see us calling  out the big brands on social media and inviting companies to #bemoresmol. If you’d like to join us, please like, comment and share our info on social media. Or better yet, why not help others to make the change and use your refer-a-friend link to recommend smol to friends and family. Each time someone switches to smol you’ll receive your next full pack for FREE….so you’re helping the planet and your pocket too. 

It’s one more thing to make a difference and helps us to purge the plastic this Plastic Free July and beyond.

#bemoresmol

 

 

back