50% rubbish, to be clear. That’s because we’re trialling some new Washing Up Liquid bottle caps that are half made from post-consumer recycled polypropylene plastic (with the other half made from virgin polypropylene).
It’s all part of changing the way we think about plastic waste – a subject very dear to our hearts.
Back in 2018 we trialled 50% recycled polypropylene plastic caps on 200,000 new bottles of Washing Up Liquid in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. It worked like a dream, so we capped off the trial by rolling out the 50% recycled polypropylene plastic caps across our entire range of Washing Up Liquids.
We’re hoping to kickstart demand for recycled polypropylene. The thing is, most polypropylene isn’t recycled, despite the fact it’s technically possible. There just aren’t that many folks out there doing it. We believe plastic waste can be valuable. So once we’d finished launching our 100% recycled plastic (PCR) Washing Up Liquid bottle, we rolled up our sleeves.
First, we sniffed around for the best source of recycled polypropylene plastic we could find.
Then we tested, tested, then tested some more – it’s no good using recycled plastic if it doesn’t do the job properly. Eventually, we found that a 50% recycled polypropylene cap met all our high technical standards, while still using a significant amount of post-consumer polypropylene.
First, we need to make sure that the cap works well in people’s homes. Then we’ll aim to use recycled polypropylene plastic in more of our caps as soon as possible. And although we’re only trialling a 50% recycled version for now, you can be sure that we’ll be shooting for a 100% recycled polypropylene plastic cap as soon as we can
Since 1989, we’ve been encouraging people to refill their plastic bottles. Even back then we knew waste when we saw it.
Recycling is great, but what’s even better is refilling. It’s all about ‘closing the loop’ so we’re working on setting up the right infrastructure and products to make refilling easy, so that one day, refilling is part of our everyday.
How we consume needs to change!
