We need to wrap this plastic bottle in a plastic bag !
What solution would you suggest if there's shipping damage to contain the leaking cleaning fluid so it doesn't damage any nearby objects?
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
57 points (78.8% liked)
WTF
4504 readers
2 users here now
founded 1 year ago
I don't see any easy solution from the manufacturer.
As a consumer though, you can buy refill bottles that are less likely to leak and be damaged during shipping, and contain enough liquid to refill the spray bottle more than once, reducing the amount of waste.
Even better would be for local stores to have larger refill containers on shelves so that you can refill them yourselves without generating waste.
Well they could stop selling ready made product where they can charge for water weight. Instead sell empty high quality, multi use spray bottles and powdered / dry detergents and cleaning agents. Of course that’s less profitable, but the solution would be obvious.
An eco friendly store near me (in Germany) sells just that, including little paper satchels with pressed dish soap tablets. You just put them in the dispenser bottle, add water, shake and stir a bit and wait 30 minutes. Then you have liquid dish soap.
Edit: I intended to reply to the parent comment, sorry for parroting much of what you already said lol
Ah yes, let the public handle concentrated chemicals, that’s not gonna end badly…
There’s plenty of factors of why this isn’t done more frequently, lots of these mixes need to blended correctly, or the concentration is off. Theres downsides to making it dissolve and mix easier, they can’t control the ratios and therefore quality. If you mix it too low and it doesn’t clean, you’ll be complaining and returning it, even though it’s not on them.
So it’s can actually be cheaper and saves a bunch of lawsuits and returns that cost time and money.
Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s laws that limit the ability of this being done, for safety and liability reasons. The general public should really not be giving more responsibility to handle concentrated chemicals…
For substances unsuitable to handle by the average person when undiluted, deliver them in large tanks to grocery stores etc. And have people refill reusable bottles and containers there. Less trash, potentially cheaper for the customer too.
For substances unsuitable to handle by the average person when undiluted,
So basically everything? Most cleaning chemicals are already dangerous, now they are going to be more concentrated. Theres dangers in mixing, so now the store should have an employee to mix it, this can solve the return issue as well, but comes with its own issues.
Training, ppe, space to store hundreds of Chemical totes. Building codes and local bylaws probably have something to say about concentrated chemicals being that close to residential areas.
What if the crack and mix in the store? In those concentrations and amounts, that’s mustard gas that’ll take out the town.
Well I’m no chemist but yes? If necessary. It is a very efficient concept with no downside except being slightly more inconvenient.
Though I would guess at least a few kinds of products would be safe to sell undiluted. Dish soap, soap in general, detergent is already sold as powder, dishwasher tabs and powder exists, probably a good part of cosmetics as well.
I just gave you a half dozen downsides and didn’t even get into the specifics yet.
Well you said it costs more and needs safe handling at the store. Potentially a safety hazard. Why is it a safety risk to ship bulk containers of the exact same thing we are shipping to stores now in small individual packaging? No mixing or diluting for the dangerous stuff, just bulk transport and sale. The mixing and diluting is only for things safe to be done by people at home, like the mentioned soaps.
So let’s take a potential situation and play it out.
You have 10,000L of bleach to store. Let’s use 2,500x4l jugs and a nice bulk 10,000L tank (relatively close to bulk chemical containers). Both hold the same amount, but now let’s say Tom wasn’t paying attention with the fork lift and hit the package with a fork on the forklift.
With the small containers, maybe a half dozen would be damaged, so 24l of product. Thats not bad, grab some absorb-all and some dams and it should be easy to clean.
Now that 10,000l tank, chances are the entire 10,000 is leaking out, getting everywhere, gotta close the store, call in HazMat to clean up, through out everything else the bleach touched. Sure insurance will pay for it, but it’s a $20 cleanup vs a $50k bill.
Now you also have ammonia stored there too, pretty common for stores to have both, let’s have a small drip from a bulk container come and meet the bleach breach. Everyone’s dead. This is obviously a worst case, but small bottles not an issue, big bottles, the whole town is gonna have a bad time.
Smaller bottles don’t make a big mess/cost/issue/danger when something inevitably happens. Scale matters, hugely.
Oddly, gas stations seem to handle the bulk storage and distribution of potentially dangerous substances in or near residential areas just fine.
I’m not saying it will be easier, or cheaper. Or that the stores wouldn’t have to retain higher qualified personnel. But the principle is sound, and if 10k liter tanks are too much risk make it 1k liters. Still a massive improvement over 500 ml single use spray bottles.
They store one type of chemical, and they are in massive tanks underground with multiple layers of protection, and even then the ground is almost always contaminated after and needs to be remediated before it can be used again. Or it sits for 20 years.
I appreciate the example working in my favor.
Alright then, no point trying to convince you I guess 🫠 are you by any chance also against nuclear power in favor of continuing to burn coal?
Jeez it works in small scale and for niche products since they don’t need to store them in dangerous quantities.
The personal attack is a nice touch.
Nuclear is amazing, it’s actually safer than coal, so I don’t get the point of this unnecessary personal attack since I was providing discourse as to why a very good idea isn’t pursued more.
I wasn’t personally attacking you, just looking for additional context on why you are so staunchly defending single use plastic bottles, and what your solutions would be. Since continuing like we do, isn’t a valid option.
For example, the dispensary model is being tested/used in Switzerland for a few years now:
https://aare.migros.ch/de/engagement/nachhaltigkeit/abfuellstation.html
Also this would not require gas station levels of infrastructure, since people usually don’t fill up on dozens of liters of detergent at once, and there are various brands. Smaller tanks, qualified handlers, still seems a very solid option.
No worries!
An eco friendly store near me (in Germany) sells just that, including little paper satchels with pressed dish soap tablets
That's interesting!
Ship a solid tablet that can be diluted with water.
This is a legitimate solution, not sure why they're being down voted
Several companies do this for hand soap and other things, significantly cutting down on plastic, so it seems like this should work.
Yep I've used a couple and I don't love some of them. I actually went back to bar soap for this reason.
I do think that taking the liquid out of the equation and shipping a solid is the solution though
Surely if a paper straw is meant to contain liquid then we can just wrap it in a big paper bag... I guess not. Gimme plastic straws.
This is a bit of plastic, it has a useful purpose. Let it be. Not every piece of plastic is bad. Not every oil consumable is bad. It's the excess that is bad. Using a very thin and light wrapping to contain the bottle seems like a very reasonable use. And it can probably be recycled and end up as packaging material next
Probably, but most plastic waste isn’t recycled even when the consumer tries.
Very true. China doesn't want the trash anymore.
Soft plastics like this are basically impossible to recycle
What solution would you suggest if the plastic wrapping breaks leaking the leaked cleaning fluid?
I doubt the plastic is going to hold up against whatever broke the bottle in the first place.
Less rushing and more maintenance on shipping equipment?
Why not wrap the whole box instead of each and every little bottle?
Why not make better container etc...
We don't need all that plastic.
Most damage comes from humans
That’s more plastic and allows the other items inside to get damaged.
Thicker and more plastic in the bottle, great idea. Just move it elsewhere.