Splosh - Eco-friendly Cleaning, Almost Zero Packaging Waste

If you read this blog enough, you know by now, that I hate waste. I hate that we have to throw out perfectly good packaging items such as spray bottles, glass jars, and cardboard shoe boxes. I reuse as many as I can but at some point, there is a limit. So, when I stumbled on Splosh through the Ellen MacArthur website, I saw a company after my own heart. Splosh makes eco-friendly household cleaners and has thought of every facet to minimize waste production along the way. Once you are set up with your first cleaning kit — first order includes the bottles — you order your refills via a website.

Angus Grahame, the founder of Splosh, talks about how he came up with the idea on his website:

The Splosh story starts back in January 2010. I was standing in the Hay on Wye Co-Op car park throwing plastic bottles into a recycling container, and was struck by the thought that what I was doing was pretty silly. Ridiculous in fact. I was buying bottles for stuff like washing up and laundry products, my family were using them once and then I threw them away – in perfectly good condition.

Angus set out to develop eco-friendly products and sell direct to consumer, bypassing the complex web of distribution and grocery store channels.

While there are plenty of non-toxic cleaners out there, most of them still ignore the packaging problem — which is huge. In most cases, eco-friendly cleaners are packaged in large bottles filled with cleaner 80-90% of which is water. Regarding the packaging, it’s not guaranteed that the consumer will recycle it, and recycling still isn’t available everywhere. Further, the added water means less product is transported to the grocery store per shipment (larger, heavier containers than shipping concentrate alone), so more trucks are needed for more stock. Adding water to the product at home significantly cuts the greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation (think of concentrated orange juice versus “not from concentrate”).

Angus has made Splosh products as effortless as possible, including the size of the box used for shipping to the consumer; boxes are designed to fit perfectly into UK mail slots so no having to trudge off to the post office to claim your parcel, and shipping costs are included in all your orders.

The products and refills come in two different forms: Some products are available in sachets that dissolve once mixed with water. Other products arrive in pouches at full strength. Splosh has made the products as easy to use as possible. For the products that arrive in sachets, the website’s instructions are pretty simple:

1. Pop a sachet into your bottle.
2. Add water and be amazed by some clever chemistry.
3. Wait a minute or two and you’re set to go.

In the case where plastic pouches are needed (as in the case of fabric softener), the liquid is simply emptied into the bottle it’s meant for. Pouches are meant to be sent back to Splosh for refilling and reuse (postage paid, of course!).

Plastic waste is an environmental disaster and we’re committed to reducing it to zero. For each product we’ve designed a refilling system that takes plastic out of the waste stream. For example our pouches can be sent back for refilling and, at the end of their life, we manage their reprocessing into other products.

This is music to my waste phobic ears!

Splosh Products:

There is a full range of products, and the ever-forward thinking group has added naturally derived fragrances to the mix as well, so the products smell as good as they clean!