Our world-wide plastic infested lifestyle is clearly not sustainable. Mountains of plastic are created and end up either in landfills, littering the landscape, or polluting the ocean. Only about six percent is recycled, and that six percent can only be recycled twice before it becomes unusable. The recent increase in fracking has made plastic packaging cheaper to manufacture and more abundant than ever, making the problem even worse. In addition to this, fracking itself is a cause of pollution, and some of the components of plastic production are dangerous.
Laundry detergent is a significant source of plastic pollution. Given that there are about 130 million households in the United States, we can safely say that at least 100 million plastic detergent bottles are emptied each year just in the U.S., though the number is problably far higher. Laundry detergent does not need to be in liquid form, which of course requires thick plastic, is heavy and uses a lot of fuel to transport.
Laundry sheets are much more eco-friendly. A slim package of laundry sheets in a cardboard liner takes up little room. Since the detergent is highly concentrated, a package that cleans 32 loads weighs only a few ounces, and contains no problematic materials; the laundry sheet dissolves, and the cardboard packaging goes into your recycling bin.
Each sheet is perforated and tears in half. We use a whole or half sheet, depending on load size. Since our clothes don’t usually have heavy dirt and stains, the sheets alone are fine. If we have stains we pretreat them with a stain remover.
While laundry sheets are not the cheapest option, the Febu brand we use is about equivalent to liquid Tide at about 30 cents per load. Arm & Hammer powder costs about half that.
Just knowing that we’re not throwing out a heavy plastic bottle every few months is definitely worth the added expense. We also expect the cost of laundry sheets to go down as competition and economies of scale kick in. Right now laundry sheet are available mostly on line, but I hope to see laundry sheets in grocery stores soon.
