Ditch the plastic!Updated a year ago
We share your concern! Dr. Bronner’s uses 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) polyethylene (PET) plastic bottles and jugs for a majority of our products. We have been using 100% PCR PET bottles for more than ten years, long before this was common in the personal care industry.
Post-consumer recycled plastic bottles are made from plastic sourced from curbside pick-ups. This means that some of our bottles are made from 100% post-consumer recycled PET and may even include some plastic from old Dr. Bronner’s bottles!
By turning used plastic bottles into new plastic bottles and products, we help conserve virgin resources, reduce landfills, and capitalize on the energy already invested in making existing plastic products. Recycling one ton of PET containers saves 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space!
“Bottle-to-bottle” recycling, the recycling of plastic bottles into new bottles, is also uncommon. Most times the plastic picked up on curbsides is “downcycled,” shipped to countries like China, where it is used to create synthetic fabrics for carpets and clothes, then shipped back to the United States for sale. Bottle-to-bottle recycling helps to close the loop and results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
To pair with our PET bottles, we have launched our 32 oz. Pure-Castile Liquid Soap Refill Carton. Now the most ecological soap is in the most eco-friendly packaging. Each 32 oz. Pure-Castile Liquid Soap Refill Carton uses 82% less plastic than one of our PCR 32 oz bottles. The intention is to offer an option for customers to refill their existing PET Dr. Bronner bottles with containers that have a much smaller footprint on the Earth. To read more about how we achieved this, visit our website.
We also continue to keep close tabs on innovations taking place in bioplastics research. Bioplastics use renewable resources like plants and bacteria to create plastic that would otherwise be produced from petroleum. This technology is still in its early stages and does not yet produce plastics that are resilient enough for our purposes. Energy intensity and feedstock matter a great deal as well. Currently, it is still more energy-intensive to turn plants into plastic than it is to recycle used plastic.
Bioplastics made from pesticide-intensive non-organic sugar, potato, or GMO-corn may not represent a sustainability advantage over 100% post-consumer recycled plastics. The best container for liquids may be glass but considering that most of our products are used in wet and potentially slippery locations, glass is not a viable option for us. Not to mention glass is very heavy and the greenhouse gas impacts of transporting it are significant compared to plastic, which is relatively light.
Beyond this, we encourage our customers to reuse their packaging whenever possible, or to recycle them appropriately, should reusing them prove difficult. We are currently researching and piloting some bulk refill programs so that our customers can refill their empty bottles with soap rather than throw them in the garbage.
For more information on how we are addressing our plastic usage, please check out our blog post about this topic which was recently updated in March 2023.