TerraCycle and Dropps have just announced a way for consumers to produce absolutely zero waste with their laundry detergent. All of Dropps pouches are water soluble in the washing machine, and the only waste that will be left over (the outside packaging) will be collected by TerraCycle and recycled into products like trash bins, soap dispensers, or benches.
TerraCycle’s awesome upcycling program
We first wrote about TerraCycle last August, but recently they’ve garnered more attention through their work with L’Oreal and collecting used beauty product packaging to turn into children’s playground equipment. If you haven’t heard of them before, here is how their system works:
TerraCycle creates national recycling systems for products that would otherwise be non-recyclable. Each program focuses on one particular product to be recycled, and gets a “Brigade” ( a team of people across the country ) to collect the items. Once collected, the products are sent back to TerraCycle, who will reward the Brigade member for their collection, and take the formerly non-recyclable item and “upcycle” it, or turn it into something useful, like bags, bins, or bottles.
This is how the program will look for Dropps:
Dropps laundry detergent with zero waste
The new completely zero-waste offering from Dropps one-ups other great laundry detergent packagings. The pouches of detergent contain 6x concentrated detergent, so a small amount of soap will wash the same amount of clothes, and the ability for the pouch to dissolve in the water reduces the amount of plastic traditional laundry detergent (ie. Tide) containers use.
This new form of recycling products that otherwise would end up in the landfill is a great idea. If you haven’t yet, check out TerraCycle’s existing programs to see if there is a Brigade you’d be interested in joining. And next time you’re shopping for laundry detergent and see Dropps on the shelf, consider switching them as a new zero-waste solution.
