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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Soap Box

I went to the snazzy new supermarket in Springfield a few days ago to see what I could see and by the way, I needed laundry detergent. I saw beautiful produce, both organic and conventionally grown (isn't it ironic that "conventional" means the use of chemical fertilizer, genetic mutations, hormones, and insecticides?), lots of tempting and interesting cheeses, aisles of health products and laundry detergent in plastic bottles. No cardboard boxes of powdered detergent. I like powdered detergent for several reasons:
  • Transportation and storage issues: water weighs 8 -1/3 pounds per gallon. The liquid in liquid detergent is water. Heavy stuff costs more to transport than lighter stuff. Plastic bottles are odd-shaped and difficult to store efficiently. Cardboard boxes are cubes and store and stack with ease. Much easier to warehouse! The plastic bottles have to be placed in a cardboard box to stack and store -- redundant packaging!
  • Clean up: I'd much rather clean up spilled powder than spilled liquid.
  • The environment: Cardboard boxes are much easier to recycle and  if not recycled are easier on the landfill than plastic containers.
I'm going to let the spiffy new store know about my concerns, but I'm afraid I'm getting a glimpse into the future. Is powdered detergent an endangered species?

2 comments:

  1. I use liquid because it works better in cold water. I deal with extra weight, in my mind, because I only use cold water, thus no energy spent heating water. We all justify our efforts on reducing our carbon footprint.

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  2. But, the point is, I want to be able to choose powdered! I don't want it taken off the market.

    ReplyDelete