Ecover: Green Packaging

Ecover is over 30 years old now, which means we’ve had some time to explore the ins and outs of green cleaning – it also means we’ve had ample time to produce refreshingly effective green cleaners for every corner of your home.   But cleaning is more than superficial.  We think, to be truly sustainable and pioneering, you’ve got to look at the bigger picture.

Weed through all the claims and the hype and you’re left with a few key questions about the cleaners you bring into your home:

What are the products made from?

What are they packaged in?

What happens to them after they go down the drain?

Today, let’s take a look at packaging.

You have your “green cleaner” and it smells really nice, but what about the package?  We humans have a major plastic habit, to be sure. And it’s wreaking havoc on landfills, the ozone and countless sea animals.  Which is why, at Ecover, worked tirelessly to find a better alternative for our bottles. 

We found a solution for packaging our liquid products in 100% PlantPlastic bottles.  The PlantPlastic is made from sugarcane, which doesn’t infringe on the global food supply the way that corn-based plastics do.  And better still, they’re 100% renewable and recyclable, which, in our book, makes them Plantastic! 

Like you, we recognize that plastic packaging is a major problem - not only does it clutter up your home, the plastic is made from crude oil. It’s an increasingly scarce resource and we all know the problems associated with oil spills and the pollution it brings…. So for three years now we’ve been working to find a new, alternative packaging solution that starts to address some of these issues. We’re very proud of the results.

By harnessing the power of nature and applying a little clever science, we’ve implemented an innovative new PolyEthylene (PE) - a green plastic we call PlantPlastic that’s 100% renewable, reusable and recyclable - and made from sugarcane! We’re so pleased with it that we’re making our bottles 100% PlantPlastic. It’s also good to see that some other well-known brands are now thinking of following our lead – even if they initially only intend using up to 30% renewable plastic.

Manufacturing our new PlantPlastic is unbelievably simple. Sugarcane is harvested to produce sugar, which is then fermented and distilled to produce ethanol. This ethanol is dehydrated to create ethylene, which is polymerized into PlantPlastic. That’s really all there is to it.

PlantPlastic is impressive in so many other ways. Because the sugarcane is grown and harvested in harmony with its natural environment, the nearby Amazonian rainforests remain unaffected. The entire production process is so efficient that we need only harvest 15 hectares of land to make a year’s worth of Ecover packaging.

We’re in the process of switching all of our packaging over, and from June, our bottles will be made from fantastic new PlantPlastic. Of course, what’s on the inside is just as important as ever, so as usual, you can be sure that every bit of new packaging contains green cleaning products that are incredibly efficient and supremely powerful.