Leading laundry and dishwashing detergent makers are frequent targets for environmental campaigners due to a plastic packaging dependence intrinsic to the FMCG industry for decades. Plastic addiction is a critical issue, classed as a major corporate risk in shareholder reports from some brands. Solutions so far have focused on better ways of using plastic (recycling and biodegradable options), but the rising reuse and refill trend among Conscious Consumers offers superior “closed loop” ideas.
This report comes in PPT.
PVOH tablets create strong value for the brands and clearly many consumers appreciate simpler dosing solutions versus self-measuring liquids or powders. However, dosing guidance from detergent brands has fallen behind appliance usage and requires an update; at least in Europe, the gap is set to grow in 2021 through regulations. Unit dose tablets do not exhibit the worst laundry dose guidance issues, but dishwasher dosing requires a major overhaul, and washing machine manufacturers could help users far more with dosing accuracy.
Increasing use of PVOH tablets is part of the sustainability strategy for detergent leaders reducing plastic waste in the industry. This is about chemical concentration and reducing packaging, but also the unique quality of PVOH to be a barrier to but also disappear in the presence of water. The brands also work on making widely-used plastics such as PP viable to recycle, grow new business models around “reuse” and reduce new plastic footprints with more post-consumer recyclate use.
A 2019/2020 plastic audit was performed on select detergents bought in the UK and France from industry leaders such as P&G, Henkel, Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser. From the data generated, if PVOH does fully dissolve and fully biodegrade in waste water, converting a user from liquid detergent to PVOH tablets means approximately 40% less plastic per wash (laundry is slightly less, dishwashing slightly more). If however PVOH does not behave in real life as planned, it needs to be accounted for, in which case, the plastic per wash can increase around 30%.
Living space per person is declining; obscuring factors are worth knowing about, harming “size of opportunity” data based on “number of households”. Living space pressure is driving appliance strategy for capacity polarisation, justifying micro devices designed for smallest spaces or going off-floor to save footprint as well as efforts towards space optimisation inside full-sized appliances. This is a key factor within the gap observed between appliance usage and detergent brand dosing guidelines, exacerbated by the inflexibility of unit dose solutions.
This is the aggregation of laundry care, dishwashing products, surface care, chlorine bleach, toilet care, polishes, air fresheners and insecticides.
See All of Our DefinitionsIf you purchase a report that is updated in the next 60 days, we will send you the new edition and data extraction Free!