Bathing With Plastics
Our shower & bathing routines have developed an enormous plastics problem. From shampoos, conditioners, soaps, facewashes, and scrubs to even most sponges, they are all packaged with or contain plastics. This was not always the case, but rising demand in the personal care market and changes in how we bathe have helped create this new plastic landscape. What began as a well-intentioned effort to improve personal hygiene and access to cleaning products quickly transformed into a booming market segment.
The twentieth century saw tremendous growth in the personal care industry, with the U.S. market alone estimated to be a $90 billion industry.
The twentieth century saw tremendous growth in the personal care industry, with the U.S. market alone estimated to be a $90 billion industry. Consumers were presented with continually evolving options, and supermarket shelves quickly burst at the seams expanding into entire aisles dedicated to the myriad of products on offer. Yet, with the exponential growth in demand for shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and more also came the rise in plastic packaging. What had been previously sold as bars, or in glass jars, or tins shifted to being “conveniently” delivered in plastic containers. Shampoos and conditioners were early adopters of new plastic containers. These changes laid the groundwork for the problems we now face.
Impact of Shower Products
So how big is our plastics problem in our bathrooms? For context, in the United States alone, 550 million empty shampoo bottles are thrown away each year. This figure does not include conditioner, body wash, or other bathing products -just shampoo bottles. Compounding this problem is the fact that only a fraction of these bottles are recycled. Instead, most end up directly into our rubbish bins. Most people don’t keep separate recycling bins in their bathroom, so empty plastic containers from the bathroom tend to miss out on recycling. With the average American using 11 bottles of shampoo a year, these large, bulky plastic containers are a significant contributor to many households’ annual waste.
In the United States alone, 550 million empty shampoo bottles are thrown away each year.
Shampoo or Bottle of Water?
Would you like some shampoo with your bottle of water? Yes, you read that correctly - the majority of your shampoos and conditioners are water, with only about 10% being actual products. When cleaning products changed from solid bars to liquids, water was added and thus creating the need to be stored in a plastic container. While shampoo bottles are not quite single-use plastic bottles, they are not far off.
In addition to the plastic waste produced by the bottles, the increased carbon footprint also needs to be considered. Larger and heavier bottles that need to be shipped create a bigger carbon footprint than lighter weight smaller bars and solid products.
Addressing The Problem
The global demand for personal care products is only going to continue to increase. However, the good news is that there are now a number of zero-waste shampoos and conditioners available. These sustainable products eliminate plastic bottles, reduce carbon emissions from shipping, and provide an equivalent (and arguably better) cleaning experience. Eco-friendly products like HiBAR go a step further and eliminate all unnecessary and potentially harmful chemicals and produce a plastic-free shampoo and conditioner bar with 100% natural ingredients that leave your hair and the environment thanking you.
The developments in shampoos and conditioners during the 20th century was, without a doubt, a great step forward for personal hygiene and cleanliness. We learned a tremendous about along the way, but what is clear now is that we need to actively address how these products are packaged and the environmental impact they have. The positive news is that we can have zero-waste shampoos and conditioners that help reduce needless the amount of plastic waste while simultaneously meeting our high personal care standards.
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Are Your Plastic Shampoo Bottles Really Ocean-bound?
“If I use a recycled shampoo bottle or a plastic-free alternative, that’s one less bottle in the ocean—right?”
We’ve all been guilty of thinking this at one point in our lives, and it’s not hard to see why. Especially for us salon-product folks, we burn through shampoo and conditioner like crazy, and those bottles are heart-breakingly bulky to throw in the trash.
Ocean plastic is pretty prevalent in the public eye lately (and for good reason), but with that comes the greenwashing tactics of companies looking to capitalize on those growing concerns. So how can you tell if a company’s “plastic-free” promises actually mean something when it comes to haircare?
Here’s the hard truth: plastic shampoo bottles still suck, but when it comes to ocean plastic, the movement is pretty surface level.
Where Shampoo Bottles Go To Die
So what happens to those shampoo bottles that get tossed every day? Most shampoo bottles aren’t going directly into the ocean: instead, about 550 million shampoo bottles go to landfills every year. Here, they’ll slowly degrade over hundreds of years, often releasing greenhouse gasses like methane and ethylene in the process.
Sure, the intact bottles are bulky and annoyingly hard to break down over time, but that’s not the main problem. The problem is what happens as these bottles break down. As they break down into pieces, these tiny pieces (which we know more readily as “microplastics”) more easily creep into the soil and groundwater, where they migrate into practically any ecosystem they can touch. That means any local waterways, and eventually, the ocean itself.
It’s still gross in the landfill, but clearly, plastic waste is still eventually reaching our ocean in chunks. Those floating garbage patches (which are really more like garbage “soup” than actual physical islands) are a testament to that. So what gives?
Sure: researchers have found them among other polyethylene sources (like detergent bottles and outdoor furniture). Companies use plastic in practically everything these days, but a study from the University of Cádiz in Spain found that four common items make up 44% of all trash found in the ocean:
plastic bags
bottles
plastic food containers
wrappers
That’s a pretty big deal when you consider that 80% of ocean trash consists of plastics like these (along with fishing gear, synthetic ropes, plastic caps, glass bottles, and beverage cans).
So how do these bottles get there?
Generally, intact bottles only reach the ocean when they’re handled incorrectly. (Unfortunately, this probably isn’t as rare as we’d hope it would be.) If the bottles aren’t properly transported or sequestered in landfills, they fall away and eventually become runoff in local rivers that reach the ocean.
Other times, uncontrollable events like natural disasters can sweep massive amounts of waste—including plastic bottles—out to sea in the blink of an eye.
For the most part, shampoo bottles aren’t getting chucked whole into the ocean: but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a problem.
Most shampoo bottles are landfill-bound, not ocean-bound, so be wary of marketing campaigns that automatically tie recycled plastic or plastic-free alternatives as “ocean-friendly”.
You still need to consider all the plastic around the bottle too, including the plastic film used for palletized goods (cling film literally lasts a millennia before it degrades!)
Our plastic problem goes way beyond what we throw out: it goes back to the amount of virgin plastic we create, the inefficiency of recycling the plastic we already have, and the “on-demand” consumeristic mindset that makes this type of throwaway plastic in such high demand.
Going plastic-free in your haircare routine (like when you use your dip bars!) is still a great option for those who want to give back to their environment.
But be wary of any campaign that tries to make it seem like the one-stop solution to protecting our ocean from plastic.
If we don’t go deeper, then it’s going to be too easy to hide our plastic problem below the surface (both literally and figuratively).