About 200 million or so people in the USA use liquid body wash for their shower. If these people use 12 bottles a year, then that is 2.4 billion bottles of body wash in our landfills, recycling streams (rarely) or our rivers and oceans. And that’s just the USA.
At the weight of about 110 grams per bottle, that’s 264 Million KGs of plastic waste – just from Body wash!
Here are some ways Americans can help:
- If you’re going to use the plastic bottle, at least recycle it. If it has a pump, remove the pump and throw the pump in the garbage. It can’t be recycled.
- If it just has a flip top, make sure to put the top on the bottle. Tiny caps can fall through the recycling machinery and not get captured. Then those little parts end up as waste and microplastics.
- Check to see if your bottle has a full cover shrink sleeve. If it does, that messes with the recyclability too. Remove it, and put the shrink wrap in the trash, and recycle the bottle.
- There are two better bets for sustainability:
- Use a bar of soap that is packed in paper with no plastic wrapping. Recycle the box.
- Use Youbody! The Youbody packets break down into clean energy in a regular landfill, requiring no recycling. The mailer box is made of 65% recycled material and is 100% recyclable.