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The skin of your laundry pods dissolve in the washing machine, right? They dissolve into microplastic. Just pour your laundry soap out of a box or bottle. 167 comments
 @RiaResists @thibaultmol @RiaResists @CelloMomOnCars came here to mention this. Comes in a cardboard box too, and lasts for ages. Same with block soap for hands. All the liquid variants are largely water and must be in plastic containers, such a waste.  @CelloMomOnCars slight counterpoint: pods, both for laundry and dishwasher use, are of quite a help to those of us who are disabled, as they're very simple and clean to work with and, if we have shaky hands, they have less of a chance (in fact no chance) of going everywhere and making a mess  @CelloMomOnCars ugh. I didn't know, because I didn't think, and that's on me. Thank you for the heads up.  @callisto @CelloMomOnCars these were always just a solution looking for a problem. Who can’t pour laundry detergent? I see a use case for these for about 0.001% of laundry loads. And that’s probably on the high side. @CelloMomOnCars why pods remain legal is beyond me. You only have to see one kid need a corneal transplant to realize how stupid these things are.  @mcnado @CelloMomOnCars I just had to look that up - horrendous. I take it this is a risk not as well-known to people as it should be? I bet I know lots of parents of small kids who use these things. @airadam @mcnado @CelloMomOnCars it is my personal and professional opinion that detergent pods should never be kept in a home with kids. They can be lethal if swallowed, the contents can kill or maim if the pod is bitten and the contents inhaled, and when kids squeeze them and the highly caustic detergent gets in their eyes, it can cause ulcers on the eye requiring corneal transplant. They have infinite risk with no tangible benefit over regular detergent.  Earth Breeze laundry detergent is great. Sheets of detergent that dissolve in water. I've been using it for over a year, and happy with the results.  I see that, thank you.  @CelloMomOnCars "just" Unfortunately there are issues with my wrists that make tipping a heavy bottle difficult. I'll have to check my current brand of laundry pods and see if there's a better one I can use. I'm sorry I wasn't more thoughtful about that. People have responded to this post with recommendations for "naked" laundry tablets, maybe you can consider those. @CelloMomOnCars *seriously* !!! and retailers make it soooo hard to get powdered detergent (or liquid non-toxic laundry detergent). My local grocer has an entire aisle of Tide, the Seventh Generation is on a different, non-laundry aisle and takes up one slot on a shelf. They are almost always out of powdered Cascade; I ordered a case from Amazon and the Cascade boxes *are advertisement for Cascade pods*! @CelloMomOnCars Wow, didn't know this. Obviously true of my dishwasher pods too (of which I just bought a huge tub. 🤦♂️ ) @CelloMomOnCars or just use a dehydrated soap sheet. No need for big plastic jugs if you want to avoid plastic waste. The technology still exists to make throwaway containers with cardboard or from corn or other biodegrdeable materials. Paper grocery bags are better than plastic AND reusable/recycleable. Glass bottles with a deposit to encourage return were just fine. Aluminum cans are recycleable and valuable enough to justify the "bother." When I was a kid in the '50s I rejected plastic toys-too fragile! I had metal toy trucks: a big moving van, a road grader, and an earth mover. @dbc3 @Npars01 @CelloMomOnCars Don't forget aluminum bottles, they don't break like glass and can be recycled. I'd like to see a beverage company switch to these, maybe Dr Pepper as they're in a really good position to do it  @Npars01 @CelloMomOnCars The fossil fuel industry is seeing their profits decline as we build renewable energy at breakneck speeds and start to electrify everything. Unable to sell their dirty energy, they're going to drill and frack for plastics instead. https://theconversation.com/fossil-fuel-industry-sees-the-future-in-hard-to-recycle-plastic-123631  @Npars01 @CelloMomOnCars @slott56 Single serving sized bottled water and pop should be illegal. 2 liters or more for pop. 1 gallon or more for water. I buy bottled spring water by the gallon for camping or boating. I don't drink what I put into my tank. Lately, I've been buying 2 1/2 gallon containers and using that to refill a 1 gallon container that's easier for me to use.  @CelloMomOnCars why did I think the pods were made from seaweed and not plastic? They dissolve so easily with the slightest touch of water.  @CelloMomOnCars Well, shit. Turns out the "dissolving" (oh, wait, https://dizolve.com) Tru Earth laundry sheets contain PVA as well. Claims of biodegradability seem to assume idea lab conditions that aren't matched by reality. @CelloMomOnCars Better still, use laundry sheets. No bottle, no perfume, hair clean clothes. @SazeracLA @CelloMomOnCars i just discovered the laundry sheets I use (true earth) also contain PVA. Note these products are all advertised as fully biodegradable.  @CelloMomOnCars I've just thought why do they even need to be individually wrapped? Do I want to put these in my dishwasher? Plastic is not supposed to melt in water? Do I want melted plastic on my mugs and plates? No I do not. Fuck these pods. :blobcatreeeeeee: I have never considered these to even be plastic. Some space age gelatinous mixture that melts in water. How the fsck are these plastics and who the fsck allowed these to be sold?  @CelloMomOnCars I've never actually used a pod. I've always just used liquid. @CelloMomOnCars Thanks! I honestly didn't know that (could have thought of it tho) and bought a pack with my brand new dishwasher. No more. Back to the traditional stuff. @CelloMomOnCars Polyvinyl alcohol does not "dissolve into microplastics", microplastics are defined as being insoluble particles. But it is true that it pollutes wastewater since it degrades slowly. @CelloMomOnCars I happened across this post and ordered some of their laundry soap and dish detergent. I look forward to trying them out. @CelloMomOnCars Some have expressed worries about resealable food preservation bags or even more durable plastic products than that eventually leaching into the seas, but this looks like an entirely different scale of threat—and for a minuscule convenience.  For the majority it is indeed easy to not use these pods. But I do just want to note that there are accessible reasons for using these, and we can recognise that they’re bad for the environment but also not reduce everyone’s experience to “minuscule inconvenience”  @james @AngryBull007 @CelloMomOnCars the issue/problem here is to come up with something that is convenient-not-polluting, because if all the convenience-only customers quit using pods, the accessibility market is probably not large enough to keep the product alive. @dr2chase @james @CelloMomOnCars It’s true that it is difficult for me to imagine anyone with sufficient mobility to independently load and unload laundry who couldn’t use a scoop for detergent. @AngryBull007 @james @CelloMomOnCars not mobility, but hand shake or loss of fine motor control (for example). Powdered detergent everywhere, joy. Not a problem I have (yet?), but I know a few people with Parkinson's. Interesting problem Ordinarily liquids could be very messy, too, but what if a dispenser was rigged up? Would say 3 to 5 pumps per load of laundry be doable? @AngryBull007 the simplest and probably most foolproof I have seen for liquid soap is a (clear, so it does require vision) bottle with a little reservoir fed from near its top by a thin tube from the bottom of the main container. Open the lid on the reservoir, squeeze the main, reservoir fills, unsqueeze, main sucks back the excess from the reservoir (so, leave some headroom above the target level, for inaccurate squeezes). Then, holding the whole bottle, pour out of the reservoir. @dr2chase I thought of something similar, but I wasn’t sure how usable it would be for the target audience. I think corporations will probably be able to replace the plastic shell with some other material. They absolutely have a profit motive to do so. @AngryBull007 the larger problem with plastic is when it is disposable plastic. The bottle is durable, ideally, you would use it for many refills from a larger supply. HOWEVER, the default product delivery (for that product) is not via refills, but new bottles, so, that's a flaw. @dr2chase @james @CelloMomOnCars Another possibility: many people DO use these products strictly as a matter of convenience. Manufacturers will want to continue supporting that demand even if the plastic option isn’t available anymore. Those who NEED this type of product (vs. simply wanting it) can use the packaging the producers replace this with. I’ve tried to dream up dispensers, etc. but they could get pretty messy and impractical. Let’s see what the pros come up with? @AngryBull007 @dr2chase @CelloMomOnCars then I'd suggest you give it another go. there is indeed a person with this issue commenting to the original post talking about their struggles. @CelloMomOnCars @CelloMomOnCars I switched to pods for accessibility reasons a year or so ago. I had no idea about this, but it makes absolutely sense, I guess I just assumed that my brand who completely did away with plastic packaging and moved to cardboard , would care about the environment. But nah, I’ve been putting a little bit of microplastics into our water supply once a week. Fuck. Thanks for the info, I will try and meet my needs in a less environmentally damaging way. Other products are even more accessible than pods. Options here. Thank you! They’d be accessible for me as a person who can afford to buy bespoke small company owned and thus much more expensive products like this, but my assumption is that like most ecological friendly projects, generally unaffordable for many? @james The Ecosheets are same cost per load as All liquid. They have PVA but...tradeoffs. @CelloMomOnCars i switched to Smol a while back and this has just made me go check whether their pods are plastic and it seems they just use "less chemicals." Which is a start. But think I'll be switching to Fill or whatever the refillable liquid folks are. Thanks for the nudge. @CelloMomOnCars I think its awesome people are trying to reduce the use of plastics @CelloMomOnCars Better yet, use detergent sheets. No plastic, no fuel spent shipping bottles of mostly water and no box. Just the detergent in a compostable envelop. @rspfau @CelloMomOnCars earth breeze also uses PVA - the same soluble plastic that may not fully biodegrade as the tide pods. @MatthewPCooke Grrr....found a list of PVA free alternatives. Any suggestions? @rspfau no I was just groaning as I use tru earth. I don’t know how bad the PVA is but as seems quite common companies use it without enough research on its long term impact. Thanks for the list I might try a different brand. @MatthewPCooke My hunch is PVA is minor to the plastic fibers shed by our synthetic clothes and blankets. But raising cotton and wool comes with cost also. It's tough trying to be responsible. Not having kids is probably the most eco friendly move one can make! @rspfau perhaps very speciesist of me but they are also the main reason I try to do anything! What I have found on PVA seems to suggest it does not biodegrade too well in the sea if it gets that far. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8588384/ Crap. I really like the convenience of pods, especially when I travel and have to deal with laundrymats all the time. But I’m with you; enough is enough. I’ll switch back to plastic bottles of the stuff. Oh, wait…🙄 @mlevison No! You've got good travel options...even if they've got some PVA. Nothing is perfect.https://www.sustainablejungle.com/zero-waste/zero-waste-laundry-detergent/ @CelloMomOnCars I wonder how bad the PVA is relative to all the plastic fibers shed by our synthetic fiber clothing. A fleece blanket or jacket or poly shirt sheds lots of plastic. We need to do both: @CelloMomOnCars Our washing machine is smaller I tried pods once and they stained the clothes. Always use powder, I guess fabric softer would have plastic in it from the bottle as well. Those fabric softener scented beads are bad for the environment too. @CelloMomOnCars This is frustrating because even the supposedly environmentally friendly products like Earthbreeze laundry sheets use PVA.  Sometimes we're forced to be idiots: e.g. when your grocery store stocks only these laundry pods, as most do now. @CelloMomOnCars @jgkoomey this is good to know! But some laundry “pods” / tablets have no skin (eg., from Blueland). I’m assuming these skinless tablets are still better than liquid detergent because we’re not burning as much fossil fuel transporting the water weight in liquid detergent, no? @CelloMomOnCars @arlen Yes, blue land tablets are fine. We use them for the dishwasher. Haven’t used them for laundry.  @CelloMomOnCars   @CelloMomOnCars I think Finish brand dishwasher pods sell a dried powder pod without a plastic coating.  @CelloMomOnCars Similar issue with dryer lint. At least, probably, it goes to a landfill.  @CelloMomOnCars Oh I am so for this, these things have been an eyesore for me for years.  @CelloMomOnCars Yes, lets continue to take highly visible but otherwise tiny steps against a microplastics problem we now know is at least 50% from the general wearing of car and truck tires. Oh I shout about microplastics from tires too. It's interesting to me how those posts are largely ignored, while this one about laundry pods has kinda exploded on me. I bike for many reasons, but one of them is that riding on skinny tires carrying only the weight of the bike and the rider gives a heck of a lot less microplastics than me driving my car.  @CelloMomOnCars Crud. I thought it was a biological compound. That said, my mum showed me some interesting things lately: detergent sheets that looked like thicker paper. Put one in with the laundry it worked the same way as one if those pods. Unfortunately seems to be a German thing so far. I need to look into those but multiple commenters to this post mentioned that the "resin" holding the sheets together is also plastic. @CelloMomOnCars I switched from pods to powder after watching one of @TechConnectify videos, probably this one: https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04?si=Kxjh9jf5DmJMe0wa But what I really want is a dishwasher with a reservoir that dispenses detergent automatically according to conditions, so I never have to measure and don’t have to refill the reservoir for every load - just like my clotheswasher  @CelloMomOnCars Gain smell is the worst, OMG. @CelloMomOnCars @CelloMomOnCars "PVA, which like all conventional plastics comes from fossil fuels [...] To break down effectively, it needs precise conditions in wastewater facilities. Those conditions don’t currently exist" Research from the Fraunhofer Institut shows that in Germany, tire wear is the single largest source of microplastics, and it's much larger than the next source which is -- wait for it -- abrasion of plastic from road surfaces. Sounds like Germans like to burn rubber (except that car tires are no longer ctual rubber but a composite containing lots of plastic). https://www.celticwater.co.uk/bloghow-does-plastic-get-into-the-ocean-plastic-pollution-from-roads/  @CelloMomOnCars Interesting, as a blind person I find using these more efficient and safe than using liquid, but may have to rethink this based on the article.  @CelloMomOnCars since PVA is soluble in water, I don’t think this is the same issue as microplastics (insoluble small grains with similar density as water so they float or stay suspended, and while chemically not terribly dangerous the fact that those are everywhere should indeed raise some concerns, warrant further research and precautionary emission reduction wherever necessary) @CelloMomOnCars @aliettedb @CelloMomOnCars I feel bad now. I actually thought they were good for the environment, that they disolved in some biodegradable way like those bin-bags.   @CelloMomOnCars I've never understood the point of those things. People are that lazy that they can't measure out detergent? |
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@CelloMomOnCars just use liquid.
Dissolves easier.
We don’t need all the artificial colors & smells either.