Mildly Infuriating @lemmy.world Showroom7561 @lemmy.ca 2d ago

I'm sure people fall for this type of greenwashing all the time...

"45% less plastic and 75% less water!"

But the product they are comparing it to has 90% more detergent...

EDIT: Thank you for pointing the error of my ways, guys.

This article cleared up some misconceptions I had. TIL, there's way more water in liquid detergent than you'd think!

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Does it have less detergent? The company we used to use, before switching to powder, did this. But it was the same amount of detergent, less water. They updated the amount you should use per load with the change.
- Yeah, the smaller bottle uses about 50% less volume per load.
- If it does, they really need to make that more obvious! The smaller one is "ultra concentrated", but is it more expensive per load? Is the assumption that someone who used to buy the larger bottle would even know that the smaller one is "better"?
  
  It’s very clearly printed on there, 60 loads vs 74.
  
  If you were using the larger bottle, would you know that the smaller one had more loads? You'd only know that it uses "less plastic" (per load, not per volume).
  
  Yes of course, why wouldn’t you? Again, it is clearly printed on the label, next to the name. You’re trying very hard to make this an issue but it’s really not.
  
  You’re trying very hard to make this an issue but it’s really not.
  
  Probably.
  
  I was viewing this in the context of shrinkflation with food items.
  
  For example, if you're used to buying 900g of pasta, because that's what feeds your family out of a single package, does it really matter if the replacement 750g size uses less plastic and packaging? Because now you need to buy two packages instead of one, which creates more plastic/packaging waste than before.
  
  So... seeing that you get less loads per bottle vs the larger one, it reminded me of the pasta scenario. Probably flawed logic. 😬LOL
  
  lol this thinking right here contributes to the problem. "The bigger bottle HAS to be better, right?".
  
  If people would stop and read to see what they're spending their money on, we wouldn't be buying larger quantities of mostly water-based products in favor of more concentrated versions.
  
  See my reply to the other guy above. I was applying the logic (possibly flawed) to how food is sold: 900g of pasta is more food than 750g of pasta, regardless of the difference in packaging. If you need 900g, then you'd need to buy two of the 750g, which is even more wasteful.
  
  But I guess my problem is that they are comparing two different products, in two different quantities (loads per bottle), but linked together with how much plastic and water they use.
  
  They didn't make the same product with less plastic or water, it's a new product with the same label.

21 comments