I read a news article on a breakthrough idea this morning that has major implications for the cleaning category – and for that matter any other liquid based product category.
There is a brand of household cleaners called Conserve that are like 409, Windex, Fabreeze, Lysol , Seventh Generation, Greenworks, Terracycle and Method except that these products ship without any water!
For most cleaners the water makes up about 90% of the weight of the product, so by not shipping the product with the water in it, the manufacturer saves shipping costs for 90% of the weight of the product. So what you say? Just think of all the gas, wear and tear and labor you would save if all liquid products did this!
They have the same cleaning power as the national brand products because they are also liquid cleaners – which are better than traditional powder or tablet based cleaners.
Not only did they figure out how to save all the water and keep the cleaning effectiveness the same, but they also figured out how to gain even more Environmentally Friendly benefits by delivering the cleaner in a tablet form and then shipping 4 tablets for every empty bottle sold! That means they saved not just 90% of the weight of one bottle, but rather that of 4 bottles. The savings throughout the dealers logistics system are immense. Now they have also saved 75% of the warehouse and shelf space that the product would take up, made the product light and easy to carry and on top of all that 3 plastic bottles from the landfill!
Seriously when last did you hear of an environmentally friendly product that saved 390% of the shipping cost, 75% of the warehouse and shelf space, 75% waste from the landfill and it is made of DfE (the EPA’s Design for the Environment) Earth friendly chemicals.
Now comes the real knock-out blow. You know how all green products seem to have to cost more than the equivalent conventional product? Well these environmentally friendly products actually cost about 40% less than a conventional product because of all the cost savings from saving the weight of the water.
Way to Go Baumgartens – the manufacturer of the CONSERVE Cleaners! If everyone followed your level of innovation we would really make a difference to the world’s sustainability in a rather short period of time.
Do you have any applications that are liquid that could benefit from Baumgartens new tablet technology? If you do start a conversation with them and help the world!
Great post! Very informative. Thank you so much. Keep it up guys! =)
Posted by: Assunta | February 16, 2011 at 01:40 AM