Want to reduce plastic waste? These start-ups can help you clean up your act

Mike Smith wants your laundry detergent bottle to become a family heirloom – and he's not kidding.

"Why shouldn't you inherit your grandparents' laundry liquid bottles?" the founder of start-up Zero Co says. "Plastic was never designed to be used once and then last forever."

Mike Smith wants your great-grandchildren to inherit your household product bottles.Credit: Brook Mitchell

With many Australians looking for ways to reduce their plastic waste, Smith launched Zero Co – which makes laundry, kitchen and bathroom products packaged in reusable recycled plastic – on the back of Kickstarter and angel investments. His first round of orders, more than 10,200 of them, will be sent to homes this month.

Australian households generated 45.6 per cent of all plastic waste in 2016-17, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. A national multi-stage waste export ban beginning next year will ensure Australia's plastic is processed onshore after years of shipping it to other nations, including Indonesia and Malaysia. And it's the waterways of these countries that Byron Bay-based Smith feels obligated to clean up.

"It's kind of like having a barbecue in your backyard and taking all the rubbish from your barbecue and chucking it over your neighbour's fence," Smith says. "There's no way to get rid of all this plastic, because it's been made. Unless we shoot it off into outer space, it's going to be on planet Earth forever now. We've created it. It exists."

Plastic waste on the shore of Kedonganan Beach in Bali, Indonesia. Credit: Jason Childs

For the first batch, the Zero Co team hauled 6000 kilograms of plastic out of the Jakarta Sea. That plastic was cleaned, shredded, melted and turned into pellets "that look like plastic Cornflakes, almost", then blown into bottles and jugs. Those vessels are then filled with Australian-made household products, which are replenished via reusable pouches that are mailed back to Zero Co and refilled again.

According to Clean Up Australia, a plastic water bottle can take up to 1000 years to break down. The 2019 Rubbish Report, which collates information about litter collected on Clean Up Australia Day, plastics were the most common item found nationally.

"The challenge with that is that virgin plastic [newly made] ... is so much cheaper to produce and recycle," says Pip Kiernan, chairman of Clean Up Australia. "But that's where consumer demand comes into it.

Mike Smith with the first batch of orders of his recycled plastic cleaning products.Credit: Brook Mitchell

"We know that most consumers want to see more recycling and they want to see less plastic when it comes to their packaging."

Kiernan also cites a lack of clarity for consumers regarding exactly which plastics are recyclable.

"There is a great desire to do the right thing," says Kiernan. "It's just [a matter of] enabling that."

There's concern for what's inside the bottle too, as some household brands move away from chemicals that can harm increasingly fragile ecosystems.

Frankie Layton, from Melbourne, watched ecosystems get pummelled during her time as a stewardess on super yachts, where waste was tipped off the side of the boat. Her itch to make a difference resulted in Dirt Company, which produces a plant-based laundry liquid packaged in a glass bottle. Reusable pouches are returned, sanitised, refilled and posted back to the consumer. The average lifespan of one such pouch is four years, Layton says.

The Dirt Company's products are refilled with reusable pouches. Credit: The Dirt Company

Originally, Layton didn't have a refill-and-return program. But one "very chatty customer" contacted them to ask if Dirt could go a step further. It's that feedback loop, Layton says, that sets environmentally-focused start-ups apart.

"Distribution has changed a lot," she says, citing the power of social media to directly reach consumers and using deliveries. "You can go back to the whole milkman era without having to compromise the convenience of the offering."

In the past, laundry detergent has resulted in high levels of phosphorus in greywater, which can cause algae blooms in waterways. Other ingredients, such as high levels of sodium, can harm surrounding ecosystems. In Australia, most commercial laundry detergents "contain negligible phosphorus", says Craig Brock, the director of policy and public affairs for Accord Australasia Limited, the peak industry body.

Some big businesses are working towards change, too. Earlier this year, consumer goods giant Unilever announced its aim to "replace 100 per cent of carbon derived from fossil fuels in household product formulations with renewable or recycled carbon by 2030". The company also wants its plastic packaging to be entirely reusable, recyclable or compostable, and at least made of 25 per cent recycled plastic, by 2025

"This problem of waste is not going to be solved by laundry alone, but it’s a super easy, no-compromise switch you can make," says Layton. "It’s the power of the collective that’s going to solve this problem."

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