Eco-cleaner bosses shocked by cupboard plastic find

A couple of corporate enviro crusaders are shocked how badly they failed their own cupboard clean-out challenge.

Ami Bateman and Sian Murray with their stash of plastics.

Two Sunshine Coast entrepreneurs intent on providing ethically-sourced domestic cleaning products have been shocked by how badly they failed their own cupboard clean-out challenge.

Sian Murray, of Sunshine Beach and Maroochydore’s Ami Bateman are the driving forces behind plant-based cleaning brand Pleasant State.

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But after going through their homes at the weekend, their combined plastic cleaning and personal product stashes filled two laundry baskets.

Sian, 27, said the discovery was much worse than they imagined.

“We suspect that the majority of Australians would have this much, if not more in their homes, so when you consider that these products will take up to 1000 years to break down, it’s horrifying,” Sian said.

“Putting it all together in this way really highlighted the depth of the issue and allowed us to stop and consider what other options might be available.”

The Pleasant State product range.

This weekend the business partners, who in five days have crowd-funded 42 per cent of their $55,000 goal, want to see if others are any better placed with their plastic products.

They’re encouraging householders to collect and tag these to see how widespread the issue really is.

“No judgment here, let’s create awareness and help each other find single-use plastic free alternatives,” Sian said.

The partners’ immediate goal is for supporters to pre-order 30,000 of the bottles used for their cleaning range.

“We’re also donating 2 per cent of sales or 20 per cent of profits, whatever is greater, to Take 3 for the Sea,” she said.

The project is a grassroots push to remove plastics from the ocean.

Cleaning up in the kitchen without plastic containers are Ami Bateman and Sian Murray.

“We’ve been working really hard on this from March last year and then once COVID kicked in this became our full-time commitment to turn this around really quickly,” Sian said.

“It’s kind of been a blessing in disguise for us, we’ve been able to manufacture the bars up here with a chemist that lives in Maleny.

“We were at his house a month ago rolling the bars by hand.

“We’re keeping it as local as we can, and if not local we’re looking at supporting Indigenous communities with our ingredients.”

They also want to involve people with disabilities to help in the packaging process to produce a product which aligns with their values of supporting people from “all walks of life”.

“We’ve also started talking to Visit Noosa and Plastic Free Noosa about some partnerships that hopefully we can start organising,” Sian said.

“From the get-go, we’ve really been trying to avoid investors.”

They have also used local talent to do their online video which features Ami’s fiance as the plastic-loving businessman they playfully bundle into a boot.

Coming from Melbourne, Sian has been amazed by the quality of services they’ve tapped into.

“I’ve been blown away, when you come from a big city to here, the talent is just awesome.”

They have developed their promotional video in Noosa including Tinbeerwah.

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