Walmart customers can now cut their plastic waste further by buying paper-based refillable cartons of hand and dish soap made by Cleancult.
Cleancult has partnered with Walmart to introduce a new range of home cleaning products that are packaged in eco-friendly cardboard cartons, rather than plastic bottles.
The range includes hand soap, dish soap, all-purpose cleaners, and laundry detergent, which will be sold in 3,000 Walmart stores around the U.S.
About 40 million tons of plastic waste was generated by the U.S. in 2021, but only 5% to 6% was recycled, and about 85% of plastic used for packaging ends up in a landfill.
Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, and roughly 1 billion plastic spray bottles are disposed of each year.
This onslaught of plastic waste is having a devastating impact on the environment. Plastic bottles take hundreds of years to decompose, and when they do, they leak toxins into the air and surrounding groundwater.
The U.S. is among the worst offenders of ocean plastic pollution particularly. One study places it third in the world, with 2.4 million tons of its plastic waste finding its way into marine environments, because of littering, illegal dumping, and recycling that is shipped overseas.
Cleancult estimates that switching to their paper-based product packaging could prevent more than 330 million pounds of plastic from polluting the environment.
The sustainable cleaning company was founded in 2019 when it replaced single-use plastic bottles with refillable glass containers and soaps sold in paper packaging.
It says that this innovation already reduces the amount of plastic waste produced by home cleaning by 90%.
"We are thrilled to team up with Walmart on our largest retail endeavor to date," Cleancult's co-founder and CEO, Ryan Lupberger, said in a statement. "The goal to bring accessible sustainable solutions to more and more people is not only a fundamental business model but also an innate responsibility to our community and the cleaning industry."
"Cleancult's commitment to plastic elimination is the kind of innovation we need at scale to collectively reduce plastic use and become more regenerative," added Jennifer R. Jackson, SVP, Household Essentials, Walmart U.S. "Collaborating with suppliers such as Cleancult on products that make the more sustainable choice more accessible for our customers is a great example of how our purpose comes to life."
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