Household and Personal Care
This category offers a huge potential for improving packaging and product delivery as initiatives such as compaction and refills can be utilised, along with more conventional packaging formats.
The product categories include:
- washing powders;
- bleaches;
- dishwasher products;
- aerosols;
- tissue paper;
- hair care;
- sanitary products;
- medicines and vitamins;
- baby products; and
- body care such as deodorants and creams.
Pack formats are glass, dense plastic, paper and board, plastic film and metal cans.
Scope for packaging optimisation
There is huge potential for reducing packaging and improving product delivery, for example:
- down-gauging and de-layering to reduce packaging, considering primary, secondary and tertiary as a whole system;
- compaction and concentration to increase the numbers of uses per pack, e.g. concentrated washing powders or fabric conditioner;
- use of refills or dilutes e.g. hand wash;
- dosing control to help reduce product wastage e.g. dishwasher tablets;
- larger formats to reduce the packaging per use e.g. larger bottles of shower gel;
- use of recycled content packaging in non food contact products; and
- merchandising solutions which can help reduce primary, secondary and tertiary packaging. Merchandising can also help to communicate to consumers what changes have been made to packaging.
Work in progress
Key projects and initiatives that WRAP is seeking industry involvement with include:
- Laundry detergent: accelerating the move to greater compaction of laundry powders;
- Fabric care: working with retailers and suppliers to advance the move to concentrated fabric conditioners;
- Innovation: new concepts for products with a low packaging or product impact;
- Self dispensing: Self dispensing of laundry products to use reusable packaging;
- Packaging optimisation: reviewing the opportunities for further optimization; and
- Greater use of recycled content.
