Meliora Prevents Over 1 Million Plastic Bottles from Ever Existing

In 2013, I wanted to find out what ingredients were in my household cleaning products. Like my laundry detergent. And I was frustrated, because no one was telling me anything. So, I made my own. I’m an engineer, this is the sort of thing that sounds fun to me.

I roped my boyfriend, now husband, into an adventure. We wanted to make cleaning products where every single ingredient would be safer for households and the environment... and more importantly, all the ingredients would be listed. Every ingredient on every label, every time. Crazy, right?

We had to make sure our cleaners get the job done while being picky about the ingredients. As we started developing new products for Meliora Cleaning Products, we only wanted to introduce a new product when it met our Big Three:

  • It WORKS to get your home and clothes clean
  • PEOPLE-FRIENDLY, so it's ok to have around your home
  • PLANET-FRIENDLY, so you can be confident that what goes down your drain won't cause any problems

Planet-friendly also refers to the packaging we use for our products. We've always had an additional goal to take as much plastic out of commission as possible. Today, we are ecstatic to announce that we have successfully prevented over 1 million plastic bottles from ever existing.  

It feels good to be a millionaire. The million bottles we’ve eliminated from existence are roughly 73.8 tons of plastic by weight. This is about the same weight as...

  • 1,135 newborn giraffes
  • 1,251 Complete Encyclopedia Britannica Collections (remember those?)
  • 5,904 2-year-old toddlers (good luck getting them to stand together on a scale)
  • 7,380 car tires
  • 447,271 bananas - that’s enough potassium for your lifetime
  • 98 cows
  • 149 grand pianos
  • 37 Art Institute of Chicago Lions

More realistically speaking, 73.8 tons is the amount of trash thrown away each month by a small town of 1,230 people.  While there is still nearly a million tons of plastic produced every day, we all still have more work to do. But, we wanted to celebrate this milestone and thank everyone that's committed to buying better products.

Better isn’t just our name; it is a reminder that every day we can improve on the status quo by offering cleaning products that are better for people and the planet. 

Nerd Alert: How we did the math

For the fellow data-nerds out there, we made the following assumptions to get to the weight of the plastic eliminated from existence:

  • Each of our Laundry Powder canisters and refill bags take out .29 lbs (130g) of plastic from the landfill.
    • The big 512 HE/256 steel tin is 4 canisters, so it’s removing 1.16 pounds. 
    • A Zero-waste bulk bucket is 18 canisters, which eliminates 5.2 pounds of plastic.
  • All Purpose Cleaner bottles, All Purpose Cleaner refills, and Gentle Cleaning Scrubs each take out 0.12 lbs (54g) of plastic. 
  • A small laundry canister prevents .14 lbs (62g) of plastic.
  • One solid, plastic-free Dish Soap replaces 2-3 bottles, which are each made from .12 lbs (55g) of plastic.
  • Each of our Bath & Body Bars replaces 1 single-use .12 lb (55g) plastic bottle.

Thank you for helping us make our goal a reality. Onward to diverting 2 million plastic bottles, then 20 million! Then 200 million!

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