‘Tourism leakage’: Why that all-inclusive holiday isn’t as inclusive as you think
Eat Dirt: What is it?
‘Detergent for a dirty world’ is the Eat Dirt tagline, and it sums up the product brilliantly.
Eat Dirt is created by two friends and business partners who have decided it’s about time we do laundry differently – and better.
Not only have they completely revolutionised the design with packaging that can’t fail to brighten up laundry day, they’ve also replaced the plastic bottle with recyclable tin, and offer just one very modern scent: bitter orange.
Co-founders Catherine and Jordan say: “We made the detergent we’d want to buy – one that smells incredible, looks good on the shelf and genuinely goes out of its way to be responsible.”
Eat Dirt’s best-sellers:
Eat Dirt: single tin
£15.50 each
Eat Dirt: subscription
£13.95 each
Eat Dirt: How sustainable is it?
Eat Dirt is created for design-conscious, values-driven people who want their everyday products to reflect their taste as well as their ethics.
There are many aspects to recommend. The formula is much less toxic than more mainstream laundry products and avoids persistent chemicals that can stick around in water, soil, or living organisms for a long time (sometimes years or decades). There are no phosphates, which eliminates the most historically damaging ingredient in laundry detergents. The vast majority of their ingredients are biodegradable.
But, it’s not only a dirty world, it’s a complex one and compromises have to be made – even in laundry.
Fragrance represents just 0.95% of the overall formula, but this is where the biodegradability of ingredients is comprised. (This is the case with all fragrance in pretty much all laundry products, the only way to get around this is to chose unscented).
Also, laundry liquids typically have a higher carbon footprint than powders because of the water content, but the team weighed this up against other options, such as laundry sheets or powders, and decided that overall liquid was their best option because it cleans effectively at low temps, is easily dosed, and delivers on the scent front.
Eat Dirt fragrance comes from a manufacturer with a focus on sustainable, cruelty-free, vegan ingredients in Manchester. The rest of the product is made at an independent, UK-based, family run and a living-wage employer in Northamptonshire. At a factory level, they are incredibly conscious, to highlight just a few points – they invested in skylights across their production area and warehouse to reduce reliance on electric lighting, with daylight also undoubtedly creating nicer working conditions, swapped forklifts for electric rechargeable pallet lifters, and installed a bespoke water treatment plant to reduce environmental impact.
They deliberately chose a metal tin for the Eat Dirt packaging because metal is much easier to recycle than plastic. It’s less resource-intensive to do so and is infinitely recyclable. However, they use a small amount of plastic in the lid. It’s made from LDPE and HDPE, which are two of the easier plastics to recycle, but they’re working on cutting out plastic altogether. Plus, refills are on the roadmap – the challenge there is finding a solution that genuinely reduces plastic.
Delivery is by Royal Mail, who have set science-based targets to reduce their carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. Plus, their products are shipped in second-hand recyclable cardboard boxes, so you might see other brand names on the packaging you receive Eat Dirt in.
Ultimately this is a significantly more environmentally-friendly choice helping to clean up a dirty industry. Plus, did we mention how great it looks?
Eat Dirt: Where can I buy it?
Head over to the Eat Dirt website.
