New Household Cleaners Skimp on Water, Waste

A new line of household cleaners by Bumgartens will be sold in tablet form, requiring 75 percent less packaging and reducing the impact of shipping because the products have 85 percent less “water weight.”

The cleaners are part of the Conserve line, which also includes cutlery and dishware. Consumers purchase one bottle and a four-pack of tablets, and the tablets dissolve in water when ready to use. The available products include a glass cleaner, multi-surface, bathroom and odor eliminator.

By shipping cleaners without water, Conserve is able to save 7.5 pounds per bottle. By only including one bottle in a package that provides four uses, Conserve can also ship more cleaners in a single load.

The cleaners themselves only use ingredients approved by the EPA’s “Designed for the Environment” program. Many household cleaners contain hazardous chemicals that require special attention for disposal, which also creates issues of what to do with the plastic containers since they are often considered hazardous. In the case of Conserve, there’s only one container for every four bottles of product.

Conserve claims that its products also save money, costing 40 percent less than the national brands of cleaners.

“We are able to achieve these cost-savings for consumers because our products have eliminated the heaviest ingredient in household cleaners: water,” says David Baumgarten, vice president of Baumgartens. “Conventional cleaner equivalents would require eight trucks versus just one for ours, not to mention all the equipment, time and energy needed to load and unload those trucks.”