We’ve made the decision to phase out some of our more popular products — dishwasher tablets, laundry sheets, and dissolvable cleaning pods — and we want to be completely transparent about why.
When we introduced these products, we genuinely believed they were a positive choice. They were widely marketed as eco-friendly alternatives to conventional plastic-packaged cleaning products, and that sat well with our values. But as we’ve looked more closely at the evidence, the picture has become more complicated.
The majority of these products rely on PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) — the dissolvable film or casing that wraps the product. The selling point is that it disappears in water, avoiding the kind of single-use plastic waste we want to reduce. The problem is what happens next.
What is PVA, and why are we concerned?
What is PVA, and why are we concerned?
PVA is a synthetic polymer — technically a type of plastic, though one designed to dissolve in water rather than fragment into visible pieces. The question is whether dissolving and fully breaking down are the same thing. The short answer, based on the available research, is no — not reliably.
PVA can be broken down by specific bacteria, but it requires the right microbial conditions and sufficient time. Most conventional wastewater treatment plants have a retention time of around 18–24 hours — which may not be long enough for meaningful degradation to occur. A peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health estimated that approximately 76.7% of PVA remains undegraded after conventional treatment, with the majority discharged into the environment via sewage sludge (61%) and the aqueous effluent (15.7%).
What doesn’t break down in treatment doesn’t simply disappear after that either. A 2024 study found that after 30 days, PVA degraded by about 32.2% in wastewater, 5.9% in freshwater, and only 3.3% in seawater — suggesting it lingers much longer in natural water bodies like rivers and oceans.
The cleaning industry and some researchers argue that detergent-grade PVA is specifically engineered to biodegrade in wastewater treatment conditions, and that concerns about microplastic pollution are overstated. The American Cleaning Institute, for instance, maintains that there is no scientific evidence that detergent-grade PVA persists as microplastics.
The Science isn’t settled.
We’ve read both sides of the argument but, for a shop built around reducing plastic pollution, the uncertainty itself is enough to give us pause. When the evidence is mixed and the stakes involve potential microplastic contamination of waterways, we’d rather take precaution and move to alternatives we can more confidently stand behind.
What we’re doing instead
We’re running down existing stock of PVA-based products and replacing them with options that don’t carry the same question marks. If you’ve been into the shop recently, you may have already noticed our new SESI dishwasher powder — a genuinely plastic-free alternative that performs brilliantly without the film casing. We’ll be adding further alternatives as we go.
The zero-waste journey is an ever evolving one and sometimes means you have to be willing to change course when the evidence points that way — even when that means removing products people love.
We’re sorry if this affects your regular shop. We hope you’ll give the alternatives a try, and as always, if you have questions, research to share, or products you’d like us to look at, we’d love to hear from you.
Further reading: