The life cycle of plastic products is rarely talked about, or even shown by the product manufacturer. We have begun to rely on our own research to see where our own products come from and eventually end up. In the shower, I began thinking of which product I could track the life cycle of. I happen to also run out of shampoo and threw the bottle in the trash. Basically, I am going to be tracking the life cycle of this shampoo bottle.
The beginning of its story starts by acquiring the raw materials that are needed to make a shampoo bottle. The type of plastic that makes up shampoo bottles is low-density Polyethylene, a heavy, durable, and sometimes recyclable plastic. In order to make this polyethylene, plastic goes through a manufacturing process which is made up of a range of organic polymers including polyethylene and ethylene, thus making a low-density polyethylene for a home for our shampoo. The bottle itself is made of small beads of plastic that get melted down into a mold that forms the shape of our bottle as it cools down. a 500ml shampoo bottle costs about 2 cents to make and 2.5 cents for a 1-liter bottle.
The bottle is then slapped with a sticker and is shipped to a location around the world in order to be sold. The process of shipping from the factory to the store usually takes around 1-2 days. Over 548 million units of shampoo were sold in the United States in one year.
Although these products can be reused, the majority of these bottles get thrown away. From the trash can, it is transported to a trash facility. Here, trash and dirt are removed and the plastic is washed, the plastic is then grounded into small plastic pellets. In a perfect world, these microplastics would be able to be used as new products or packaging. Around 550 million empty shampoo bottles are thrown away each year. However, in reality, a huge amount of these plastic parts end up in a landfill or in the ocean, breaking down our environment one shampoo bottle at a time.
One way to reduce this plastic waste is to make a change from shampoo bottles to shampoo bars. Shampoo bars are similar to your average dove soap bar, however, it is shampoo. It completely gets rid of the wasteful plastic.
