Amazon’s yearly sales have reached $56 billion. With nearly every conceivable product available for purchase online, some ship easier than others. Moreover, in an effort to reduce shipping costs and be environmentally conscious, manufacturers are looking to bring down the size, weight and amount of plastic in packaging.
Lighter and more compact packages cuts the cost of packaging, but for some products, like liquids, the challenge is making sure the product arrives at the customers’ doorstep safely, especially in that critical “last mile,” when products are mixed together for delivery, far removed from the safety of outer cases, pallets and plastic wrapping.
Procter & Gamble, makers of Tide, is set to release new packaging for their liquid detergent specifically designed for e-commerce. Dubbed “Eco-Box,” it will start shipping in January 2019, and unlike plastic bottles, it doesn’t need to be wrapped and reboxed for shipment to the consumer. The Eco-Box contains a bag within the box and uses 60% less plastic and 30% less water than the equivalent 150oz bottled Tide.
The Tide Eco-Box features a “no-drip” spout and a pull-out stand that raises the height of the box for easier pouring.
While it’s commendable that Tide is creating more sustainable packaging, it seems that they can’t avoid creating products that we confuse with food as the Tide Pod looks eerily similar to something sitting in your grandmother’s candy bowl since 1987. Earlier in 2018, videos of teenagers biting into toxic Tide Pods—the “Tide Pod Challenge”—went viral, causing a spike in calls to poison control centers, deaths, and a general questioning of the intelligence of today’s kids.
Similarly, the Eco-Box bears a striking resemblance to boxed wine. So while polishing off a box of cheap chardonnay can lead to questioning your life choices, drinking a box of Tide detergent will most certainly land you in the emergency room as well.
Not that you’d confuse the two, right?
