Why Concentrated Cleaning Products Are Better (and How to Use Them)

Most conventional cleaning products are mostly water. A standard spray bottle of all-purpose cleaner might be 95 to 98 percent water with a small percentage of active ingredients. You're buying a large, heavy plastic bottle and paying to transport it to the warehouse, to the store, and then home. And when it runs out, you buy another large, heavy plastic bottle.

Concentrated cleaning products flip this model. You buy a small amount of concentrated product, usually in minimal or compostable packaging, and dilute it yourself at home with tap water. The result is the same cleaning solution at a fraction of the packaging and transport cost.

Why this matters

Packaging is the biggest single driver of waste from cleaning products. A concentrated tablet or powder that makes a full litre of cleaning solution creates a fraction of the packaging waste of a pre-mixed spray bottle. Multiply that across a household's annual cleaning product purchases and the reduction is significant.

Transport emissions are also relevant. Shipping water across the country in plastic bottles is a particularly inefficient use of energy. Concentrated products are light and small, which means their transport footprint is a fraction of their diluted equivalent.

Cost is the third factor. Concentrated products almost always cost less per unit of cleaning than their pre-diluted equivalents. You pay more per bottle or packet, but each bottle or packet makes multiple litres of product.

How to make the switch

The practical shift is simple. You need a good reusable spray bottle at home, ideally glass or stainless steel, or at least a durable plastic one you intend to use for years. When your current spray bottle of all-purpose cleaner runs out, instead of buying another bottle, you buy a concentrated refill, add the specified amount to your empty spray bottle, fill it with water from the tap, and you have the same product. The Manuka Hydrosol concentrate refill is a good example, designed to refill the 500ml spray bottle.

Oxygen bleach as a concentrated workhorse

Sodium percarbonate (oxygen bleach) is one of the most versatile concentrated cleaning products available. A 1kg bag of powder dissolves in warm water to produce an effective stain remover, whitener, and surface cleaner. Use it in laundry for stain treatment and whitening, diluted in a spray bottle for surface cleaning, as a soak for whitening grout or tiles, or as a pre-treatment for heavily soiled items.

One kilogram replaces many bottles of chlorine bleach, whitening laundry additives, and bathroom cleaning sprays. The packaging is a simple bag with no pump mechanism or spray head to throw away.

Laundry concentrates and strips

Concentrated laundry products, including laundry strips, take up a fraction of the shelf space and packaging of a large liquid detergent bottle. Laundry strips dissolve in the wash without any packaging except the minimal cardboard sheet they come on. They work effectively in all wash temperatures and are great for travel. Soapnut shells are the most concentrated form of all: a 1kg bag of dried shells washes far more loads than any equivalently-sized liquid detergent.

The habit to build

The main challenge with concentrated products is remembering to buy the refill before you run out, because there's nothing to fall back on at the last minute from the supermarket. Keeping a small stock of concentrates in the cupboard addresses this. Once you're in the habit, concentrated products become the obvious choice simply because they take up so much less space, cost less, and create far less waste.

Browse concentrated cleaning products at ecowarehouse.nz.