by Cheryl Rofer
Look at the shelves of laundry products in your local supermarket. The containers for the liquid products are shrinking.
Some years back, the manufacturers concentrated their liquid products. It's silly to ship lots of water around as part of these products; larger containers are required, using more plastic, and they may be put into boxes, requiring more paper; fewer can be shipped per truckload, and the greater weight uses more gas in transport.
However, consumers were accustomed to using a particular amount of product (detergent, color enhancer, softener) per wash, and they couldn't be convinced that using a smaller volume, even though it contained the same amount of useful product, would work. So manufacturers went back to the old water content, with all the downsides but one: consumers wanted it.
I bought some concentrated detergent a month or so ago, and today some color enhancer (brightener, whatever). Both had smaller measuring caps. The color enhancer had a plastic wrapper around the cap, repeating that the smaller volume contained the same amount of product. "2X" was repeated multiple times, with explanations. So the manufacturers may have learned from that failed introduction of several years back. What may also help is that we've gotten accustomed to using those measuring caps instead of standard cups, so perhaps some folks won't even notice.
However, I tried to pull the wrapper off, thinking it was a seal. I suspect that it is a last minute add-on, in response to consumer questions about the smaller volumes.
The manufacturers are more likely to stick with it this time; they are cutting costs in the bad economy to survive. The decreased use of water, plastic and gas will benefit the environment, too.
Now we can wonder if they will pass some of the savings along to us. I haven't kept track of prices, so I can't provide any insight on that.