Liquid personal-care products are mostly water, wasting transport capacity when shipped
#00017
Shampoo and liquid soap are mostly water, often 70 to 90 percent by weight. Shipping ready-to-use liquid moves large volumes of water already available at the tap, wasting transport capacity and fuel and forcing the bulky single-use bottle the water weight requires.
Parent issue
#00016 Liquid personal-care products are sold almost exclusively in single-use plastic bottles
Sustainable Development Goals
Location
Description
The problem
Shampoo, conditioner and liquid soap are mostly water — commonly 70–90%+ by weight, depending on the product. Every bottle shipped from factory to warehouse to retailer to home is therefore mostly transporting water that is already available, essentially free, from the municipal supply at the point of use.
Why this matters
This has two consequences:
- Transport waste. Trucks, fuel and emissions are spent moving water across long distances. Industry figures cited by concentrate brands suggest a truck of concentrated/tablet product can be equivalent to dozens of trucks of conventional ready-to-use liquid.
- It distorts the packaging problem. Because the product is bulky and heavy, it needs a large, sturdy container — reinforcing the case for the cheap single-use plastic bottle. Shipping water and shipping plastic are linked.
Why it is hard
Removing the water means the customer (or a local step) must add it back, or accept a different product form. That requires either reformulation (concentrate that reconstitutes predictably) or a format change (powder, tablet, bar) — and the final product must still perform and feel like what consumers expect. It is a chemistry and consumer-acceptance problem, not just a packaging swap.
Sub-issues
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