It’s Kuhl To Recycle: Give Up The Liquid Soap

Give The Bar A Try

By Mark Kuhl

For the GPHN

China no longer takes as many of our recyclable plastics, thus leaving us with a glut of materials for which industry has not yet found a use.

An easy way to help this situation is to avoid single-use plastic food and beverage bottles. Another way is to give up on liquid soaps and move to bars. There are many producers of bar shampoos and conditioners, for instance, and the environmental benefits are impressive.

Liquid soap is mostly water so you’re paying for water to be packaged in a nice fossil fuel based bottle with a label and cap. Additionally, it’s heavy, so the transportation carbon footprint is quite large. Bar soaps, on the other hand, are packaged in a lightweight paper sleeve that is easily recycled or composted.

The minor convenience of a sexy soap bottle with a creative flip top spout and shiny label does not seem worth the environmental detriment. Give bar soap a try, and save some money too. Another alternative is to purchase refillable bottles of liquid soaps, offered by at least one local Denver company. Check out thebetterworldcompany.com.

Mark Kuhl is an environmental advocate who lives in Park Hill with his wife Nina and their two teenage daughters. Kuhl’s handy tips and news about recycling household items appear every month in these pages. A directory of his past columns for recycling everything from paint to Styrofoam to shoes is at greaterparkhill.org/sustainability/recycling-directory/.