After participating in our Home Plastic Audit Data Collection, my mother asked me if we should have been counting our use of laundry and dishwasher pods. My answer to this was, “Well, probably, but if they’re biodegradable, we aren’t really throwing them out.” But are pods really as eco-friendly as most consumers believe? To answer this question, I did some basic research pertaining to Tide PODS.
Most advertising listings for these pods list that they are completely dissolvable. In Aaron Mickelson’s Masters Thesis Project, The Disappearing Package, Mickelson even reports that the, “POD plastic is… water soluble.” Yet, on Drugstore.com, the ingredients for Tide PODS are listed as, “Nonionic and Anionic Surfactants, Ethoxylated Polyethylene Polyamine (Polymer) and Enzymes.” A Google search was unable to tell me whether or not this kind of polymer was dissolvable in water, so I turned to the less-specifics. According to, “How a Polymer Gets Dissolved,” polymers take a long time to dissolve but when they do the particles are not completely broken down, which is why polymeric solutions have a high viscosity. To my understanding, then, Tide PODS seem to dissolve in water because there is no residue left in a consumer’s washing machine, but plastic particles remain in the water that is flushed out.
With a rise in plastics being found in the world’s water overall, it seems counterintuitive for companies to be packaging detergent in plastic to be sent directly into our water systems. However, the Environmental Success Stories in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry reports that Tide PODS, “are packaged in either a recyclable tub or a lightweight bag, reducing plastic use by 50 percent per customer.” Perhaps the PODS and their packaging are more friendly in their attempt to decrease overall plastic use than their predecessor, but they are still far from perfect. The Mickelson Thesis claims that each PODS bag is 16 grams of plastic waste and with the plastic component of the PODS themselves, the reduction of plastic use per consumer by 50% seems like a drastic statistic.
I am not a scientist, nor am I a research analyst, but Tide PODS do not seem to be as environment-friendly as I originally believed them to be. My family will probably continue to use Tide PODS because they are quick and easy to use, so I hope that the statistic labeled by the Grocery Manufacturers Association is correct in that consumers who use PODS are reducing their plastic use overall. After all, as Tide states in the PODS product description on their website, “The Earth’s resources are limited and valuable, and we have an obligation to future generations to use these resources wisely.”
Works Cited
Environmental Success Stories in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry. Grocery Manufacturers Association Online. Grocery Manufacturers Association, 2014. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Grassino, Susanna B. “How a Polymer Gets Dissolved.” Polymer Solutions. University of Southern Mississippi Department of Polymer Science, 2000. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Mickelson, Aaron. “The Disappearing Package – Tide PODs.” Thesis. Pratt Institute, 2015. The Disappearing Package – Tide PODs. Pratt Institute. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Tide Laundry Care 5-Item Bundle Pack. Drugstore.com. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Tide PODS Laundry Detergent Original Scent. Tide. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
