Reducing Plastic in Landfill One Wet Wipe at a Time

Wet wipes make life convenient, but until now they haven't done much for the planet in the long term. These single-use plastics are entering our landfills at a phenomenal rate, and this only continues following the COVID-19 pandemic. From available market data, The Hygiene Co. conservatively estimates this to be a 25,000,000 kg a year plastic problem that no one seems to be discussing. Current single-use plastic bans being implemented across state jurisdictions do not include wet wipes, although this is a problem 30 x larger than plastic straws (Australian Recycling Survey 2019-2020).

CleanLIFE. This is the first Australian made, plastic free range of wet wipes available for use on the body, in the home and for your workplace. Instead of using plastic, our cloth is a plastic free plant-based material that will breakdown in landfill and leave no trace. Achieving this solution was no easy task. Transforming a plant making sealant for the construction industry into a medical-grade facility to produce TGA-approved wet wipes during a global health pandemic was certainly full of twists and turns. The team's dedication resulted in the CleanLIFE range hitting the shelves in December 2022.

Consumers are increasingly demanding sustainable products (Forbes 2022). CleanLIFE plastic free products meet this need and gives users a good feeling about their choice. Whilst governments and intermediaries are looking at legislative change and large-scale behaviour change campaigns to reduce single use plastics, the CleanLIFE range gives consumers a simply better choice. We can measure the impact through our sales data - with every one of our wipes used, less plastic is ending up in landfill or the oceans. Since production of our plastic free wipe commenced, our manufacturing facility has saved 14million pieces of plastic from going to landfill.

Our customers love that we use only natural Australian botanic natives in our range. They smell amazing because it is all natural. We truly support all that is unique about Australia. It is not just our sustainable product that we invest in either: - the sustainability of CleanLIFE's production and distribution is an ongoing part of our work. Whether that is the efficiency of our Industry 4.0 kit, the lighting in our factory and office, or even investigating other new plastic-free products like pallet wrap or packaging to take us to 100% truly plastic-free. - educating consumers through our It Starts With Plastic Free YouTube channel where we tackle the latest issues including how much plastic waste do babies create, industrial vs home compostability, and are flushables really flushable (https://www.youtube.com/@cleanlifeaus/videos) - advocating for legislative change in the use of single-use plastics. We provide submissions to the various state government legislative consultations when it comes to what is included in future single-use plastic bans. At this stage, no state or territory has formally included wet wipes in their bans. Yet!