New to Van Clarke? Subscribe to our newsletter for 15% off your first order. Start your haircare journey today.

Plastic Reduction Programme

June 24, 2021

Plastic Reduction Programme

We’re changing the way we package our products. Having dispensed with many outer cartons, we're moving more products out of plastic into glass or aluminium. Both easily recyclable. Next month our Nutritional Supplements are available in glass jars. In September our long-awaited LifeSaver Ultra will launch in aluminium followed by Thicker Quicker Spray.

And not forgetting, that because all our products are professional quality, each bottle goes further. Our warehouse stopped using plastic tape and now uses good old fashioned brown paper rolls in the tape guns. Small changes that all add up.

But realistically, we aren’t able to move away from plastic overnight until technology develops a solution. So, focusing on reducing use for now, helps ease the problem. Here’s another way…

At school I enjoyed maths and science. I remember using Further Maths in our Engineering Drawing class to work out optimum volumes for packaged goods that used the least surface material to hold it. At the time it was less tin to hold more corned beef in a can. Now it could be less plastic to hold more volume of liquid.

I applied it to our bottles and was surprised to see as much as 65% reduction in grammes of plastic per litre of product when you order a one litre refill as opposed to four orders of 250mls. That would seem like win-win all round.

Perhaps following the success of the plastic bags initiatives, supermarkets could highlight grammes of packaging per litre or per kilo of products. Like this

There are two very promising developments going on at the moment.

1. A plastic substitute, coined vegan spider silk, is made from soy protein and degradable on a domestic compost heap.

2. A new lining material made from over 10 plant extracts which uses nature’s own waterproofing methods to create a bio-sourced compound kept in its natural form. It can line a bottle made from paper pulp to make it waterproof. Everything can then go into the paper recycling waste stream. This is what the food and cosmetics industries are waiting for.

Let’s hope they’re available soon.

 Michael Van Clarke





Also in Blogs

How to Handle Curly Hair
How to Handle Curly Hair

February 14, 2025

Wavy and curly hair can be the most enchantingly gorgeous, but for some people it can be a beast to manage. Here we go through the whys and the wherefores.

Continue Reading

Gaby's Bakery - Valentine's Jammy Dodgers
Gaby's Bakery - Valentine's Jammy Dodgers

February 14, 2025

The Valentine holiday has origins in the pagan festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February, to celebrate the coming of Spring. It included fertility rites where men would strip naked and sacrifice a goat, and a lottery where boys drew names of girls from a box.

Continue Reading

In the Chair - Real People Real Hair - Emily
In the Chair - Real People Real Hair - Emily

February 14, 2025

How many Bobs have you got?

These quick clunky haircuts are becoming prolific as hairdressers become less and less able to layer hair properly. Emily had the very common 3-step Bob. The baseline, a step four inches off the bottom, and a sort of torn irregular piece suggestive of a long 

Continue Reading