Refillable, Recycled, Recyclable: How Our Deodorant Packaging Cuts Plastic Waste
Door Salt of the Earth
Salt of the Earth is a family-run natural deodorant company. We make sprays, roll-ons, sticks and balms in our own factory in Chandlers Ford, Hampshire, and we have been developing refillable deodorant packaging since 2013. Our refill programme has avoided an estimated 23.66 tonnes of plastic so far, the equivalent of more than 2.3 million bottles.
That headline number is nice, but it only exists because of lots of smaller, less glamorous decisions about bottles, pouches, jars and card. This post is a tour of what our packaging is actually made from, format by format, and what happens to it afterwards.
What is sustainable deodorant packaging?
For us it comes down to three things: help customers reuse packaging rather than bin it, cut the amount of plastic needed in the first place through refills, and use recycled material wherever possible. Every format in our range applies at least one of those principles, and most apply two. Our COSMOS Natural certification from the Soil Association also sets requirements for packaging, not just ingredients, so the materials we choose are assessed as part of that standard.
What is Prevented Ocean Plastic?
Prevented Ocean Plastic is recycled plastic collected within 50km of a coastline or major waterway, in regions without proper waste management, and it is fully traceable back to the collection centre. The point is to catch plastic before it reaches the sea, because plastic that has already spent time in the ocean degrades quickly and is largely unusable for recycling.
Since 2024, our natural deodorant sprays have come in bottles made from 100% Prevented Ocean Plastic (the cap, pump and label are excluded from that figure). So the bottle of our Ocean & Coconut Natural Deodorant Spray has quite possibly already had one seaside holiday before it reaches your bathroom.
Once you have a bottle, you can keep it going with a 500ml spray refill bottle, which refills it up to five times using approximately 70% less plastic by weight, or a 300ml refill pouch, which refills it up to three times with approximately 85% less plastic by weight than buying three new bottles.
How does our refillable roll-on bottle cut plastic?
Our refillable roll-on system launched in 2022 after 18 months of design work. The bottle is designed to be opened, refilled and reused rather than thrown away, which is harder to engineer than it sounds when the product also has to roll smoothly and not leak in a gym bag.
Start with a refillable roll-on such as our Lavender & Vanilla Refillable Roll-On, then top it up with a 225ml pouch (up to three refills, approximately 85% less plastic by weight) or a 525ml refill bottle (up to seven refills, approximately 80% less plastic).
