Seepje
Designing an iconic, recycled and recyclable packaging solution.
Project description
Challenge
Our mission was to create a packaging design that clearly communicated the eco-friendly credentials of the brand whilst also reflecting the product’s intended purpose in an intuitive way – to design a sustainable solution without compromising on desirability.
Initially keen to avoid the use of plastic, but without an alternative material able to hit all our objectives, we began exploring the life cycle of plastic which, in the Netherlands, has a rather advanced sorting process with 60% of materials being able to be fully recycled. Using recycled plastic is of course not without its challenges; we would need to identify the limitations of the material, such as the reduced quality as compared to virgin plastic in terms of both rigidity and colour purity, and design around them.
Solution
Seepje is Dutch for “soap bar” which inspired the design of the structural packaging, reminiscent of a traditional bar of soap. A simple and iconic design, creating fantastic stand-out on shelf and highly effective at communicating the honesty of the brand and its products.
Employing circular models, the Seepje packaging is made from recycled plastic and is fully recyclable due to the use of both a HDPE mono plastic and the fact that the label is slid on rather than stuck on, allowing the avoidance of glue and therefore ease of separation when recycling.
Results
A large part of Seepje’s impact obviously comes from the natural ingredients used in its detergents, such as the shell of the Sapindus fruit, which contains a natural form of soap. For the packaging, however, our ambitions for the Seepje brand revolve around the ‘100% recycled strategy’. Together with their users, Seepje recycled more than 65,000 kilos of post-consumer plastic last year (2020). The carbon footprint of our detergent bottles is more than 57% smaller than that of competitors that use virgin materials.
We are currently exploring re-usability as a way to extend the lifecycle of our packaging. For example, using the pump of a hand soap bottle for 5 cycles instead of only once could potentially reduce the footprint of the packaging by 37%.
The recent innovation of solid detergent bars for dishwashing, hand soap and laundry has completely rethought how we clean. It has generated a wide variety of packaging opportunities. Even without considering the obvious transportation advantages, this could potentially reduce the CO2 footprint (compared to Seepje’s current hand soap pumps) by an additional 67%.
