We see pump dispensers everywhere from the home and office to just about every cafe, coffee shop, retailer, shopping mall and commercial establishment. Every school, hospital, temple or church, and any major transit service have them widely available.  It is so ubiquitous that consumers now expect stores and businesses to have them installed. They are not going away any time soon and neither is the plastic.

Conservative estimates are 20,000,000 pump bottles were thrown away just this year. Most ended up in landfills, incinerators, and in our lakes, river, and oceans. The plastics industry line is “plastics are not the problem, people not recycling is.” That is a half-truth at best. The reality is plastics ARE part of the problem. It is also true that lack of proper recycling AND over-consumption compound the problem even more.

Manufacturers of liquid soaps, sanitizers and cosmetics invest a lot of resources  towards the production of that product and they want you to buy, use and buy more. One way they help their profits is by incorporating planned over-consumption into the product design.  A large portion of the pump bottle output is unnecessary.  By some estimates it is 2 or 3 times more than needed.  Companies integrate over-consumption to increase sales.  Good for their balance sheet but bad for the consumer and the environment.

• Increased exposure to chemicals 
• Unnecessary consumers spending
• Environmental nightmare

A few manufacturers have incorporated low-output dispensers as part of their CSR strategy, but many more have not.  A simple change to low profile, low volume pumps would save consumers millions of dollars and reduce senseless plastic wastes.