Is It True That Laundry Detergent Pods and Sheets Are Toxic Plastic?
In February, a New York City council member introduced a bill that would ban laundry and dish detergent pods.
The bill is nicknamed Pods Are Plastic, because these popular pods that disappear in the washing machine or dishwasher when the cycle begins, releasing detergent, are polyvinyl alcohol (PVA and PVOH), a type of plastic. While you won’t see used pods littering the roadside or washing up on beaches like plastic bottles, some advocates say they are just as bad as other plastics when it comes to issues like toxic chemicals and microplastics.
I personally don’t buy pods because they come in plastic bags or tubs, and I avoid fabric softeners and scented detergents in any form. Instead, I buy dish detergent in powder form in a cardboard box, and laundry sheets, which come flat-packed in a slim paper or cardboard container. Many laundry sheet brands are free of dyes, fragrances, and other toxins, and we recommend them here on EcoCult as one of the most sustainable clothing detergent choices.
But, oops, laundry sheets are also made of PVA/PVOH, and so (allegedly) also contribute to the problem of toxic microplastics.
I was extremely disappointed. Can’t we conscious shoppers do anything right? But when I dug a little deeper into all this news, I realized that the main source of information on this is a cleaning product company. The NYC bill was supported by Blueland, a startup that makes plastic-free cleaning tablets that go in colorful reusable bottles. In fact, I first heard about pods being plastic when a representative for Blueland emailed EcoCult in late 2022, asking if we wanted to share their petition. At the time, I didn’t feel comfortable signing a petition by a company when I wasn’t entirely sure of the science. Since then, there have been more articles in the Washington Post and Grist drawing on Blueland-funded research and talking points.
Unsurprisingly, the mainstream cleaning industry, for which these pods have been very successful and profitable, disagrees with Blueland’s assertion that PVA/PVOH is unsafe and bad for the environment, calling it a “misinformation campaign.”
So essentially, you have a small private cleaning product company against large corporate cleaning product companies. (I reached out to Blueland for an interview. They responded to ask for emailed questions, but did not respond by the time of publication.)
What I want to know is what the scientists are saying. Are pods a type of plastic that produces toxic microplastics? Or are they safe and biodegradable? Let’s find out.
What Are PVA Detergent Pods?
Tide introduced its pods in the early 2010s. The exciting innovation was that the pods housed cleansers, brighteners, and softeners in separate chambers so they wouldn’t mix until they were swishing around in the wash cycle. Really, though, people like them because they’re easy, mess-free, and simple to use. Just take one out of the box or bag and toss it in the machine. Done.
Detergent pods quickly spread, growing to a $3.25 billion market. You can get them from pretty much every large cleaning product company, including Seventh Generation (which is owned by Unilever). Laundry detergent sheets came quickly after.The Cleaning Institute, which represents the largest multinationals including Procter and Gamble, SC Johnson, and Unilever, says pods are eco-friendly because they concentrate the detergent into a pre-measured dose, which means less packaging, less weight (so fewer shipping emissions), and less detergent waste. It also says that the pods, which have plant starches and other natural materials added to the PVA to make them water-soluble PVOH, dissolve and disappear when they come into contact with water, and further biodegrade in the presence of microbes typically found in sewage treatment plants.
Is the PVA in Pods and Sheets Really a Type of Plastic?
While it could technically be made from bio-based ingredients, PVA is typically made from petrochemicals. (Just like almost all your cleaning products, by the way, even the “clean” ones.) That doesn’t necessarily mean PVA can’t biodegrade or that it is toxic.
Is PVA Toxic?
PVA/PVOH is used to make pill capsules — yes it’s the material that encapsulates your health supplements — and eye drops. And it is regarded as safe for oral consumption, plus is considered biodegradable by the European Chemicals Agency, the EPA, and Nordic Ecolabelling.
PVA and especially PVOH don’t seem to be a problem when it comes to microplastics, either. The studies that look for microplastics in the human body tend to find PET (water bottles and polyester), polystyrene (styrofoam), PVC (vinyl), and polypropylene (plastic bags and jugs), but not PVA or PVOH.
Is PVA Biodegradable?
Does PVA in pods and sheets create microfibers? A study that was partially funded by Blueland estimated that nearly 80% of the PVA in the wastewater stream (800 million bottles’ worth of plastic) doesn’t biodegrade and may end up in the environment, either through wastewater from treatment plants, or as sludge that is spread on farms.
(If the fact that sewage sludge is spread on farms weirds you out, well, yeah, it’s a problem. But more because this sludge contains pharmaceuticals and other contaminants. Buy local and organic!)
The study didn’t address whether the release of PVA into the environment is harmful. It just states that PVA is released. But it also assumed that the microbes in wastewater treatment plants weren’t developed according to regular exposure to PVA and so weren’t breaking it down properly. That’s a weird assumption to make if you’re also saying PVA is really common.
Based on this study, last year in April, Blueland and a consortium of non-profits (Beyond Plastics, Lonely Whale, 5 Gyres, Oceanic Global Foundation, The Last Beach Cleanup, Friends of the Earth, Surfrider, and Made Safe, among others) petitioned the EPA to require manufacturers of PVA to fund and conduct health and environmental safety testing using independent, third-party scientists. While that was happening, Blueland and the consortium wanted the EPA to take PVA off of its Safer Chemical Ingredients List.
The EPA rejected that request, saying, in essence, that there’s plenty of evidence that PVA is safe and that the evidence submitted in the petition — studies on microplastics in general and the Blueland-funded study estimating the amount of PVA going into the environment — doesn’t demonstrate that PVA is not safe.
The Cleaning Institute has since released a scorched-earth fact sheet saying the 2021 study had sloppy numbers, and studied a lower-quality, insoluble kind of PVA instead of the PVOH in pods and sheets. (And yes, I noticed that most of the biodegradation research looked at PVA coming from textile finishing plants.)
What Do the Scientists Say About PVA?
I emailed Mike Belliveau, co-founder of the advocacy organization Defend Our Health, and he wrote, “My impression is that the environmental concerns about PVA used in laundry and detergent pods have been overstated. I don’t always agree with EPA and rarely take their decisions as the final word on anything. However, [the EPA’s rejection letter is] a pretty devastating critique of a weakly stated case.”
He said that while some of the sources that EPA relied upon in its decision to reject the petition are detergent-industry studies, others are by independent scientists. “I think that EPA’s conclusion is sound,” he wrote, “that the available scientific evidence suggests that the form of polyvinyl alcohol used in some detergent and laundry pods is highly water soluble, does not form microplastics, likely biodegrades readily in the environment, does not bioaccumulate, and is relatively low toxicity.”
So, essentially, PVA/PVOH doesn’t have the negative qualities of typical plastic.
When I emailed the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a representative wrote: “Corporations that make and sell PVA/PVOH products have doubled down on asserting their material is safe and suggesting there is a ‘debate’ over the safety of PVA/PVOH. But in reality, enough evidence exists to merit further investigation of the impacts of PVA/PVOH on human and ecological health.” The PPC representative went on to say there is no clear evidence that PVA, including the kind used in pods, completely biodegrades.
Look, I don’t usually side with giant trade groups representing corporations, but… I’m unconvinced that the PVOH in pods doesn’t biodegrade, and the weight of evidence points to it being non-toxic. I’m open to being proven wrong, however, if more evidence comes out.
Scientists agree. “Consumers can think of the films on laundry and dish pods as biodegradable,” Ramani Narayan, who studies bioplastics and polymer biodegradation at Michigan State University, told Chemical & Engineering News in 2022. “However, given the many ‘greenwashing’ claims out there, it would be important for such products to be independently third-party-approved lab tested and verified for complete biodegradability.”
Belliveau also thinks more testing could be helpful. “That was one of the petitioners’ reasonable requests, that there be required independent third-party testing to verify industry biodegradability claims.” He thinks another petition with more relevant evidence could be submitted to the EPA.
Instead, Blueland is trying to get pods and detergent sheets banned in the largest economic metropolis in the world. It feels kind of like reverse greenwashing: saying something is terrible for the environment, when it’s not.
So, Should You Buy Detergent Pods and Laundry Detergent Sheets?
I want to be clear: when it comes to toxicity, the problem isn’t the PVA pods. It is the detergents inside the pods.
Fragranced Tide is toxic, we know this. And ironically, Blueland’s campaign doesn’t even seem to be driving people in the right direction. A bunch of people posted on Reddit that when they found out about laundry sheets and pods being plastic, they just switched back to regular Tide. Belliveau also noted that some of the laundry pods, including Tide, have not been listed by EPA as a Safer Choice product, and that Tide uses a different polymer in its pods, a polyvinyl acetate-poly(ethylene oxide) co-monomer.
When I asked the Plastic Pollution Coalition what people who are going plastic-free should use instead of laundry sheets, the representative said to make your own laundry detergent (which is not a good idea), to visit a refill shop (there are none near me), or to buy Blueland or Meloria products.
So, I’m going to give you some good news. You can enjoy your laundry sheets without any environmental guilt or risks to your health. Just choose fragrance- and dye-free products that come in recyclable packaging. And if you like Blueland’s products, purchase away. I have no beef with the concept of tablets and reusable containers. (Though, Blueland’s reusable bottles for other products are plastic).
I just think there are plenty of other more serious plastic and toxic products to fret about. We certainly don’t need to make up more.
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