New Soap, Old Bottle – Reducing Trash with Reuse

recycled bottle packagingA great idea to help reduce the impact of discarded plastic bottles and preventing further unnecessary packaging at the same time.

New Soap, Old Bottle is a company founded by Scott Amron that bottles new bulk name-brand soap into sanitized used old plastic soda bottles, plastic water bottles, and beer bottles.

Packaged in America and finished with a child safe spray, pump or squeeze top, these new-old bottles will perform as well or even better than those you are used to.


New Soap is an eco-initiative. Our goal is to make it easy for companies to offer their products packaged in old bottles, giving the consumer a greener option.

New Soap, Old Bottle saves two bottles for each bottle sold. That’s the bottle that would have been manufactured and the bottle rescued.


Several products and cleaning supplies are available, including liquid soap, car wash, window cleaner (windex), all purpose cleaner (409 spray), dish soap, windshield wiper fluid, with more to come. Plus the bottles are kind of fun in a funky kind of way, now if we could only get the bottles filled with a more eco-friendly biodegradable and non-toxic product like Method. Hmm, do I smell a collaboration?

[via ecolect]

UPDATE: It appears New Soap Old Bottle is no longer in business, but I’d like to continue the conversation around the re-use of containers in creative ways. Check out the tag ReUse for more products and ideas!

Comments 9

  1. This is a great concept, my company makes a liquid soap from 100% post-consumer recycled content. We have wanted to package our liquid soap in used soda bottles for a while, but we are concerned about copyright infringement. Most soda bottles carry the brand name as part of the plastic bottle mold.

    For example coke bottles have the Coca Cola logo as part of the plastic mold. Additionally the silhouette of the coke bottle is also trademarked. Have you had any issues with this? Perhaps once the bottles are discarded, this “trash” can be used in any fashion for repackaging??

    We have considered reheating these bottles and deforming them to the point of being unrecognizable.

    Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks.

    1. Post
      Author

      Dan C,

      That sounds excellent! I am not familiar with copyright law as it pertains to packaging, and would urge you to contact New Soap, Old Bottle directly. I have forwarded them your email address along with this comment, so hopefully you guys can work something out.

      Cheers!
      -JP

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  4. This is NOT an “eco-friendly” product.

    “New Soap, Old Bottle”(NSOB) purchases liquid soap from other companies to resell the same soap in their recycled bottles. In other words, NSOB buys liquid soap from company “A”, THROWS AWAY the empty bottles from company “A” and refills their recycled bottles with liquid soap. NSOB is not reducing trash disposal!

    It looks like a good idea, but it is nothing more than a scheme..

  5. Post
    Author

    Pablo,

    I think you have a great point, if this is the case. I was under the impression that the liquids were bought in bulk (ie. large buckets) in which case there is still some waste, but a great reduction in packaging and bottles when compared to the traditional product.

    Regardless, I think it is a great way to get people talking about packaging and become more aware of how much we throw away without even thinking.

    I will try and contact them to get their response to your statement and comment about it a bit more.

    Thanks for contributing!

    Jean-Paul

  6. Has anyone successfully contacted this company? I reached out to them a few times now, all I’m looking for is information on how they sterilize their bottles. Does anyone on here have any helpful insight on the matter? Any bit of info will help, I will even go as far as inquire as to where to purchase this sterilizing machinery. I’ve been searching for a long time now to find a company that sanitizes recycled plastic water bottles, and as of now purchasing the machinery seems like the only way as I was unable to come across such company.

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