Discover your next big idea at PACK EXPO Las Vegas this September
Experience a breakthrough in packaging & processing and transform your business with solutions from 2,300 suppliers spanning all industries.
REGISTER NOW & SAVE

SC Johnson hopes to catalyze move toward refillables with Windex Mini

SC Johnson commits to leading change toward refillable concentrate products for household cleaning with the introduction of a flexible pouch-packed concentrate.

Windex_Mini
Windex_Mini

SC Johnson has launched Windex® Mini, a concentrated refill pouch that the company says uses 90% less plastic packaging than a traditional 26-oz trigger bottle. Notes SC Johnson, concentrates use less packaging, decrease shipping impacts, and reduce waste that ends up in landfills. Yet sales data shows U.S. consumers prefer not to refill their household cleaning bottles. This means stores won't stock concentrates, and companies hesitate to create them. With this test, SC Johnson says it wants to understand how to motivate consumers and retailers to consider trading up from traditional cleaning methods to a greener choice.

“By conservative estimates, a flexible pouch saves six times as much plastic waste that goes into a landfill compared to a traditional bottle,” says Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. “Refilling with a concentrate is an example of a very small behavior change that could make a real difference in minimizing waste. But many people don't want the inconvenience. We want to crack the code and figure out what it would take to make concentrated refills an accepted—even demanded—choice.”

The Windex Mini concentrated refill pouch launch comes on the heels of Johnson’s speech at the 2011 Fortune Brainstorm Green conference in April. He spoke about the challenge of getting U.S. consumers to adopt concentrates, and his remarks received an enthusiastic response, the company reports. Thus began a go-to-market plan to get Windex Mini concentrated refill pouches into the hands of U.S. consumers in less than 15 weeks.

“The environment isn’t top of mind in most consumer purchases right now, but it needs to be if we’re going to address some of the challenges that future generations could face,” Johnson says. “What we try to do at SC Johnson is get product choices out there that work well and also have a better environmental profile than the ones that came before them.”

Is your palletizing solution leaving money on the floor?
Discover which palletizing technology—robotic, conventional, or hybrid—will maximize your packaging line efficiency while minimizing long-term costs in this comprehensive analysis.
Read More
Is your palletizing solution leaving money on the floor?
2024 PACK EXPO Innovations Reports
Exclusive access: Packaging World editor-curated reports revealing PACK EXPO's most groundbreaking technologies across food, healthcare, and machinery sectors. Each report features truly innovative solutions selected from hundreds of exhibitors by our expert team. Transform your operations with just one click.
Access Now
2024 PACK EXPO Innovations Reports