Why Single Use Ain’t Sexy’s founder is on a mission to “cut the Christmas crap” this silly season

The founder of eco soap startup Single Use Ain’t Sexy is urging Australians to “cut the Christmas crap” this year by shopping sustainably, as up to 20 million unwanted gifts and the packaging they come in can end up cast aside or in landfill by the New Year.

Josh Howard describes his product line as “Berocca for hand wash” — it’s a concentrated dissolvable cleaning product that is dropped into a refillable glass bottle requiring only tap water to activate into a powerful lather.

The founder, who worked in the media space before launching his company, says many consumers don’t realise how much of a store-bought cleaning product is plain old water, nor would they realise the huge carbon footprint of transporting that water.

Howard was also disturbed by the extraordinary amount of earth-damaging plastic and superfluous packaging that comes with a single bottle of hand soap — and “that’s where we come in,” he says.

“We started Single Use Ain’t Sexy because we saw a plastic problem, so we wanted to come up with a solution,” he said.

“Each time someone uses another one of our just-add-water dissolvable hand soap tablets, they save another single-use soap bottle from Aussie landfill.”

And it seems Howard hit a nerve with both consumers and big-name commercial customers alike, both of which have flocked to his online store to snap up the innovative product ($3 when purchased in a refill pack of 10) since launching 2.5 years ago.

Within 24 hours of launching his equity crowdfunding campaign, Howard raised over $170,000 in capital, which doubled and tripled over the next few days. By the end of the first week, it hit $700,000.

“We sold out twice within our first year of business and since then we’ve seen continued growth across thousands of Aussie households, businesses, restaurants, gyms, clinics and other locations,” Howard said.

“Some of our partners who we supply hand soap to include Airbnb, Amazon, WeWork, Zip, Klarna, Mr Yum, Broadsheet, Strong Pilates and lots more.”

This weekend, Howard is taking his startup to the streets with a pop-up in Melbourne’s Toorak where consumers can top up their hand soap in a completely guilt-free way using no transport, no packaging, and absolutely no single-use plastic bottles.

Consumers who can’t make it down can rest assured their tablets are turning up in Australian-made delivery boxes, which are recyclable and biodegradable, with compostable wrapping for each product on the horizon too.

So what is Howard’s advice for businesses looking to “cut the Christmas crap” and reduce the amount of plastic and wastage they produce this frenzied silly season? Easy, the founder says: “Start small.”

“This may include introducing initiatives such as using reusable carry bags, wrapping paper made from second-hand materials, packaging recycling bins in-store, or offering incentives to customers to return empty bottles,” he said.

“It can actually be really fun creating cheap and easy ways to help customers go green.”