Every year 79% of single-use plastic waste ends in landfills, dumps, and the natural environment. Pledging to just recycling is clearly not enough, studies show only 9% of plastic waste is actually broken down, repurposed, and reused. As such, Cleaners & Dorm Essentials is making a Sustainability Pledge to participate in a system of change towards responsible consumption of our goods and services.

To start, we are pledging to remove single-use plastic from our water delivery service. We will no longer be selling 24 water pack deliveries, instead solely offering our water cooler plan to the Harvard campus. The justification behind this is simple — single use plastic bottles follow a linear system of consumption, whilst our water cooler plan is part of a closed system; the latter significantly reduces plastic waste. 

An industry standard 5-gallon jug used in our water cooler plan is the equivalent of approximately 37 single-use plastic bottles. It is clear a simple switch such as this will have a significant effect on an individual’s plastic consumption over the course of a typical academic year.