of plastic packaging are created by U.S. companies every single day — and we can’t recycle 95% of it. The answer? Go Beyond Plastic™ together by removing single-use plastic from packaging, products, and our homes.
Every minute the equivalent of one truckload of plastic enters our oceans. That’s 1,440 truckloads a day.¹
Only 5% of plastic gets recycled, no matter how much you put in the recycling bin.²
That’s only 3.8 million out of 76 million pounds.³
By 2040, plastic waste is expected to double and plastic pollution in our oceans is projected to triple.⁴
The consumer products industry has been built on single-use plastic
And once that plastic is used once, it takes 20 to 500 years to decompose, filling our landfills and polluting our land, oceans, and drinking water.⁵ Clean hair, clean teeth, and clean counters have created a negative environmental impact.
You have the power to break this cycle by choosing home essentials that support environmental solutions instead of environmental destruction—and we’re here to help every step of the way.
The solution: Go Beyond Plastic™
Beyond Plastic™ is our collective dedication to reducing single-use plastic in the products we use every day in order to change the industry as we know it.
Your choices are at the heart of this movement. The purchases you make can—instead of contributing to ecological harm and health risks—positively impact the environment and the world we share.
Every time you shop, you help make progress Beyond Plastic™ in two ways:
Every order is 100% plastic neutral
That means that if you receive any plastic in your order, we remove the exact same amount of ocean-bound plastic from the environment. Since 2020 we have collected over 15 million pounds of plastic, and we are committed to going even further.
See the impact of every product you buy
Each product we sell has been evaluated against our Beyond Plastic™ standard to inform you of products that contain little to no plastic waste, or are reusable or refillable.
These products are 100% plastic-free. There are no plastic lacquers, liners, or coatings.
These products have significantly reduced plastic use compared to conventional alternatives, with key components of their packaging made from materials with greater circularity potential, such as paper, glass, or aluminum, instead of plastic.
These products contain durable, reusable plastic, defined by the EPA as lasting 3 years or more. There is no single-use plastic.
Based on Grove’s expertise and commitment to moving our industry away from its reliance on single-use plastic, we consider non-plastic alternatives — paper, glass, aluminum, tin, and steel — to be more circular than plastic primarily due to higher circularity and lower environmental and health impacts. While there is no perfect material, here’s why we prioritize non-plastic alternatives:
Recyclability
We prioritize materials that have higher recycling rates than plastic. Only 5% of plastic gets recycled, no matter how much we put in our bins.² Paper is widely recycled and compostable and can be broken down and repurposed more easily than plastic.³ When responsibly sourced, it can have a lower overall environmental footprint. Glass is highly recyclable — it can be re-melted and reshaped indefinitely without losing quality. Aluminum, tin, and steel are metals that are infinitely recyclable without losing their quality and integrity. Recycling aluminum, for example, uses 95% less energy than producing new aluminum, making it extremely efficient in terms of resource conservation.⁶
Circularity Potential
Our goal is to reduce plastic waste and keep materials in use for as long as possible. We consider these non-plastic materials more "circular" because they have higher potential to be part of a closed-loop system. They have a longer life cycle than plastic, which often degrades in quality during recycling, or ends up in landfills and oceans. Recycled plastic often cannot be made into the same products of equal quality, which means plastic is almost always part of a linear, single-use consumption model.⁷
Environmental and Human Impact
Plastic production causes long-term environmental pollution, including microplastic contamination. Microplastics are tiny plastic particles less than 5mm in size that pose significant human and environmental risks — found in our ecosystems, waterways, air we breathe, and even human organs.⁸ By prioritizing non-plastic alternatives we hope to minimize our impact on the growing issue of microplastic pollution and its potential threat to human health.⁹
By choosing materials with higher recyclability and circularity potential — and a lower environmental and human impact — we’ll continue to advance towards our sustainability commitments and move our industry Beyond Plastic™.
Your Grove order removes the weight of 26 plastic water bottles from nature on average
Our partners
Rather than charting this course on our own, we’re committed to working with partners that align with our values, provide counsel to us, and help turn our commitments into real actions.
Grove is plastic neutral in partnership with rePurpose Global, the world’s leading plastic action platform. Our partnership focuses on the collection of hard-to-recycle, low-value plastics (such as candy wrappers or chip bags), and supports local plastic waste management infrastructure in India and Kenya.
A nonprofit leader in the global movement against plastic pollution, 5 Gyres drives upstream solutions through scientific research, education, advocacy, and community building.
We will always collect the plastic weight equivalent to the amount of plastic in your order. You can further support ocean-bound plastic pollution collection in India through Grove’s Environmental Impact Shop.
Reduce plastic waste in every room
Laundry
Cleaning
Personal Care
Health & Wellness
Kitchen
Whole Home
Beyond Plastic™ FAQs
Is one Beyond Plastic™ badge better than the others?
While we consider products that are 100% plastic-free as best-in-class, we recognize that achieving this for every product or category is not yet possible. Beyond Plastic™ is our effort to recognize progress and celebrate the best available solutions, even if they contain plastic. Products that meet our 95%+ Plastic Free and No Single Use Plastic badges are still great ways to reduce plastic waste at home and are more sustainable options than conventional alternatives containing single-use plastic.
Why do some products that look 100% Plastic-Free — like aluminum bottles or laundry pods — have the 95%+ Plastic Free badge?
Aluminum packaging requires a very thin plastic coating on the inside of the bottle to keep the liquid from interacting with the aluminum. These coatings can be found in soda cans, laundry detergent, hand soap, and many other products that are packaged in aluminum, but do not affect the recyclability of aluminum. Because of the inclusion of the thin plastic coating, we designate our aluminum packaging as 95%+ Plastic Free.
While no material is perfect, 75% of all aluminum that has ever been produced globally is still in use today and, unlike other materials, it can be recycled infinitely. In the US, only 5%1 of plastic gets recycled versus 45%6 of aluminum, making aluminum a more environmentally friendly alternative to plastic.
Our laundry pods, auto dishwashing pods, and laundry sheets also contain small amounts of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA), which is used to create water soluble films that help hold together monodose products. We take PVA into account when determining if a product meets our Beyond Plastic™ standard.
Why are products containing reusable plastic still considered Beyond Plastic™?
Our goal is to move our industry away from its reliance on single-use plastics as much as possible. Our Grove Co. Reusable Cleaning Glass Spray Bottle is a good example. This product has the No Single Use Plastic badge and helps you identify the best available solution over a single-use plastic alternative. A refillable, reusable bottle designed for use with a concentrated household cleaner, this product helps avoid single-use plastic use (versus using a household cleaner packaged in single-use plastic). Currently, there is no plastic-free sprayer available on the market that makes it possible to transition this product away from plastic entirely, though we’re always seeking out plastic-free innovations that work just as well (or better!) than the plastic options.
Why don’t all Grove Co. products have a Beyond Plastic™ badge?
Our goal for every Grove Co. product is to provide a better option for the planet, with zero tradeoffs for you. If a product made with alternative materials doesn’t work as well for you—or if it isn’t affordable—we don’t consider that a win.
We're proud of every Grove Co. product we make and are always seeking out new materials and innovations where there is currently no functional and affordable plastic-free solution.
Want to learn more? Read our Plastic Scorecard, the first of its kind in our industry.
Sources
² Only 5% of plastic is recycled in the U.S., no matter how much we put in our bins
³ 76 million pounds of plastic are put into American’s recycling bins each year
⁶ Recycling aluminum uses 95% less energy than producing new aluminum
⁷ Recycled plastic often cannot be made into the same products of equal quality
⁸ Microplastics are found in our ecosystems, waterways, air we breathe, and even human organs