Still Striving For that Elusive Halo

Last June I blogged (here) about a then new Lenor advert promoting their concentrated fabric conditioner and saying that if we all switched to it then loads of lorries would be taken off the road.  At the time I contacted them asking why they didn’t just make all their fabric conditioner in concentrated form and got a reply (here) stating that it was to give consumers choice.

So imagine my surprise when I saw a new Lenor ad on the TV stating their new ’fragrance’ will only be available in concentrated form.  I applaud them for the decision; however it does rather contradict the idea of consumer choice they once rated so highly!  Call me cynical but I still think it has more to do with their profits than any enviromental impact.

After trying on and off all day, without much luck, to post my contribution to Blog Action Day, it looks like this is going to be the only way to do it.  Please click on the link below which will open up a power point presentation for you to view, for the full effect remember to have the sound switched on.

Blog Action Day

One of the things we tried to do during the re-development was be as ecologically aware as possible, low energy saving fittings, as well as light bulbs, plenty of insulation, I wanted a couple of solar panels or a wind turbine but costs prohibited that during the re-development although we are still hoping in the future to maybe manage one or the other. Two other examples, this time of re-cycling, have been a great success:

This is not slate or grey stone chips as you might imagine but re-cycled tyres, not only do they look good, do something with the mountains to tyres which can no longer be legally driven on, but also any individual who might think of throwing them at the windows will find all they do is harmlessly bounce back at them. You can get them in other colours and sizes but I preferred these grey medium sized ones.

And this is what we have used for fencing and gates, not wood but re-cycled plastic, the initial cost is slightly higher but there will be limited maintenance, so in the long run I reckon it will work out cheaper.

Following a comment by RevRuth with regard to my recent post about Lenor, I did indeed contact them, here for those of you who might be intrested is their reply.

Hello and thanks for your email.

I do appreciate your comments and will certainly pass them on to the relevant departments. We do always try to offer as much choice as possible to our consumers which is why we haven’t automatically discontinued the regular versions although this may be considered in future.

Procter & Gamble is committed to ensuring that our products, packaging and operations are safe for consumers and the environment. For products that go out with your rubbish collection, our approach is to reduce, reuse, recycle, compost or incinerate (with energy recovered) waste prior to landfilling, where it’s environmentally and economically
appropriate.

We’re continually researching alternatives for more environmentally improved products and packaging. For more information about what P&G is doing to achieve this, please visit
http://www.pg.com/company/our_commitment/sustainability.jhtml

Thank you for your interest in our products.

Kind regards,

Fiona

Consumer Relations

In other words - as long as we can still make money out of the big bottles we will continue to make them.

They aren’t fooling me that they make them simply to offer choice, if there was no profit in them they would cease production quick enough!

Has anyone else out there noticed the new Lenor ad, the one encouraging you to buy the concentrated version as it will make lorries disappear off the roads?

When I first saw the ad, I thought, good one, then as it faded from the screen I thought again.

What the ad actually suggests is that those who are watching it are responsible for big artics going down country roads, and the nice people at Lenor would like to stop those big lorries but can’t unless we change our shopping habits! Yes we are responsible for what we buy but hold on a moment, what is stopping them from ceasing manufacturing the big bottles and getting the lorries off the road. If they really cared, rather than that ad, there would have been a press statement reading:

We at Lenor, want to do all we can to ensure our lorries and the lorries that move our products up and down the country are as few in number as possible. We want you to smell our new fragrances in our new concentrate rather than the smell of diesel fumes when you hang out your washing. We want to reduce the amount of plastic filling landfill sites leaving an unknown legacy for our children and grandchildren - so we will be making only concentrated fabric condition in future.

Okay so in an ideal world all fabric conditioners would also contain eco friendly components, but hey it’s a start.