Plastic Free July: our green footprint, by the numbers

Resparkle plastic-free, industrially compostable laundry refill sachet beside a fresh orange slice

By the Resparkle team, a small family business based in Brisbane. Last updated: 2026-07-02.

TL;DR

Plastic Free July is a global campaign that started in Western Australia in 2011 and now involves an estimated 174 million people a year (Plastic Free Foundation, 2024). The idea is simple: for the month of July, choose to refuse single-use plastic wherever you reasonably can. This piece explains what the movement is, why laundry is a bigger plastic story than most people expect, and exactly what our own footprint looks like. Through our partnership with Greenspark, and at the time of writing, we have contributed 25 trees planted, 6,044 plastic bottles recovered, and 30,220 kg of CO2 offset since November 2024. Those numbers are public and update in real time. We also share simple swaps you can make this month that genuinely stick.

What is Plastic Free July?

Plastic Free July began in 2011 in Western Australia, started by Rebecca Prince-Ruiz and a small team in local government. It has since grown into one of the world's largest environmental campaigns, run by the Plastic Free Foundation, an independent not-for-profit charity.

The challenge is deliberately approachable: for the month of July, you choose to refuse single-use plastics, one swap at a time. There is no membership fee and no all-or-nothing rule. You pick the changes that fit your household and keep the ones that work past July.

The scale is worth pausing on. According to the Plastic Free Foundation, participants over a recent seven-year period collectively avoided more than 15 million tonnes of waste, including around 1.7 million tonnes of plastic. The campaign's own framing is the useful one: small changes, made by a lot of people, add up to something measurable.

That last idea, small changes adding up to a measurable number, is exactly how we think about our own footprint. So this July, we wanted to show ours honestly rather than talk in vague green language.

The plastic problem hiding in the laundry aisle

If you are already thinking about single-use plastic this month, the laundry aisle is worth a second look. Conventional laundry detergent is mostly water, packaged in a large plastic jug that gets used once and thrown out. A typical household moves through several of those jugs a year, and the plastic is only part of the cost: shipping water around the country in heavy plastic bottles also carries a carbon footprint.

This is where a concentrated, plastic-free format changes the maths. Remove the water, remove the plastic jug, and you remove most of the packaging and a good chunk of the shipping weight at the same time. It is one of the more effortless plastic swaps a household can make, because you still do laundry exactly the way you always have.

For a deeper look at how the formats compare, see Powder vs sheets vs liquid: which eco laundry format wins and our Eco laundry powder Australia buyer's guide.

Our green footprint, by the numbers

We would rather show you a public ledger than make a claim you cannot check. We partner with Greenspark, which tracks environmental contributions transparently and publishes a live impact page for every business it works with. Here is ours, at the time of writing (July 2026):

Contribution Total so far What it means
Trees planted 25 Roughly 100 square metres of forest area
Plastic recovered 6,044 plastic bottles Ocean-bound plastic collected and diverted
CO2 offset 30,220 kg (about 30.2 tonnes) Verified carbon offset

These figures have been building since we joined Greenspark in November 2024, and they are certified Earth Positive.

To put the carbon number in perspective, 30.2 tonnes of CO2 is roughly the same as taking an average car off the road for about 120,000 kilometres of driving, or around 32 return flights between London and Los Angeles. The 6,044 bottles are the equivalent of more than 240,000 plastic straws kept out of landfill. They are not enormous numbers for a multinational, but we are a small family business, and every one of them is real, measured, and public.

You can see the live totals here: Resparkle's Greenspark impact page. Because it updates in real time, the numbers on that page may be a little higher than the ones above by the time you read this.

How every order adds to the total

The ledger grows because the contributions are tied to what we actually sell, not to a one-off marketing pledge. For every order:

  • 2 plastic bottles are recovered from the environment through Greenspark.
  • 10 kg of CO2 is offset through verified carbon projects.
  • Through our separate partnership with One Tree Planted, one tree is planted for every 2 litres of single-use plastic our refill formats help prevent, supporting bushfire forest restoration.

In other words, the footprint above is simply the sum of a lot of ordinary washes. That is the part we are proud of: it is not a campaign that ends in July, it is built into the product year-round.

How we designed plastic out of the product

The most reliable way to avoid single-use plastic is to not create it in the first place. A few of the choices behind the range:

  • Plastic-free, compostable packaging. Our Natural Laundry Powder ships in a bag described as plastic-free and industrially compostable (certified to the Australian standard AS 4736). We are upfront that industrially compostable is not the same as home compostable, and we explain the difference in Compostable vs biodegradable packaging: what's the difference.
  • Concentrated, just-add-water refills. Removing the water is what lets us remove the plastic jug. It also cuts shipping weight, which is why the carbon side of the ledger moves too.

None of this is about being perfect. It is about making the honest, verifiable choice at each step, and being clear about the trade-offs. If you want to know how to tell a substantiated claim from a vague one, we wrote a plain-English guide: Is your laundry detergent greenwashing? Here's how to check.

Your Plastic Free July: simple swaps that actually stick

You do not need to overhaul your whole house. Pick two or three of these, and keep the ones that fit. The best plastic swap is the one you will still be doing in August.

In the laundry:

  • Switch from a single-use plastic detergent jug to a concentrated, plastic-free refill. It is the same wash, minus the plastic and most of the water weight.
  • Wash on cold where you can. It saves energy and is gentler on clothes, which makes them last longer.
  • Only run full loads. Fewer washes means less packaging, water, and energy over a year.

In the kitchen:

  • Keep two or three reusable produce bags in your regular shopping bag so they are actually there when you need them.
  • Swap cling film for beeswax wraps or a reusable container.
  • Buy pantry staples in bulk or in refillable formats where your local shop offers them.

In the bathroom:

  • Try a bar format for soap, and increasingly for shampoo and conditioner, to skip the plastic bottle.
  • Choose a bamboo or recycled toothbrush.
  • Keep a refillable water bottle by the door so single-use bottles never make it into the basket.

The point of Plastic Free July is not guilt. It is noticing where single-use plastic sneaks into your week, and quietly designing a few of those moments out.

A small business, being straight about the numbers

It would be easy to write a page full of leaves and blue oceans and warm words that mean nothing. We would rather give you a link to a ledger you can audit.

We are a small family team based in Brisbane. Our products are made in Australia, and we partner with Brunswick Industries, which employs people with disabilities, and Brite Industries. The impact numbers on this page are modest by design: they are what a business our size has genuinely contributed, published in full, rather than a rounded-up figure chosen to impress. As the numbers grow, so will the totals on that public page, and you will always be able to check them.

That is the version of sustainability we can stand behind: verifiable, specific, and tied to real products rather than a July press release.

FAQ

When is Plastic Free July? Plastic Free July runs for the whole month of July, every year. Many people carry the swaps they like into the rest of the year, which is really the point of the campaign.

What is the Plastic Free July challenge? It is an invitation to choose to refuse single-use plastic during July, one swap at a time. There is no fee and no strict rulebook. You choose the changes that suit your household and keep the ones that work.

How do I take part in Plastic Free July? Pick a few single-use plastic items you use regularly (shopping bags, cling film, drink bottles, detergent jugs) and swap them for reusable or plastic-free alternatives. Start with two or three, not everything at once.

Is Resparkle's packaging really plastic-free? Our Natural Laundry Powder ships in packaging described as plastic-free and industrially compostable, certified to AS 4736. Industrially compostable is not the same as home compostable, which means a commercial composting facility is the intended end-of-life pathway. We explain the distinction in full in our compostable vs biodegradable guide.

How does buying Resparkle reduce plastic and carbon? Every order triggers verified contributions through our partners: 2 plastic bottles recovered and 10 kg of CO2 offset via Greenspark, plus tree planting through One Tree Planted. The running totals are published on our Greenspark impact page.

What does Earth Positive mean? Earth Positive is a certification, provided through Greenspark, indicating that a business is funding environmental contributions (like tree planting, plastic recovery, and carbon offsetting) that go beyond simply neutralising its own footprint.

Sources

Keep reading

Ready to make one easy plastic swap this July? Our concentrated, plastic-free Natural Laundry Powder is the same wash without the single-use jug, and every order adds to the impact numbers above.

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