Last year I posted about my new purchase of an Eco Egg.
WHAT IS IT?
An Eco Egg is a refillable egg where you use mineral based pellets to wash your laundry. It doesn’t contain any parabens, palm oil, chlorine bleaches or any other nasties for your skin and the ocean. It also helps reduce single use plastic like those awful plastic tubs gel tablets come in or the plastic coated cardboard boxes washing powder comes in. Also, this beauty is UK made, meaning less of a carbon footprint when having to ship it AND more UK based jobs.
HOW TO USE IT
Basically how the eco egg works is you load the washing machine with all the items you want to put in that wash, chuck the egg on the top filled with the pellets, shut the door and switch it on. Simples. No measuring out liquid or powder spilling all on the floor as those measuring scoops are never the right size or trying to open that fiddly AF box for a capsule or pulling two capsules apart and one exploding in your hand. It is a really streamline and lazy way to wash really.
Also as well as being a SUPER SUSTAINABLE it is also an economical way to wash as well. Why you ask, well imma tell ya!!
THE COST OF IT
This nifty little reusable egg costs £9.99 (sometimes £6.50 in Waitrose when on offer) and the refillable pellets cost £4.99 (sometimes £3.25 from Waitrose when on offer) for 70 washes.
THE SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING
The egg itself is plastic yes (but recyclable with a 10 year guarantee unlike the plastic boxes your gel tabs come in that you bin after the 32nd wash) and the pellets come in cardboard boxes and the refillable pellets come in small plastic bags (which isn’t ideal but they are recyclable within the carrier bag recycling section of your local supermarket which is better than those clunky half filled hard plastic boxes of tablets) to keep them fresh.
PRO's AND CON's
I think all the pro's are basically listed in this blog anyway so I'll just express what I feel are con's.
The egg you can get on the high street is just general washing, so it doesn't work well for your whites.l We have only recently found this out unfortunately and e had noticed our whites didn't tay white for long. We assumed this was the case due to the dark pellets, so we have recently purchased a white egg to use separately and as the pellets don't have a shelf life once loaded into the egg, it doesn't matter if one is used more than the other.
Some people stress about knowing how many washes you have left or have done, they do have a downloadable sheet which you could tape to the inside of your cupboard and tick off each time you do a wash (if you laminate it and use non permanent pens you are wasting paper either). Or if you turn the egg upside down, if the pellets run past the bottom section it means it's ready to refill; we've been using it for over a year now and use the latter method way of checking.
Now the best part…
THE SAVINGS
A family of 4 will do on average 10 loads of washing a week so that’s potentially 520 washes a year (also how terrifying is that figure).
The eco egg does 50 washes from one pack of pellets, to get 50 washes of gel filled capsules you would need to buy two hard plastic boxes from the supermarket (on average 25 tablets per a box).
You would need 20 gel tablet boxes a year which on average are £5 per a box = £100 a year & works out at 19p per a wash.
You would only need 10 Eco egg refill pellets = £49.99 a year. Now granted you had to buy the egg initially but even if we add the egg and split it per a wash (for the first year and rounding down the first box of pellets to 50 as there are 70 washes that come with the egg) it still only works out at 11p per a wash and then 9p per a wash going forward.
Not only are you saving the planet but you would also potentially be saving yourself £50.01 a year which with the energy prices going up by on average £700 a year, that is one step closer to saving yourself money to try and break even.
Also, little personal saving note, I buy my packs when they are on offer and I buy enough boxes to cover me for the year when I do, so if you are a family of 4 doing those 520 washes a year, they would only cost you 6p per a wash, bargain.
It’s not about being cheap, its about being savvy!!!
I know that was a long ass blog but sometimes you need someone to break it down for you to make you realise how much you could be saving and not just being a hippy dippy floaty eco warrior!!
P.S. For those like myself and Jason that only do 5 washes a week you would only need 5 boxes meaning your yearly outgoings (once you bought the egg) would be £24.95 (or £16.25 if you buy them on sale), no brainer!!
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