Consumers don’t like to waste food items like peanut butter and mayonnaise and beauty items like toothpaste and body lotion. They dislike it so much, in fact, that they will take extreme measures to get every last drop, according to results of a survey conducted by LiquiGlide.
The company, whose technology allows viscous liquids to move easily, surveyed more than 1,000 consumers about their attitudes and habits related to the packaging, use, waste and disposal of sticky consumer goods. The results offer insight into how much consumers dislike wasting consumer goods and why.
When told how much shampoo, conditioner, mayonnaise, laundry detergent, toothpaste and body lotion the average person throws away, 89 percent of those surveyed said they think it’s “a huge waste,” and 85 percent said they hate that they’re not getting the full value of what they paid for. While 57 percent of respondents think manufacturers are “screwing them over,” 60 percent said that what bothers them most is the wasted money.
When asked to rate their dislike for certain activities on a scale of 1 to 10, wasting consumer products received an average score of 4.8 — the same as doing taxes and more than going to the dentist and doing chores.
When asked how much money they thought they lost annually because they couldn’t get to the last few drops of a product, 60 percent estimated between $1 and $49, and 33 percent estimated $50 or more. Just over 15 percent of consumers cited environmental concerns for why they dislike waste, and 20 percent said it’s a matter of getting everything that they paid for.
The survey also revealed some of the measures people will take to get all of the product out of its packaging — everything from storing bottles upside down and adding water to cutting containers open and using spatulas and centrifugal force. Thirteen percent of people even reported having injured themselves in the pursuit of retrieving the very last drop.
Packaging that eliminates waste would likely be enough to get many consumers to change brands, the survey found. More than half of respondents — 74 percent for body lotion, 71 percent for toothpaste, 69 percent for laundry detergent, 68 percent for shampoo, 67 percent for conditioner and 60 percent for mayonnaise — said they would be willing to try a new brand if it had more efficient packaging.
