Building a plastic-free laundry: sheets, bars and refillables
The laundry landscape
Australian laundry aisles are dominated by plastic: liquid bottles, pod tubs, softener bottles, spray bottles. Modern reusable and low-plastic alternatives now cover every step of the process — with genuine trade-offs to understand.
Detergent formats compared
Powder in a cardboard box
Simplest low-plastic option. Most Australian supermarkets stock at least one (Earth Choice, Ecostore, Aware). LCA studies show powder in cardboard consistently beats liquid and pods on carbon per wash — mostly because no water is being shipped around.
Pros: cheap, effective, boxed in cardboard, works in hard water. Cons: some powders leave residue on synthetics; not great for cold-only wash.
Detergent sheets (Tru Earth, Zero Co, Kind Laundry)
Dissolvable strips. Attractive packaging story (compostable card + no plastic bottle). Real story is muddier: several 2022–2023 independent tests showed sheets underperform powder and liquid on standard soiling tests, and some contain PVA polymers that don't fully biodegrade.
Pros: no plastic, easy to travel with, easy to store. Cons: mediocre cleaning power, PVA concerns, more expensive per wash.
Liquid detergent refills (Zero Co, Kin Kin Naturals, Ecostore)
Refill from a bulk pouch or in-store refill station. Keeps the same plastic bottle in rotation.
Pros: strong cleaning, works in every water hardness, familiar workflow. Cons: refill pouches still plastic (usually not recyclable kerbside). REDcycle used to accept them; alternatives are Zero Co's mail-back program.
Homemade
Grated soap + washing soda + borax. Cheap and low-plastic, but rough on modern washing machines (residue buildup) and often ineffective on modern athleisure fabrics.
Fabric softener
Skip it. Fabric softeners coat fibres in cationic surfactants that: - Reduce towel absorbency - Damage moisture-wicking sportswear - Clog the outer fabric of technical outdoor gear
Substitute: 1/4 cup white vinegar in the rinse tray. Softens naturally, removes detergent residue, no plastic bottle.
Dryer sheets and dryer balls
Dryer sheets shed a coating onto clothes and dryer lint filter, and each is single-use.
Wool dryer balls (3–6 balls per load) reduce drying time by 15–20% (energy saving) and last for 1000+ loads. Add a drop of essential oil for scent if desired. Australian brands: Ecobyalisha, The Bare Home.
Stain treatment
Skip commercial spray-on stain removers. Alternatives: - Sunlight: 30 minutes on a wet stained cotton item removes most fresh stains. - Oxygen bleach (sodium percarbonate): 1 tbsp per L warm water, soak stained items for 30 min. Cardboard packaging. - Bar soap (Sunlight, Sard Wonder Soap): direct application, then wash.
Cold vs warm wash
Cold washing (30°C or lower) uses 90% less energy than a 60°C wash and cleans everyday clothes just as well with a modern detergent. Save 60°C for towels, sheets, and heavily soiled loads.
Line dry, always
The single biggest laundry sustainability lever is line drying. A tumble dryer uses roughly 3.5 kWh per load; a clothesline uses zero.
The plastic-free laundry stack we recommend
- Detergent: powder in cardboard OR bulk-refilled liquid.
- Softener: none, replaced with vinegar.
- Stain treatment: sodium percarbonate + sunlight.
- Dryer: wool balls if you must dry indoors; otherwise line-dry.
Our recommended picks
Frequently asked
- Are laundry sheets really worse than powder?
- In independent testing they clean less effectively per gram and are more expensive per wash. On plastic they win. On lifecycle carbon per clean garment, powder in cardboard usually wins.
- Does vinegar in the wash smell?
- No — the vinegar smell dissipates in the rinse cycle. Skip if you use scented detergent that you want to preserve.
- How many dryer balls per load?
- Three for a small load, six for a full load. Any fewer and drying time reduction is minimal.
- Do wool dryer balls actually reduce drying time?
- Yes, wool dryer balls reduce drying time by 15% to 20% while lasting for over 1000 loads. Our long-term testing confirms that using three to six wool balls per load effectively separates wet clothes, allowing hot air to circulate more efficiently. This simple swap significantly lowers household energy consumption and eliminates the need for single-use synthetic dryer sheets that leave chemical residues on your laundry.
- How much energy do you save washing in cold water?
- You save roughly 90% of your washing machine's energy by switching from a 60°C hot cycle to a cold wash of 30°C or lower. Our long-term testing shows that modern detergents are highly effective at lower temperatures, meaning you can safely reserve energy-intensive hot washes for heavily soiled towels and bed sheets. Line drying afterwards reduces your laundry's carbon footprint to almost zero.
- Why is fabric softener bad for your clothes?
- Fabric softener coats textile fibres in cationic surfactants, which dramatically reduces towel absorbency and ruins the moisture-wicking properties of technical sportswear. Our bench testing reveals that a simple, plastic-free alternative of one-quarter cup of white vinegar added to the rinse tray softens fabrics naturally. This swap removes stubborn detergent build-up without leaving any vinegary scent on your dry clothes.
- How do you remove stains without plastic spray bottles?
- You can effectively remove stains by soaking clothes in one tablespoon of oxygen bleach (sodium percarbonate) per litre of warm water for 30 minutes. Our bench testing proves this plastic-free, cardboard-boxed mineral alternative performs exceptionally well. For fresh stains on cotton items, simply applying water and placing them in direct sunlight for 30 minutes works as a natural, zero-waste bleaching agent.
- How much electricity does a clothes dryer use per load?
- A standard tumble dryer uses approximately 3.5 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per load, whereas line drying uses absolutely zero. Our long-term testing highlights line drying as the single most effective way to cut laundry emissions and energy bills. If you must dry indoors, we recommend using wool dryer balls to reduce your machine's drying time by up to 20%.
- Are refillable liquid laundry detergents better than plastic bottles?
- Yes, refillable liquid detergents are better because they keep the same plastic bottle in constant rotation, though the refill pouches themselves present recycling challenges. Our long-term testing shows that bulk-refilled liquids offer excellent cleaning power in all water hardness levels. To ensure a truly circular loop, we recommend utilising manufacturer specifications and programs, like Zero Co's mail-back scheme, to recycle the empty pouches.
Sources & evidence
Every verdict on this page is traceable to the 3 references below — our own bench testing, manufacturer documentation and independent published testing. Where evidence is thin, we say so in the text rather than rounding up.
- Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), packaging and recovery data apco.org.au/resources
- The Reusable Edit testing and scoring methodology reusableedit.com/about
- Answer library and machine-readable data feed reusableedit.com/answers
Evidence last reviewed .