Vileda Bee Mop Classic Sponge Roller Mop- If You Don’t Want a Disposable Mop Don’t Buy This One

I bought one of these Vileda Bee mops at Walmart when I was preparing to move out of my last place. I used it twice and the sponge part started to fall off of the metal that anchors it to the mop. It was separating at the sides. It was useless. I was very annoyed that it only lasted two uses and I figured that it must be defective. So, I took it back to Walmart and exchanged it for a new Vileda Bee mop.

I used the new Vileda Bee mop once and then when I got it out to use it the second time, I noticed that the sponge was separating off of the metal anchor again. It was almost impossible to use with the sponge head wobbling and not making proper contact with the floor. It was infuriating. After the second use, the sponge had almost completely separated off of the metal and it can no longer be used.

The sponge started separating off the metal head of my second Vileda mop after only one use, this is after two uses.

The sponge itself on the part that touches the floor is in great shape because I've only used it twice, but it's unusable due to the sponge separating off of the metal at the back.

Two uses and this mop is garbage. What a disappointment.

Now I have an infant and I can’t just go waltzing off to Walmart every second mopping to exchange my Vileda Bee mop for a new one. So, I’m stuck with an unusable mop and have to buy a new mop (definitely a different brand) off of Amazon or some place that can deliver to my house.

I wondered if this bad mop experience was just me, so I went onto the Walmart Canada website and looked at the reviews for this mop. The average review score has to be one of the lowest I’ve ever seen on Walmart, 1.8 stars out of 5. Wow that’s bad. I just can’t believe that Vileda would continue to produce these pieces of garbage. Clearly, it’s not just my two mops that were pure junk, as so many people are experiencing the same issue that I am with the sponge head separating from the metal and becoming unusable after one or two uses. According to some reviewers and some older people that I know, these used to be good and durable mops so I don’t know what exactly went wrong, but Vileda needs to get it together and stop producing mops that will end up in the landfill almost immediately. There is no way to recycle these junk mops, so they’re just a pile of garbage and a big waste.

Update March 21, 2018

I filled in a customer contact form on the Vileda website a few weeks ago. Eventually, a representative from Vileda emailed me and asked me to provide a receipt and pictures of the defective bee mop head. I told them that I would have to dig for the receipt and I was annoyed that I had already had to waste this much time (for a second time as my first bee mop failed as well). I sent them pictures. They claimed that my warranty had expired (how could they tell this without a receipt?) and that this was not a normal problem for bee mops (are they ignoring all the reviews out there online of their bee mop?!). Nevertheless, they said they would send me coupons that should be enough to purchase a refill head for the bee mop (they said on average they were $9.00 in Canada). They actually did send me the coupons ($5 and two $2) and I bought a refill for the bee mop (it was well within price range at Canadian Tire). I appreciate that Vileda was willing to let me try their product again and that they will at least stand behind their products to some degree. I have yet to test the new mop head, but I’m not optimistic that the third time will be the charm.

Crest 3D White Toothpaste: Whiter Teeth with Worrying Waste

What a waste of cardboard.

I’ve blogged before about wasteful packaging of toothpastes (you can find the post here). I’ve decided to blog about it again, because it seems like toothpaste companies are not changing their packaging of toothpaste.

My favourite toothpaste is Crest 3D White. I am not a fan of the packaging though. Not only is the box that houses the toothpaste unnecessary in my opinion (why couldn’t just a safety seal be used on the tube?), it is also larger than is needed, and very highly coloured and shiny, indicating that a lot of resources go into producing it. This is a ridiculous waste. Who is going to reuse a toothpaste box? It’s going straight into the recycling box (and this doesn’t make sense because reducing is better than recycling which is a waste of resources if the item is not even needed or used), unless the purchaser doesn’t even recycle, in which case it will be going to the landfill creating even more garbage.

This box is shiny and highly coloured. It's definitely wasteful.

So much wasted space in this box. What a waste of cardboard.

This box is too big for the tube of toothpaste and in any event completely unnecessary.

I try to buy the largest size of toothpaste that I can, so that I reduce the number of boxes that come out of my toothpaste use (smaller toothpastes seem to have even more overlarge boxes, perhaps because companies think that they can trick us into thinking the tubes of toothpaste are larger than they actually are), but really, I would just prefer it if they abandoned their box system all together. I have seen lipsticks and other cosmetics and skin care items that come with no box and only a safety seal. Why can’t we do this for toothpastes and reduce the waste and impact on the world that we make when we brush our teeth?

Finish Powerball Dishwasher Detergent Tabs: Individually Wrapped for More Waste!

Individually wrapped for more waste.

I recently changed dishwasher detergent. Previously I had used Sunlight "Power Pacs." They came in a plastic box with a lid and the directions stated very clearly that if they got wet there would be trouble, hence the sealing plastic box. This box would have been easy to recycle after, however, I reused it instead to store rags under the kitchen sink (that I use for cleaning), so that they wouldn’t go everywhere or get damp, dingy, dirty, or disgusting.

I reused my old dishwasher detergent box to store rags under the kitchen sink to keep them tidy and clean.

From Amazon Prime, I ordered Finish Powerball Dishwasher Detergent Tabs due to their high rating by other customers. I had never tried them before. Their performance has been good so far for me, however, I am dissatisfied with their packaging. 

The tabs came in a cardboard box that would be easy to recycle, however, when one opens the box, one finds that every single tab (there are 110 of them in this box) is individually wrapped in a silver plastic foil wrapper. This is a huge waste and even if the tabs needed to stay dry like the Sunlight tabs, why couldn’t they have been put into a recyclable plastic box rather than individually wrapped in this plastic wrapper that becomes garbage and will just clog up the landfill (plus their packaging has no hope of being reused like the Sunlight packaging above). Or what about a compostable wrapper? Surely there's a better packaging solution.

The cardboard box wasn't a bad start for packaging.

But I opened it up and found all of the individually wrapped tabs. 110 tabs X all the plastic wrappers = a lot of waste.

Companies need to think more carefully about how they package their products. As much as I like these Finish tabs, the packaging is so wasteful, I think I’ll have to go back to the drawing board once they are finished and find a new type of detergent that has less wasteful packaging, that will have less of a negative impact on the environment (I know using a dishwasher is probably not ideal either, but we just have to try to do whatever little bit we can to change our lifestyles so that future generations might be able to survive in this world). Finish Powerball Dishwasher Detergent Tabs are a prime example of overpackaging.

Sephora: 500 Point Beauty Reward from Nars with More Packaging than Product

The four mini products are in the bottom left of the picture, the rest is all packaging.

If one shops at Sephora regularly, one might become a member of their Beauty Insider Program. Like any rewards program, this has different tiers. If one spends $350.00 a year, one moves up to Very Important Beauty Insider (VIB) or if one spends $1,000.00 a year at Sephora, one moves into the top tier, VIB Rouge. As one spends money at Sephora, one earns points. Usually it is a dollar spent that produces one point. However, there are also bonus points events, so this is not always the case.

In any event, if one accumulates enough points (100 for the lowest rewards), one can redeem them for beauty rewards from Sephora. These change each month and in the past couple of years they have been rolling out different rewards (generally for higher reward amounts) during the week and in very limited quantities. Many of these higher point rewards go quickly, so there must be a lot of people redeeming their points regularly.

I had only ever redeemed for the 100 point rewards, however, this December, I decided to redeem some of my points for a 500 point reward or “set” as they called it. It was the Nars 500 point reward. It had a mini version of one of their bronzers, blushes, primers, and lip glosses (so four minis in this set). I was expecting a pretty small package, but a large one appeared a few days later.

I was staggered by the amount of packaging that housed these tiny products. It was a beautiful polka dot black and white box, housed in a colourful sheath, but definitely unnecessary. Inside, there was a bunch of black paper confetti to pad the products, as well as an explanation of how "sought after" and “coveted” the products in the 500 point sets from Sephora are.

There was a sheath that had to be pulled off to reveal the box that had the mini products in it.

Lots of cardboard.

Inside there were the four little products in a bunch confetti.

The inside of the box stated how sought after and coveted the 500 point reward products are.

Actually, I was just trying to use up points and I needed some blush.

The box was really overly large.

Each product, except for one, was in its own packaging.

After digging through the confetti, there were the four little products. They were cute and beautiful, but they mostly had packaging around them too. Once I had taken off the packaging around the products, I was left with a sheath, a box, confetti, and a bunch of cardboard product boxes (and this doesn’t count the packaging that I will be left with after the products are done, which would be much harder to recycle as it is made of mixed materials of plastic, metal, foam, and glass). What amazed me was how the little blush and bronzer each had a complete compact with a mirror, just like the full sized products. I have put pictures below that show them open and on a full sized product.

The bronzer and blush compacts were just like the full sized ones in that they had mirrors, but they were about half the size.

Full sized on the left, mini product on the right.

Mini size over a full size.

Lip gloss in a box.

Primer in a box.

The four minis now without their packaging.

The products are really nice and I can try some different products from Nars for “free” (I had to spend money to accumulate the points though so they’re not really free), but wow there’s a lot of packaging wasted on this reward. I managed to reuse part of the box (I cut out the polka dot parts) and confetti at Christmas doing crafts, but really, most of the packaging had to go in the recycling and this is a great waste of resources (safety seals with less boxes would be better).  I have blogged before about products and bonuses from Sephora and how much unnecessary packaging they seem to have, including all the free cosmetics bags and how I have reused them for other purposes (you can find some of my blog posts here and here and here and here and here and here). 

Products at the bottom left and everything else in the picture is packaging.

All of this is packaging that I had to recycle (or reuse in the case of a small part of it).

 It does not seem like the overpackaging situation at Sephora is improving at all. While the packaging may be “pretty” and may make us feel special like we’re receiving a gift for ourselves not on our birthday, perhaps we’d all enjoy the products just as much if the packaging were reduced and we could feel good that we were not burning up limited resources unnecessarily. I know some people complain on Sephora in the reviews when packaging is not “pretty” enough, but surely the majority of people would survive with less packaging. The world certainly won’t look pretty if we keep using superfluous amounts of packaging. If large beauty retailers like Sephora could lead the way by reducing packaging and making product packaging easier to recycle, the world would be a more beautiful place.

Come on, Amazon (The Overpackaging Continues)

I've blogged about my Amazon Prime experiences over the past almost a year, receiving overpackaged items very regularly (you can read my blog from last week here plus other ones here and here and here and here.).

I’ve had a few deliveries since then and the overpackaging continues.

Child gates:
These three child gates arrived in two separate shipments (although all the same brand and ordered at the same time) and in huge boxes much too large for them. What a waste of cardboard.

An overly large box with a lot of wasted space as usual.

One gate in a giant box.

Another large box for the other two gates.

So much wasted space. 

Much less cardboard could have been used in these shipments.

Child safety latches:
The package itself was very efficiently packed with the ten safety latches all in a perfectly sized cardboard box, but Amazon sent them in a huge bubble envelope.

Amazon is one of the biggest retailers in the world and certainly seems to be the biggest online retailer in North America (and growing every day). If Amazon could improve their packaging, think of the waste that could be avoided and the precious resources saved.

Amazon has a neat feature on their app, where you can report back to them how the packaging was on items that you received. You can say if the package was well protected or not, if the package was too big or really too big or just right, and leave written comments too. I have used this feature several times, but it doesn’t seem to be improving the packaging from Amazon. I have also called customer service when items have been destroyed in transit and have complained about the bad packaging, but this has also not seemed to improve things.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll be hauling huge amounts of cardboard boxes to the curb on recycling day. Come on, Amazon, let’s reduce the waste for everyone’s sake.

Amazon Prime: Membership Certainly Doesn’t Buy You Prime Packaging

There are too many examples to give of how Amazon packages some of their items poorly (at least in my experience) and I have already blogged about their wasteful packaging before (you can find links to other posts here and here and here and here).

Herein, I include some more highlights of the poor packaging I’ve been experiencing since I became an Amazon Prime member last spring. They are too numerous for me to include them all, but let’s just say there are a lot of examples (unfortunately Amazon fails at least 50% of the time in packaging well, by this I mean that items arrived damaged or destroyed or that Amazon is using huge boxes when they are not needed or putting boxed items into cardboard boxes).

Too Big of a Box Plus Improper Packaging of Toxic Liquids Around Baby Formula:
The other day, I received one of my monthly subscribe and save packages from Amazon. As an Amazon Prime member there are some good savings on household cleaners, stationary, baby items, etc. to be had when one gets them delivered regularly. Unfortunately, I have had many experiences of packages from Amazon being poorly wrapped and items being damaged or destroyed. This was probably the worst experience. Not only was the box too big and poorly packed, the items mixed were inappropriate. There was a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner that was put in a bag but was somehow frozen in transit.  There was some sort of liquid coming off the bag when it arrived, be it condensation or leakage from the bottle and the box and items in it were wet. This heavy bottle rampaged through the box and crushed the Ziploc bag boxes to bits and then attacked the containers of baby formula. I am not sure if the baby formula was put into the box with its seal broken or if the seal was broken in transit by the bottle of toilet bowl cleaner. The package of tape was the only thing to escape destruction. Not a good ratio at all. And terrifyingly, customer service at Amazon expressed no concern over the opened baby formula or the fact that it was in the same box as toilet bowl cleaner from which some sort of liquid was issuing in transit. I exchanged emails with them and then had to call and talk to not just a customer service agent, but also a manager, a 25 minute call. So disappointing.

Boxes in Boxes:
I have had many Amazon shipments that come in very large boxes that house items that are also in cardboard boxes. It seems like a big waste. A box of diapers and a new garbage can in a cardboard box and a package of toilet paper wrapped in plastic. Yet another giant cardboard box to recycle (plus the two cardboard boxes in the box to recycle). What a waste.

Box in a Box Plus Tons of Wasted Space:
This package arrived with an overly large box to house a heating pad in a cardboard box plus one container of Vaseline. Surely the packaging could have been different.

Boxes in Boxes and Somehow the Expensive Vitamix Box Still Ends Up With a Hole in It:

This Vitamix was around $700.00 before the sale and they put it into a large cardboard box when it was in its own cardboard box. Yet somehow, it still ended up with a big hole in the side of its box. Amazing that Amazon is not only so wasteful with packing materials and boxes, but also uses them so ineffectively so as to not even protect high value items.

 Boxes in Boxes: Lots of Wasted Space Again:
This box had a box of diapers, an Aveeno lotion for babies, and a package of toilet paper all in a giant, overly large box. Again, such a waste.

More Idiotic Packaging With Damaged Items:
This box arrived with one baby formula, a beautiful hardcover book that I bought for my child, and an Oxyclean spray for babies. The Oxyclean was not even wrapped or in a bag so it could have leaked all over the book. As it was, either the heavy formula or the Oxyclean battered up the unwrapped book and dented and bent its corners. What a disappointment when you buy an expensive hardcover book for a child in brand new condition and it arrives in bad condition.

Another Overly Large Box is Used:
This order had a package of toilet paper, a small box of porridge for babies, and a hippo toy for babies. There was a ton of empty space in this box.

Another Overly Large Box Housing More Items in Cardboard Boxes:
This box only had a tiny teether for a baby in its own cardboard box and 18 Amazon Basics washcloths in their own cardboard box. And the box was way too big too. All that wasted cardboard.

A Giant Box That's Too Big For the Shipment and There's Lysol Wipes Fluid All Over the Box:
This box had Lysol Wipes in it and they weren't wrapped so they leaked all over the box and everything in it. Plus there was a bunch of wasted room in the box again.

In conclusion, Amazon really needs to improve its packaging in two ways. Firstly, it needs to be less wasteful with packing materials and boxes. Secondly, Amazon needs to be more careful with packaging items that it sends so that they are not damaged or destroyed in transit. While Amazon customer service has been fairly reasonable to deal with over these damaged or destroyed items, it's really annoying to have to keep contacting Amazon and wasting so much of my precious time. Further, recycling all of this packaging material and the boxes is time consuming and bad for the environment. Reducing even recyclable materials is the way of the future.