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.

Gillette and Equate Disposable Razors: Dense Packaging That's Totally Unnecessary

Disposable razors are almost always cheaper than buying blades for a razor. They are disposable by their nature and therefore create more waste than just a blade, but for some reason, the companies that sell them insist on creating even more waste with their packaging.

Here are two examples of disposable razors that I've bought in the past several months.

Gillette Venus Disposable Razors

These razors come in a semi-rigid plastic tray with a piece of plastic fused over the top that one must peel back to access the razors. There is a bunch of wasted plastic in this format. Why can’t they just come in a little Ziploc bag?

Equate Disposable Razors

These razors also came in the plastic tray format with the piece of plastic fused over top to be peeled back. There was a lot of empty space in the tray.

I just can’t believe that they can’t think of better way to package disposable razors. Or is the large packaging just a ploy to get consumers to notice them on a crowded shelf and in a crowded industry? Whatever the reason, I hope that someone stops this trend of giant plastic packages for disposable razors and thereby leads the way to less waste. Everyone benefits when overpackaging stops.

Recycling Day: When Overpackaging and Waste Are Really Apparent

In my neighbourhood, as in most, we have recycling day every two weeks. A big truck drives around a huge area of the municipality (or multiple municipalities) and picks up recycling from each house at the curbside. Not everything is accepted for door to door recycling (examples of exclusions include plastic bags, Styrofoam, old electronics, batteries, and lightbulbs, etc.). Plastic and metal are put together in bins. Glass is supposed to be in separate bin. Paper goes in bags. Cardboard goes alongside the bins (someone told me a story about their cardboard being rejected by the recyclers once because they didn’t have it tied with twine, fortunately our recyclers don’t enforce this antiquated and wasteful rule).

This week, my husband out of town on business again, I hefted all of the recycling from our place out to the curb. Even carrying a huge amount per trip, it took me two trips to get everything to the curb. Part of the reason for this is the cardboard boxes from supplies we’ve ordered from Walmart and Amazon Prime these past two weeks. The pictures below are of just two weeks worth of recycling from our household (two adults, one who is travelling for work often and therefore not here to consume as much as usual, and a baby). I also didn’t bother taking the glass to the curb, as we only have a few glass containers, so I’ll wait until we have more.

I can't believe this is just from two weeks and a household of only two adults and one baby.

When I go out on walks and see our neighbourhood and others nearby on recycling day, I can’t help but be struck by all of the packaging our society uses (plastic boxes for spinach, endless yoghurt and milk containers, cans, cartons, and so much cardboard). Sure, some things need packaging, but there is a lot of overpackaging happening. If we decreased the amount of waste and moved to more of a zero waste position, think of how much less would have to be picked up on recycling day and processed (which takes a lot of energy and resources too). If we didn’t produce so many packages, we wouldn’t need to recycle so many packages. We would use less resources and there would be more left over for the future generations. So, while it's wonderful that we're diverting so much waste by recycling in Canada, it would be better if less waste existed in the first place.

Walmart Order: Multiple Shipments and One Nearly Empty Box

We ordered some household items from Walmart last week. The order shipped quickly and we were impressed to see a big box at our house two days ago. However, this only had some of the items that we had ordered in it. While this box was packed almost full, with little wasted space, the box that arrived yesterday, was full of wasted space.

I opened the box expecting to see several more items from our Walmart order, given the size of the box.

The box looked big as I was opening it.

When I pulled back the plastic bubble wrap, there were only two items. The box was pretty much completely empty. Why were these two items sent in such a big box?

This doesn't look very full.

Seriously?! Only two items in this huge box?

I still can't believe that this was it in the box.

And now we’re waiting for at least one more box to receive the rest of our Walmart order. While I appreciate that Walmart tries to get items to customers as soon as they can, surely sending almost empty boxes with only an item or two in them while there are a bunch of outstanding items is ridiculous. It’s definitely wasteful.

When one considers how big Walmart is and how much it must ship, all of this Walmart overpackaging will certainly add up to a ton of waste. While the cardboard can be recycled (and plastic is being recycled more now), it takes a lot of resources to produce it and it’s unlikely to be reused. Instead, it will end up in the recycling pile with more resources required to recycle it. Walmart should set an example and try to decrease the amount of waste it produces in shipping (past orders from Walmart have been less wastefully packaged, so I hope that this is just a one-off). Overpackaging from Walmart and other big companies produces a world of waste.

Another big wasted box.

So much waste leftover from such a small partial shipment.