Why Dirty Labs Will Never Make Plastic Pods
Pods have done a very good job of positioning themselves as the future of cleaning. They’re compact, easy to use, and marketed as a more sustainable alternative to traditional detergent. On the surface, it all sounds like progress.
But when you look more closely — at how they’re made, what they’re made of, and how they actually perform — the story starts to unravel.
At Dirty Labs, every product we create has to meet three non-negotiable standards: performance, safety, and sustainability. Not one or two — all three, at the same time. And when we evaluate pods through that lens, they consistently fall short.
Pods Are Plastic. Period.
Then there’s the environmental side of the equation, which is where pods are most often positioned as the “better” choice. The argument usually centers on their smaller size and lower shipping weight, which can reduce emissions during transportation. That part is true, and it’s worth acknowledging.
But it’s only part of the picture.
What often gets left out is the material that makes pods possible in the first place: the outer film. That film is made from polyvinyl alcohol, or PVA — a type of water-soluble plastic. When you run a load of laundry or dish load, that film dissolves, but it doesn’t simply disappear. It breaks down into smaller particles and enters the wastewater stream. The fact that many pods market themselves as “plastic-free” is a huge misnomer.
For a long time, PVA was assumed to be readily biodegradable, particularly after wastewater treatment. More recent research has started to challenge that assumption. Studies suggest that many treatment facilities, especially in the U.S., aren’t equipped to fully break it down under real-world conditions. Proper biodegradation requires specific microbes and processing conditions that aren’t widely implemented at scale.
That means a meaningful portion of this material may be passing through treatment systems and into the environment. Not in a visible, headline-grabbing way, but in an insidious, harder-to-measure form. At scale, we suspect that amount might be much larger than what’s currently being reported. Over 20 billion pods are used each year in the US alone — that’s enough plastic to wrap around the earth 20 times.
There’s also growing scrutiny around the production of PVA itself. Lifecycle analyses have indicated that the manufacturing process can carry significant environmental burdens, including impacts related to toxicity, fossil fuel use, and other forms of pollution. In some cases, those impacts can outweigh the logistical efficiencies that pods are designed to deliver.
To be clear, the science here is still evolving. There isn’t a single, universally agreed-upon conclusion about the full environmental impact of PVA. But what we do know is enough to raise serious questions.
Our Philosophy: We Know Better, So We Do Better
And that’s where our philosophy comes in.
At Dirty Labs, we take an abundance-of-caution approach when it comes to environmental impact. If something introduces a new material stream — especially one that behaves like plastic, even in a modified form — we don’t wait for absolute consensus before deciding how to act. We look at the direction the science is pointing, and we make choices accordingly.
Pods introduce a form of plastic into your laundry or dish washing routine that simply wouldn’t exist otherwise. Even if that plastic is less visible, it’s still there, and it’s still part of the system.
For us, that’s not a tradeoff we’re willing to make.
Liquid detergent, when it’s designed thoughtfully, offers a different path. It gives us the flexibility to prioritize performance without compromising on ingredient safety, and it allows us to work with a wider range of biodegradable, biobased materials. It’s also a format where we can meaningfully rethink packaging — reducing plastic rather than trying to disguise it.
That’s ultimately what this comes down to. Not what’s newest or most convenient, but what actually holds up when you look at the full picture.
Plastic pods may feel like an innovation. But from where we stand, they’re a workaround — with costs that aren’t always obvious at first glance.
And that’s why we don’t make them.
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