We all know our homes are filled with plastic products from the bathroom to the kitchen. This is why our mission at Better Basics is to make it easy to eliminate plastics and toxins from your home.
Since we launched in December 2020, we are proud to say that we have diverted over 1.2 million pieces of plastic from landfills. How did we get there?
Every product that we've designed in the Better Basics line is intended to be reused or replace a plastic household items with a biodegradable alternative. We launched our product line based on research of North American plastic consumption from the US Environmental Protection Agency, Environment + Climate Change Canada, The Ellen McArthur Foundation, the UN SPGs, Un Environment Programme, David Suzuki Foundation, National Geographic, and more.
We have taken this research to compile a chart of the average annual use of single-use plastic items. Our initial product line included reusable water bottles, mugs, to-go jar and bags. We chose those items based on the findings that they were the most highly consumed and wasted plastic items in North America.
To calculate the impact of our business, it's import that we continue to track the performance of single-use products being swapped to reusables. Every time a Better Basics product is purchased, we have categorized it against the average annual North American use of the equivalent single-use plastic item as follows:
| Single-Use Item | Avg Annual Consumption |
| Water Bottle | 150 |
| Take Out Package | 50 |
| Coffee Cup | 50 |
| Plastic Bag | 42 |
| Cleaning Bottles | 30 |
| Personal Care Bottles | 30 |
With the sales of our products for the past 2 years, we have calculated that we have diverted over 1.2 million plastic bottles and bags from the landfill. Every year our community reuses those containers we save hundreds more.
While the numbers are already staggering, it is really just the start.
As we expand our sustainability measurement methodology and our sustainability planning, we evolve and do better each year. We are planning to expand our product categories and reach to continue our goal of diverting 15 million bottles by 2025 and billions of plastics bottles in the next 5 years.