Blueland is a new household cleaning startup that helps you reduce single-use plastic consumption — here’s how the products perform

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• Blueland's The Clean Essentials kit ($39) contains reusable bottles and dissolvable cleaning tablets so you can cut down on your plastic waste.
• All you do is add water and a tablet to the bottles for a concentrated cleaning solution. Extra tablets cost only $2 each.
• Blueland tells Insider Reviews that it's seen a significant uptick in orders due to fears of the new coronavirus, but there are currently no shipping delays.
• While Blueland products are effective for general cleaning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend using alcohol-based products to disinfect surfaces as they're effective in killing viruses.

Table of Contents: Masthead Sticky

It's becoming easier to eliminate single-use plastic. When you go grocery shopping, use a nylon tote bag. Instead of buying plastic water bottles, use water filters at home and carry a reusable water bottle when you go out. To wash your hair and brush your teeth, use shampoo bars and mouthwash tablets.

If you look hard enough, there are now ways to "de-plasticize" nearly every aspect of your life, including the laborious, expensive, and wasteful chore of cleaning your home.

New startup Blueland is giving you both a cleaner home and a cleaner planet through a clever and cost-efficient system that involves dissolvable cleaning tablets, reusable bottles, and your own sink.

In the opening episode of the latest season of "Shark Tank," it successfully convinced investors how and why its non-toxic cleaning tablets and sustainable packaging would change the way people clean — and after trying it ourselves, we're converts, too.

How Blueland works

Blueland's starter kit is called The Clean Essentials and costs $39. Blueland provides three sturdy bottles made from acrylic and all labeled for different uses: multi-surface, glass and mirror, and bathroom. It also includes a soap dispenser constructed with the same acrylic material.

Then you have three cleaning tablets, one for each purpose we mentioned before. The tablets make 20 ounces of solution each while the soap tablet makes 9 ounces of solution.

To make the cleaning solution, you fill the bottle up to the designated line with warm water, then drop the corresponding tablet in the bottle. Within seconds, it's ready to use, no shaking or stirring necessary.

Review of Blueland

You can visit The Clean Essentials product page for a detailed ingredient list for each cleaner. The key highlights are that all the products are free from volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are harmful to pregnant or nursing women and children, and anything on the Environmental Working Group's restricted list.

They're also free from traditional disinfecting ingredients such as chlorine bleach. All the ingredients are natural or naturally derived, so the cleaners are hypoallergenic, and they're pet-safe and cruelty-free.

Such stringent requirements are a product partly of the times, as more shoppers demand natural alternatives to most things in life, and partly of cofounder Sarah Paiji Yoo's personal stake in the game. As a new mother, she became hyper-aware of all the products that came in contact with her baby, from microplastics contaminating water supplies to chemical-laden air pollutants like VOCs. Blueland is the carefully formulated result of such concerns.

I tested the cleaners in my own home and found them to be effective and easy to use. Each one except for the glass and mirror cleaner is scented, but with none of the overpowering or harsh scents I've come to expect from household cleaners.

My bathroom, in particular, is prone to dust and grime buildup, but the Blueland Bathroom Cleaner ($16) quickly and effectively removed stubborn (or what I thought were stubborn) stains in my tub and sink. Meanwhile, the Hand Soap ($16) foamed up well and made my hands feel soft with each wash. The Glass and Mirror Cleaner ($16) is probably the weakest product of the four products in the set — it left my mirror slightly streaky.

If you prefer to try a single product first before committing to the whole set, you can get a Starter Set, which contains one tablet and one bottle for your chosen cleaner (bathroom, soap, and glass and mirror).

The most obvious way Blueland is more environmentally friendly is the design of its cleaning products. Instead of throwing out a plastic bottle every time you're done with the cleaner, you can use your Blueland bottles over and over again. This system also takes advantage of the water you're already using in your home. In addition, every part of its packaging is recyclable, and the tablet wrappers are compostable and biodegradable.

Ultimately, cleaning with Blueland saves more than the planet, making it a superior product all around. The tablet refills take up a fraction of the space in your cabinets of traditional cleaning products, and they're more affordable. Each refill costs only $2, while traditional competitors cost $3 to $5 for the same amount of cleaner.

The bottom line

Blueland's cleaning products are innovative, sustainable, effective, and affordable. All these benefits make us question why all household cleaners — and many other types of consumer products — aren't made this way. You have little to sacrifice by trying Blueland, but much to gain.