Cleaning up on adding tablets to take away the need for plastic

Eco solution: I knew I’d found something that was passionate about and had to tackle,” says Tim Keaveney

- Lucy Tobin

WHEN Tim Keaveney had the shower that changed his life, he was working in corporate finance for Barclays. “I was living in a house share in Shepherd’s Bush,” the 31-year-old explains, “and in the shower, looking at all the single-use plastic products around me, I thought: ‘there has to be a better way’.”

Post-bathroom research taught him that a typical cleaning spray is made up of at least 90% water, packaged in a single-use plastic bottle — “and we’re using billions of them to clean our homes every year: completely bonkers!”

The timing, Keaveney adds, “felt right: David Attenborough’s Blue Planet and the Government’s plastic tax meant public awareness had never been higher. Data from [retail research firm] Kantar showed almost 29% of the UK grocery market was ‘eco active’ — so actively looking for more sustainable brands. I knew I’d found something that I was passionate about and had to tackle.”

Keaveney says he had “always wanted to do my own thing — I’d tried my hand at a few different things from a charity fundraising app to a fantasy football app at uni before taking a job in corporate finance to pay for those previous failures”.