I buy way too much plastic. Probably less than most, but still a shocking amount. I’m horrified by things like Lunchables and fruit or peeled eggs in a plastic shell and I quit going to Costco because everything was shrink-wrapped. But the stuff is hard to avoid.

I remember when laundry detergent came in a cardboard box and you shook the stuff out into an old cup you used for the purpose. But for years I’ve bought gigantic plastic jugs of bright blue liquid detergent because that’s the way it comes. It’s bright blue for no reason except otherwise it would probably look like mucus or something, and this way, when your detergent jug jumps off the machine during a violent spin cycle, you can stain your entire floor. Permanently! Can’t beat that.

Then laundry detergent started coming in pods. They look delicious, and they’re made of polyvinyl alcohol, plastic that will never ever go away, but spend eternity in our oceans, soils, and personal tissues. The jewel-toned pods have separate compartments for detergent, softeners, and other conscrapulants, and they look efficient and tidy. I finally gave up and bought some because I figured the little plastic pods were better than the big plastic jug.

They kind of trick you with the design and presentation. I mean, the pods are so freakishly specific. There’s a red compartment, and a blue compartment, and a yellow compartment, leading the consumer to believe that some seriously high-tech cleaning was going to be unleashed in the washing machine. You drop them in the tub, close the door, and then: Ignition! Engage thrusters! Liftoff! And the payload would be dispensed in some precise sequence for maximum sparkliness and hygienic verve.

But when I heard about a company, Blueland, that made detergents without plastic involvement, I up and ordered some. Soon a modest little box thunked onto my porch containing laundry tablets and dishwasher tablets in Kraft paper bags. The starter box also comes with a metal box to keep them dry in.

I figured I’d wait till I ran out of my stash. Finally I ran out of the dishwasher plastic pods. They worked, but I never liked them much. I had to fold the corners to jam them into the little flip-open compartment in the dishwasher, and sometimes they hung up and trailed bright blue slime down the door. The dishes came clean even then, which makes a person wonder what was so important about all the blue slime.

But the tablets didn’t fill me with confidence. After the pod whizbangery, the tablet looks awfully old-school. Like something a caveman would use. Could they possibly work? They aren’t even a color. Unless kitty-litter is a color.

I overloaded the dishwasher as always and tossed in a tablet and guess the hell what. It worked.

I can’t wait to run out of laundry pods. I’m on Team Tablet now. Give me another year and I might be smacking my laundry against a rock in the river. It beats being a pod person.