Green gauntlet: It is a bottle or a box?

The first time I picked it up, the bottle felt so weird. Instead of the heavy plastic laundry detergent jug I'm used to, it felt so light!

The Seventh Generation detergent I was using was in a cardboard container. It looked like a bottle, but felt like an egg carton.

I've been drinking my wine in boxes -- shiny cardboard on the outside, a plastic pouch on the inside. But this bottle went one step further, making the outer container from a mixture of recycled cardboard and old newspaper.

And now, the container, designed by Ecologic Brands -- "packaging the earth can live with" is their motto --  has won a Greener Package award.

So I felt pretty confident telling my ultra green friend, Sylvia Verdant, about the new package. She's tough to please or convince, and I thought I finally might be onto something here that she'd like.

Ecologic says the outer shell -- the cardboard part -- can be recycled up to seven times more. Or, it can be composted. It says the inner pouch uses up to 70 percent less plastic than comparable plastic jugs. And since it's #2 or #4 plastic, it can be recycled.

And here's something I never even would have thought of: The outer shells can be tightly nested and transported flat. The company says that one truckload of Ecologic Brands' packaging materials is equivalent in volume to up to nine truckloads of rigid plastic containers.

Well, wouldn't you know, the timing was so weird. When I went to Sylvie's solar-powered treehouse, she was out in the yard tending some soapwort plants, which contains a substance called saponin that act sort of like soap. A gentle soap, I gather.  She was going to boil the stuff and then strain it, I think. And then....well, what a mess.

I thought that now she could feel better about buying detergent, especially since the Seventh Generation detergent inside is four times concentrated -- less transportation footprint for the same number of laundry loads -- and is biodegradable and has no dyes or synthetic fragrances.

I told her all this. She brushed a strand of sodden hair from her brow and looked at  me wearily.

"Okay," she said. "You may have something here. Give it to me and I'll try it."

In her hand-cranked washing machine, no doubt.

So, naturally, I did it, which means I lost my detergent and will have to buy another.  Oh well. A friend is worth a bottle of detergent from time to time.

Meanwhile, both of us would like to know what you think? Is this a better bottle? Please comment below and let us know.