Description
Frosch is a range of household cleaners, washing-up liquids and laundry products from Werner & Mertz, a family company in Mainz, whose bottles are made from plastic collected in household recycling bins.
Werner & Mertz goes back to a wax factory founded in 1867 and launched Frosch in 1986. It started its Recyclat-Initiative in 2012 to turn plastic from Germany’s yellow bag (Gelber Sack) collection back into bottles; Frosch says its bottle bodies are now 100 % recycled plastic and that it passed one billion such bottles in summer 2025. More and more of its surfactants come from European crops such as rapeseed, sunflower, olive and flax rather than palm oil, and its Mainz and Hallein sites have been registered under the EU’s EMAS environmental scheme since 2003 and 2005.
The range covers more than 80 products, from all-purpose and bathroom cleaners to dishwasher tablets, laundry detergents and baby care. It is sold in supermarkets and drugstores in almost every European country and in an online shop. Öko-Test rated the Frosch spirit glass cleaner “sehr gut” in 2021, but in 2019 downgraded a Frosch washing powder to “befriedigend” for a plastic compound in its ingredients.
Strengths
- The bottle bodies are made from recycled household plastic, collected through the yellow bag in Germany, not from new plastic.
- It is sold in ordinary supermarkets and drugstores across Europe, at prices close to the big brands.
- The company is family-owned, registered under EMAS, and has replaced much palm-kernel oil with surfactants from European crops.
Weaknesses
- The recycled-content and surfactant claims come from Werner & Mertz itself; no EU Ecolabel or Blauer Engel was named on the pages read.
- Öko-Test downgraded a Frosch washing powder in 2019 for a synthetic polymer, which the company then said it would drop.
- It is still a range of single-use plastic bottles, with a separate product for almost every cleaning job.
Who it is for
Households who buy their cleaning products in the supermarket and want a brand with recycled bottles and plant-based surfactants without changing where they shop.