It’s one of the small annoyances of everyday life: the last bit of lotion or conditioner gets stuck in its bottle and can’t be squeezed out. By some estimates, as much as 17% to 25% of the lotion in a bottle will end up in the trash.

A new line of packaging called EveryDrop is designed to eliminate that waste, and make bottles easier to recycle—or even reuse—because they can be easily cleaned out. The extra-slippery bottle, from the MIT spinout company LiquiGlide, ensures that each drop of a product slides out. The technology adds a nontoxic layer of lubricant to the surface to eliminate friction.

“We all think when we throw a bottle into a recycling bin it will get recycled, but recycling is almost impossible when product is left behind and you need a significant amount of water to clean it,” says Kripa Varanasi, an MIT professor and cofounder of LiquiGlide. “So the reality is that some of this packaging actually ends up in a landfill.”

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