Go Green

Last fall a good friend of mine inspired me to seek out more earth-friendly household products. I'm not die-hard about going green, but why not? (Clearly, I am easily entertained. And, as previously disclosed, I delight in any activity that I can turn into a spreadsheet opportunity.)

I am pretty brand loyal so my criteria for new products shouldn't be a surprise:

1. they had to work as well as my favorites; and
2. they had to be as cost-efficient as my favorites.

Tall order? Keep reading.

What to buy and where to shop

Convenience is king in my world, so the first thing I did was search online for basic information and green products. At first I looked for specific ingredients to avoid but learned that manufacturers of household cleaners are not required to list ALL their ingredients except those ingredients that are active disinfectants and those that are known to be potentially hazardous.

To narrow the field, any product I tried had to be a concentrated formula and free of dyes, fragrances and bleach. Furthermore, companies that touted what was NOT in their products (namely phosphates and chlorine) were given priority. My favorite screening site is GoodGuide.com. In addition to rating the product and highlighting harzardous ingredients, they report which third-party certifications the product has earned.

And while I love having things shipped directly to my front door, it presents some problems in this instance. Shipping charges make the product less cost-effective. But more importantly, buying locally is infinitely more green than the effort and resources it takes to pack, ship and deliver. For example, the cardboard box, bubble wrap, address label, shipping fees and most importantly the gasoline required to get the product to the door are eliminated if I buy the product at a local store that I already frequent.

The greenest of the green households use homemade cleaners from simple ingredients. (A simple google search yields a bevy of recipes, tips and instructions.) This doesn't appeal to me so I continued my search in a local co-op grocery store that specializes in organic and natural products.

Picking My Battles

After crunching numbers and comparing price-per-load data on several automatic dishwasher detergents, I decided to try the cheapest one first. It met all the requirements and the manufacturer has an in-store refill station. Big green bonus. Unfortunately this brand just couldn't unstick the peanut butter from the knives so it had to go. I have temporarily reverted to my big name, not so green detergent.

My favorite new product is an earth-friendly concentrated general cleaner. I can create different strength solutions depending on what needs to be cleaned. I use it most frequently to clean the kitchen counters but it does floors and laundry stains too.

The Big Lesson

I realize this whole experiment is a little obsessive, but it did force me to think about what constitutes clean. All those years of television advertisements showing raw poultry being rubbed on kitchen surfaces had brainwashed me to think that countertops need to be disinfected eight times a day. Well, a damp washcloth is all it takes to clean up toast and cracker crumbs. So my green resolution is to use cleaning products only when truly needed.

Oh, and clean doesn't have to smell like harsh chemicals. My environmentally friendly general cleaner has a super zesty fragrance. I have even found a soy-based toilet cleaner that works great and smells like peppermint. Hmmmm, now that's nice.