Whole Foods Market Decades of chemical advancement, aimed at simplifying our lives, have instead provided us with an overwhelming variety of choices. Nowhere is this more evident than on the household cleaning products aisle of the grocery store, where well intentioned consumers faced with serious health and environmental concerns can end up at a confused standstill. Knowing exactly what is contained in a cleaning product can be a guessing game since disclosure of ingredients is not required by law; "green" claims about environmental safety cloud the issue further still. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Homemade vs. Store Bought One way to avoid trying to decipher contents is to put together your own cleaning agents from ingredients you know to be safe. Formulas containing vinegar, baking soda, ammonia, borax, and vegetable oil soap will clean most of the house. If you wish to make your own laundry and dish soaps, add washing soda and soap flakes to the list. Vinegar works well at stripping lime deposits from sinks and showers. A cloth soaked in vinegar and draped over the faucets for a while will return them to their original shine. And if you add a handful of baking soda to a cup of vinegar poured into the toilet bowl, the fizzing action will scrub the porcelain. Vinegar and baking soda can also be used to clear and freshen pipes and drains. Pour in the soda first, then add vinegar and plug the drain until the fizzing stops, and flush with hot water. The smell is pleasant, and you won't have to worry about storing highly corrosive products in the house. When cleaning other surface areas of the house, remember that as a mild acid, vinegar will strip dirt, grit, and mineral deposits. Ammonia, which is highly alkaline, works better on grease and oil. To cover all bases, use the all purpose cleaner recommended by Greenpeace: 1/2 cup of ammonia, 1/4 cup of vinegar, and a handful of baking soda in a bucket of warm water. Don't use this on wood, however- over time, ammonia will ruin the finish. Instead, use an oil soap such as Murphy's or Ecover's Floor Soap. With regular use, the saponified oils will fill the pores and leave a soft luster. For more recipes, refer to any of several good books including Cheaper and Better by Nancy Birnes, The Non-Toxic Home by Deborah Lynn Dadd, and Clean and Green by Annie Berthold-Bond. With enough experimenting you can come up with your own product line custom tailored to fit your needs. Making the switch to homemade cleansers can be troublesome and time consuming. You may wish to make some simple things such as glass or toilet bowl cleaner, and stick to ready made items for dish soap or laundry detergent. Information on what to look for and what to avoid will help you decide which commercial products can be used in good environmental faith. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Concentration vs. Cost Many "green" products seem to cost more than their conventional counterparts, but are in reality cheaper when the cost per use is calculated. Ecologically sound products require one quarter to one third the amount of most national brands. Product dosages are figured for hard water, so experimentation may prove that you can use even less. Try to buy concentrated formulas; it takes both excess energy for shipping and excess material for containment when products incorporate fillers or large amounts of water. More uses per container means fewer boxes, cartons, and bottles in the landfill. Where available, buy products in bulk and bring your own container. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What to Look For, What to Avoid A major distinction between "green" products and standard brands is the use of vegetable-based ingredients vs. petroleum derivatives. Petroleum contains a high percentage of impurities; refinement of these impurities results in a considerable amount of environmental pollution. In addition, petroleum products are slow to biodegrade and are in limited supply. For these reasons, "green" products tend to use soaps and surfactants manufactured from vegetable sources, whose simple linear structure allows them to deteriorate in a matter of days. (Surfactants are surface active agents - their purpose is to break the surface tension of the water, enabling oil and dirt to be lifted out and remain in solution with the wash water.) These vegetable sources are purer than their petroleum counterparts, and are also more readily renewable. Vegetable acids such as acetic and citric acids are preferable to mineral acids for the same reasons. Some products such as automatic dish detergent can't easily substitute vegetable oils for petroleum. If you can't avoid a petroleum product, look for ones that use linear alcohol and/or anionic surfactants, as these will break down more readily. Other petroleum derivatives, particularly nonylphenols, have a branched structure and break down very slowly, if at all. Other common ingredients in cleaning products are water softeners and bleaches. Water softeners are needed to precipitate calcium out of solution, enabling surfactants to work more effectively. Until recently, phosphates have been used almost exclusively to perform this function. The problem with their continued use is that they are a "limiting agent" in the environment: a necessary input for plant growth usually in short supply. As there are ample quantities of the other needed minerals, additional phosphorus results in algae explosions. As the algae dies, the bacteria that decompose it use all of the available oxygen, causing other aquatic life to suffocate. Omission of phosphates, then, is desirable, but don't suppose that just because a detergent doesn't contain them that it is biodegradable. Phosphates are often replaced with three to four times the surfactants; if these are petroleum based, then the product is not really improved. Ask for and stick with brands you know are made from vegetable soaps, such as Murphy's and Ecover. Chlorine bleach, already found in most commercial laundry soaps, is added into the wash again when we supplement with liquid bleach. The most readily available type, sodium hypochlorite, is not the best option, as its chlorine molecules can react with organic matter to result in organochlorine compounds. This family of chemicals includes some of our most dangerous and persistent pesticides, many of which are carcinogenic. Suitable alternatives are oxidizing bleaches based on hydrogen peroxide. These are available in liquid or powder, and can be used just as you would use a chlorine bleach. Mountain Fresh makes a liquid or concentrated powder sold under the brand name Winter White. It may appear expensive, but a quick calculation of the cost per use will bring it into a more reasonable price range, since the recommended dosage is one eighth that of other powdered bleaches. For additional whiteness, clothes can be line dried in the sun, or a small amount of bluing can be added to the rinse water. Bluing is a mineral dye derived from iron; Mrs. Stewart's brand is nontoxic, although not all brands are. The blue spectrum of light appears brighter and counteracts the yellow appearance that whites develop with age. Scouring powder is another cleaning product that will typically contain chlorine bleach and phosphates. Some tub and tile cleaners even add pesticides to retard mold and mildew; other probable ingredients include powerful acids or alkalis used to kill germs and destroy odors. In addition to contaminating the water supply, these can be hard on your hands and dangerous to store around children. Mild cleansers such as Bon Ami or Ecover Cream Cleaner use gentle abrasives and are noncaustic. Other alternative products use concentrated vinegar (acetic acid) or citric acid fermented from sugars as a safe option. Most of these products can be used in septic systems under normal circumstances. Alternative brands can also be found for dish soaps. Life Tree and Ecover both make good soaps for hand washing. Automatic dish soap is still something of a problem, however, since even most of the "green" brands use phosphates in order to get the power they need. Kleer III is one phosphate free brand, but it will not work well in hard water. Another option currently available is Sterling Clean dishwashing tablets. These tablets contain no phosphorus or fillers, and the premeasured amount prevents residual soap from getting into the rinse cycle. While they do contain petroleum based surfactants, their linear arrangement facilitates biodegradation. Keep it Clean & "Green" This should provide a brief overview of what goes into alternative brand cleaning products, along with what is left out. There are other benefits to be gained from using these brands: the omission of dyes and synthetic perfumes removes many sources of allergies and irritants, making them preferable to people who are chemically sensitive, and the use of safe, natural ingredients preempts the need for animal testing. Green tags in each of our stores will help you to remember those companies striving for compatibility with our environment. Next time you find yourself out of detergent, try one of these alternative brands and see if they don't clean your conscience as well as your house. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Natural Solutions Walls and Wallpaper Cleaner Ingredients: 1/4 cup borax, 1 gallon hot water Dissolve borax in hot water. Stir to blend. Saturate a sponge with the borax solution and use to wash walls. Drain Maintenance Ingredients: 1/2 cup baking soda, 3 cups boiling water Pour baking soda down the drain and follow with boiling water. Let baking soda and boiling water bubble and gurgle for a while before rinsing with hot tap water. Natural Laundry Bleach Ingredients: 1/4 cup lemon juice and the sun! Put lemon juice in the rinse cycle. After clothes have spun dry, hang to dry in the sun; the sun acts as a natural bleach. Grease Stain Remover Ingredients: full strength vinegar Saturate a sponge with vinegar and scrub the moldy area; rinse well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Whole Foods Market web pages (http://www.wholefoods.com/wf.html) are maintained by The Whole Foods Market Communications Team Copyright Whole Foods Market, 1995, wfm@wholefoods.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reprinted (October 1995) with permission from Whole Foods Market