safe cleaning

I was happy to read about The Safe Cleaning Products Initiative. It is a national effort intended to reduce women's exposure to toxic chemicals in cleaning products, organized by a group called Women's Voices for the Earth. As you may know, many cleaning products contain dangerous ingredients (for both people and the planet). There are many products which seem to be better options (they say they are non-toxic and such). The concern seems to be that there are no rules about listing ingredients on the labels of cleaning products. Instead, many companies claim the specific ingredients are proprietary secrets.

The initiative is asking companies to list the ingredients of their cleaning products on the package, and to replace potentially hazardous chemicals with safe alternatives.

You can read the full report here, or look at the executive summary instead. I appreciated the list of 20 companies which WVE wrote to about ingredient policies. Only a handful have responded. Makes you wonder about those that don't - what do they have to hide? Unfortunately, some of the companies not answering are ones I like (such as Ecover, Method and Mrs. Meyers). In fact, I've always wondered why Method is not sold in natural/health food stores. Is it politics or ingredients?

Some of the companies that did respond are Shaklee, Seventh Generation, Biokleen (love their laundry powder!) I've never tried Shaklee products but have heard some good things about them. Interestingly, Shaklee does not disclose all their ingredients yet they do provide information on products which they do NOT use (which did put my mind at ease since it covered so many). Hopefully I can cover all the good brands in future posts.

Meanwhile, WVE has a list of things you can do to help reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals from household cleaning products. I also found this good advice from Washington Toxics Coalition:

"In recent years there has been a trend towards products marketed for their environmental qualities. They may claim to be non-toxic, environmentally safe or environmentally friendly, recycled, biodegradable, or all of the above. The claims may be true, or they may not. Remember that the production of any product places a burden on the environment. The best products are just those that are least damaging.

Be skeptical when shopping. Look for products with specific rather than general claims. For example, “90% biodegraded in 3 days” means more than just “biodegradable.” “Contains no phosphates” is more specific than “environmentally-safe.” If the product seems too good to be true, perhaps it is.

Look for contradictory claims. If the product says “non-toxic” on one side
and “vapor harmful” on the other, something is wrong. Is there such a thing as a “non-toxic” product? Any chemical is toxic if you ingest enough of it."