AWASH IN NATURAL CLEANING PRODUCTS
Whole Food and others boast eco-friendly ratings and full ingredient lists
As spring blooms outside, are you itching to clean inside? New eco-friendly cleaning products are entering the market — some by celebrities Ed Begley Jr. and Jessica Alba — and more carry labels that list their ingredients for the first time.
This week, Whole Foods Market plans to announce that 90% of the cleaning products in its stores now meet its EcoScale rating criteria, launched last Earth Day on April 22.
The three-tiered system does something the U.S. government does not: It requires these products to disclose all ingredients on their labels. It won’t allow chlorine, phosphates or some preservatives, and its top — or green — rating goes to products made entirely with plantbased, rather than petroleum-based, ingredients.
About three of four Americans (73%) mistakenly believe that federal law requires ingredient disclosure on the labels of cleaning products as it does on those for food, according to a Harris Interactive survey conducted last April for Whole Foods Market.
“We’re going to establish a paradigm shift in the cleaning products industry,” says Errol Schweizer of Whole Foods.
Some cleaning product companies, including Method, already were posting ingredients on their product labels. They welcome Eco-scale’s push for transparency but urge buyers to beware.
“There are a lot of certifications out there, so it can be confusing,” says Adam Lowry, Method’s co-founder. “Not all these things are created equal.”
He says Eco-scale rates products only for their ingredients, not their packaging, such as Method’s 100% recycled plastic bottles.
“We’d like to see less clutter out there in the marketplace,” says Mark Petruzzi of Green Seal, a non-profit rating program that began testing cleaning products in 1993 for both eco-friendliness and effectiveness. He says Eco-scale does not look at how well a product cleans.
“That’s a valid point,” says Martin Wolf, director of product sustainability at Seventh Generation, which has products qualifying for Eco-scale. Still, he says, Whole Foods’ program is a “tremendous step forward” in helping customers pick safe products.
That may be helpful with the plethora of cleaners coming on the market, from existing companies and newcomers alike.
Actress Alba’s The Honest Co. is releasing a line of “all-natural” and “organic” products, aimed at infants and their parents, that includes dish soap, multisurface cleaner and laundry detergent.
Actor and environmental activist Begley is rolling out an expanded line of cleaning products, which will carry EcoScale’s top rating. He began offering three such products in 2003, some of which he transported himself in his electric vehicle to stores in California where he’d personally hawk them. His business partner Mark Cunningham told him that he’d do better with a wider selection.
Now his collection, Begley’s Earth Responsible Products, has more than a dozen made-in-america cleaners, dish soaps and stain removers.
“There are quite a few players” in the eco-cleaning sector, Begley says, “but we think ours is the cleanest and greenest.”
Is it really necessary to buy a green cleaner? After all, many of America’s penny-pinching grandmothers got by just fine with vinegar, water and baking soda.
Begley says he uses baking soda as his “first line of defense” in cleaning the kitchen sink and a mixture of vinegar and water for cleaning up spills.
“The problem with vinegar and water,” he says, “is that it leaves a vinegar smell that my wife doesn’t like.”