One of the greenest things you can do with regards to the household chores is use less petrochemical based detergents, and more natural soap based products.  Soaps are the original Simple Green Cleaner.  They can be all natural and even organic cleaning products.  The Eco Friendly cleaner should have several types of soaps to hand;

• Soft soap or liquid soap, for use as a diluted all round general cleaning liquid.  For cars, floors and anything else you can think of.
• Bar soap for rubbing into stains prior to washing the laundry.
• Soap flakes as a pre-soak for dirty laundry and more.

Simple Green Cleaning with Natural Soap

The key to Green Cleaning with soap is not to use too much.  That’s how soap scum builds up and leaves you working even harder to remove your Simple Green Cleaning Product.

The cheapest green cleaner has to be ordinary bar soap.  From this you can make your own soft soap and soap flakes.  Simply grate your bar of vegetable based soap to produce soap flakes.  Boil these up in water and you create soft soap which can be diluted further as a general household cleaner.  It is even good as a windscreen wash on the car, since detergents (even mild ones such as dish-washing detergent) can corrode the varnish on your car’s paintwork.

Simple Green Cleaning Products don’t come any more basic than soap and water.  It is probably why we’ve neglected it as a green cleaner for so long.  It just seems so old-fashioned and basic that it can’t be any good -  surely.  In fact soap is pretty alkaline giving it anti-bacterial qualities (why do you think it’s so great for washing our hands to keep germs and virus’s at bay?).

Don’t forget too, that soap can be used outside too.  It isn’t just a green cleaner; it’s also a safe pesticide.  Great for dealing with insect pests and fungal problems on your garden plants, insecticidal soap is merely soap used as an insecticide.

Liquid Vegetable Soap, Lemon Mint 16.90 Ounces

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Vanilla Orange Foam Soap- made with organic ingredients- 8.5 oz

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Pure Vegetable Liquid Soap, Herbes de Provence 10 oz Pump by South of France Soaps / 10 oz. ( Multi-Pack)

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L'Amande Traditional Liquid Soap All Natural for Babies and Adults Olive Oil Based Unscented 500 Ml 16 Floz

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Cinnamon Orange French Provence Shea Butter Enriched Liquid Soap with Pump 10.5 Fl Oz

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There is no product to basic and unassuming to be rejected as a Simple Green Cleaning Product.  The most basic ideas are often the best, and they simply cannot be beaten when it comes to price and their low environmental impact.

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2. Simple Green Cleaning Products #1
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5. Safe Laundry Detergent

If we weren’t all so darn clean we wouldn’t be having such a negative impact on the planet just by doing the laundry!  But, truth is we like our laundry to be REALLY clean, and with the labour saving appliances to hand are able to clean our laundry much more regularly than in days gone by.

Laundry detergent can contain enzymes and bleaches as well as phosphates and other unfriendly particles slow to break down in the environment.  The water treatment companies have a tough job filtering all this toxic waste out of that water heading for rivers and the sea.

Plus, we all know how irritating detergents can be.  The only reason manufacturers try to sell us ‘Gentle’, ‘Mild’, or ‘Baby Safe’ detergents is because their standard products so commonly cause skin irritations and allergies.  Many consumers switch to a safe detergent for the new baby’s laundry but surely our older skin could do with just as much care and attention too?

Safe Laundry Detergent – What to Look For?

Obviously companies like Simple Green and Seventh Generation will provide a safe detergent option, but sometimes even the conventional manufacturers may have something to offer.  To check if your product is a safe detergent check out those ingredients for the following:

• Avoid phosphates.
• Avoid chlorine bleach and whitening agents.  Opt instead for non-chlorine bleach made from sodium percarbonate.
• Choose readily biodegradable.
• Choose plant based detergents wherever possible.
• Avoid synthetic fragrances if you or your family are prone to suffer from allergies.
• Avoid ‘biological’ detergents containing enzymes (they clean brilliantly but are often extremely irritating on skin).
• Choose concentrated safe detergents to reduce packaging and transport costs to the environment.

For more information on the components of laundry detergent click here.

Eco Friendly Laundry Day

Don’t forget the other little changes you can make to laundry day.  Alongside your new safe laundry detergent try the following and make your cleaning even more Eco friendly.

• Turn the temperature down.  Most loads will come out fine on a cool cycle.  Save the heat for when your washing really needs it.
• Forget fabric softener and drop a cap of white vinegar in final rinse instead.  This cuts through any residual detergent, descales the machine and puts some anti-bacterial power into your wash.
• Don’t forget how often clothes benefit from a simple airing rather than a full-blown wash.  Hanging dry-clean only cashmere sweaters outside for an hour or so gives you much more wear-ability between cleans.
• Only use the machine for full loads.
• Line dry whenever possible.
• Run the machine’s waste outlet to the garden and benefit from your greener safer waste water to keep your garden happy.
• You could always opt out of detergent altogether with home-made cleaning recipes or Eco friendly wash balls.

Safe Laundry Detergents at Amazon

Seventh Generation Natural Laundry Detergent with Non-Chlorine Bleach, Free & Clear, Powder, 112-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 4) [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

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Seventh Generation Liquid Laundry 2x Concentrate, Free & Clear, 32-Ounce Bottles (Pack of 6)

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Citra Suds Natural Laundry Detergent, HE 2x Liquid Concentrate, Lavender Bergamot, 50-Ounce Bottles (Pack of 6)

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Seventh Generation Laundry Detergent, White Flower & Bergamot Citrus, Powder, 112-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 4) [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

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Purex Ultra Concentrate Natural Elements Laundry Detergent, Linen & Lilies 50oz.

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Choosing a safe detergent is simple, it just requires a little reading.  Ignore the ‘natural’ or ‘green’ packaging and check out that ingredients list to make sure your purchase really is safer for you and the environment.

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5. The Ultimate Simple Green Cleaner

The Best Simple Green Cleaner

The best simple green cleaner is not some secret formulation it’s just something we tend to forget about.  It really is the original and the best multi-purpose cleaner, for us, our laundry and our homes.

Do not forget the power of soap and water.   Okay it doesn’t always come in the nicest packaging and it isn’t something that will tell everyone else how green and Eco minded you are.  But, utilising this remarkable mixture to its fullest potential really is the way forward to ensuring you are an Eco friendly cleaner.

Of all the products out there, simple soap is the cheapest to buy.  Budget liquid soaps are really thrifty and easy to find.  But, even better soap is the cheapest thing to buy to a ‘greener’ specification.  If you want an all natural cleaner, organic cleaners or just a safe cleaner soap can easily be found to your specification.

Soaps are a mixture of acidic oils; either vegetable or animal fat, with an alkaline base.  Caustic lye is the general alkaline base used in all soap making.  It can be simple caustic soda (yes really, just the same as that harmful drain cleaner) or caustic potash (equally corrosive but made by leaching rainwater through wood ash).  Although it sounds dangerous, once the caustic has gone through the soap making process it stabilises and becomes safe for the environment and you.

All soap is made with such a caustic component but the end soap can be as mild and gentle as the maker likes.  So the caustic part is not something to worry about.  Whether you opt for an animal fat or vegetable oil based soap is a matter of preference and environmental consideration.  I expect vegetarians would never chose an animal fat based soap.  But, you do need to inspect the label carefully.  Manufacturers will not state ‘animal fat’, instead terms such as ‘tallow’ are mentioned which seem less frightening to consumers.  The only way to be sure you are buying a vegetable oil based soap is if it states the fat used is 100% vegetable oil.  Palm oil, olive-oil and coconut oil are the primary vegetable based oils used commercially.  Often additional essential oils will be included to improve the lather, scent and appearance of a soap.  For personal use these may be of concern but for Eco friendly cleaning just any vegetable based soap is fine.

Vegetable based soaps are literally ten a penny and genuinely all natural cleaning products.  Soaps based on animal fats are often even better value for money, though they will not meet the strictest of Eco standards as they will be fat from any farmed animal, the cheaper and more intensively reared standards which you may not endorse.  If you eat cheap meat you should have no qualms about enjoying the benefit of cheap animal fat soaps.  They are doing a lot less harm to the environment than any petroleum based detergents you might use.  If, however you want to find an organic cleaner you will have to stick to vegetable based products which are more readily available which meet organic standards.  Or of course you can make your own homemade soap from whatever standard of animal or vegetable fat you can afford.

Liquid Soap or Detergent?

Never assume a liquid soap is ‘soap’ without checking the reverse of the bottle.  Manufacturers understand we consumers are a fickle bunch, who much prefer the word ‘soap’ to ‘detergent’.  So many products called liquid soaps are actually mild detergents.

Depending on the degree of green you abide too, a mild detergent such as a traditional dish washing liquid can be a perfectly acceptable product to use as and environmentally friendly simple green cleaner.  This is particularly true if you ensure there are no phosphates in the detergent you chose and that is fully biodegradable, which many now are.  Unless otherwise stated detergents will be manufactured by refining oil, that is to say, your detergent purchase eventually profits the petroleum industry.

Of course commercially produced specific Eco friendly cleaning products will made with soaps and vegetable based detergents, usually palm oil derived.  But any traditional product is unlikely to go to this extra expense.  If something says detergent you can be safe to assume it is of the petroleum based variety.

The free daily Eco tips available with Ideal Bite are a great source of free information on new green products and techniques for living a greener life, including Eco friendly cleaning.

The main thing to remember is that soap and water will be able to tackle most of your household cleaning tasks.  And, because soap is so readily available it makes a very cheap way of buying a high spec – truly ‘deep green’ Eco cleaning product.

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