Top green cleaning products

A botanically- rather than petroleum-derived dish soap, laundry detergent or all-purpose cleaner is gentler on hands, eyes and lungs, and aquatic life it eventually touches after going down the drain. The cleaning products made by the companies below are free of the "Lose It" ingredients one should most avoid in liquid soaps: APEs and NPEs, fragrance, sodium laureth sulfate and other ethoxylated ingredients, and the antibacterial chemical triclosan. If a product line has received meaningful third-party certifications, this is noted. Most of these manufacturers' products have received the Environmental Protection Agency's Design for the Environment (DfE) seal.

CLOROX GREENWORKS: is DfE; and, in tests by the Organic Consumers Association, it had no detectable traces of 1, 4, dioxane, a suspected carcinogen. DR. BRONNER'S MAGIC SOAPS certified fair trade, USDA certified organic plant ingredients, 100% post consumer recycled packaging. No detectable dioxane in OCA tests. ECOS (EARTH FRIENDLY PRODUCTS) is DfE. GREEN DEPOT is Dfe. MARTHA STEWART CLEAN DISH & HAND SOAP is DfE and Leaping Bunny (certified as not tested on animals). METHOD Its laundry soap is 8x concentrated, reducing packaging wastes and energy used to ship it. MIESSENCE MIENVIRON DISHWASHING CONCENTRATE (with certified organic plant ingredients, ranked a top 10 for health by GoodGuide. SEVENTH GENERATION is Leaping Bunny, and uses the greenest bottles after Dr. Bronner's, with up to 90% PCW for the dish soap bottle and aiming for 100%. More information on choose it/lose it ingredients for ever category of home product can be found in my book, DO ONE GREEN THING: SAVING THE EARTH THROUGH SIMPLE, EVERYDAY CHOICES. Get updates on new enviro studies and green products at this blog's home page, GreenerPenny.com.