In the past few years, there’s been a growing global movement towards using green, non-chemical household cleaners. Eco-friendly cleaning products have many advantages over commercial brands, but the most important are that they’re better for the planet.
When you choose to buy chemical free household cleaners you’re doing your bit to make the world a better place. And that’s not all. You’re also making your home a more pleasant and healthy place to be for you and your family.
Read on and you’ll discover some excellent reasons why your cleaning cupboard should go green today.
1. You’ll reduce your carbon footprint
Most of the chemicals found in commercial cleaning products are made from petrochemicals – i.e. they’re derived from oil and coal tar. Cutting down on these cleaning products will immediately help to reduce your family’s carbon footprint. Easy, huh?
2. You’ll reduce demand for toxic synthetic chemicals
It takes a lot of energy to convert oil into the ingredients of cleaning products such as surfactants, MCI, phthalates, xylene, benzene and hundreds of other synthetic chemicals. These products do help to clean your home, but they’ve also been shown to be toxic to humans and the environment. Choosing green alternatives helps reduce demand for these products.
How often do you wear protective eyewear, a respirator and gloves when you clean your oven? Whether they cause skin and eye irritation, respiratory problems or other health issues, you’ll see from their warnings labels that cleaning products like these are potentially hazardous to your health. Choosing non-chemical cleaners like ECO.3 gets rid of these health hazards at a stroke.
3. You’ll banish the risks of caustic chemicals
A common ingredient in commercial cleaners are harsh alkalis such as ammonia and sodium hypochlorite. These are found in many of your kitchen and bathroom products. They leave behind an unpleasant ‘chemical’ smell when you use them and can be toxic to humans.
When sprayed into the air, they cause skin and eye irritation and breathing problems. Concentrated liquid alkalis can cause burns on contact with skin, which is why you are advised to store them safely and use gloves when cleaning.
Choosing a green cleaning alternative will remove the toxic effects of alkalis from your home forever. An easy thing to do for your family’s health and peace of mind.
4. You’ll safeguard the most vulnerable inhabitants in your home.
When you live with children and pets you know they’re more sensitive to toxic cleaning products than you are. Pets, in particular, can find lower doses of any chemical much more dangerous, so it’s important to keep them well out of the way when you spring clean.
Children are vulnerable to the chemicals in cleaning products because their bodies can absorb toxic trace substances as they grow. These traces can accumulate in their organs over time to cause allergies, asthma, eczema and respiratory problems. Children also have a reduced ability to eliminate toxins, so the effects of exposure to harsh chemicals are intensified.
Non-toxic, eco-responsible household cleaners such as ECO.3 are an effective way to reduce the level of exposure your children and pets experience over their lifetime. With no harsh chemical ingredients, they help keep your home environment hygienically clean without the health risks.
5. You’ll reduce the amount of plastic sent to landfill
As we mentioned earlier, plastic bottles are made from oil and take a lot of energy to produce. Every time you use a commercial cleaning product another bottle is made and your previous empty bottles are sent to landfill. What a waste!
Rather than clogging our countryside with plastic that takes hundreds of years to degrade, choose an eco-friendly alternative. Many green cleaning brands like ECO.3 offer refill replacements for their non-toxic cleaners, so you can re-use your plastic bottles and help reduce demand for new ones. A simple and effective solution that helps you save the planet! How is this achieved? Unlike the supermarkets, single use multiple purchase strategy, ECO.3 bottles and sprayers are designed for multiple uses. They are higher quality and also in many cases carry a lifetime guarantee. When they are empty, simply refill the bottle with water from your tap up to the fill line, tear off the top of the ECO.3 Refill sachet, pour into the bottle and shake. You’re good to go!
By providing highly concentrated products in sachets, ECO.3 products avoid the need to transport water around the planet. Supermarkets want you to keep buying ready to use products because they make more money. So why not buy sachets? Remember each sachet weighs only 60 grammes instead of the 750 grammes of the water filled finished product. This represents a direct saving of over 90% in weight, fuel and CO2 emissions for transport. Oh, and by the way the sachets are recyclable too!
6. You’ll help to reduce environmental damage
Synthetic chemicals used in modern cleaning products are untested and scientists don’t know the full effect they have on our homes, or on the environment. When you rinse your surfaces or pour dirty, chemical-filled water down the drain, these chemicals enter the water supply.
In countries with good wastewater disposal, many other chemicals are used to help filter and dilute these chemicals so that they don’t damage the environment. These processes are expensive and impact the environment by increasing the energy needed to make our water safe. You don’t even want to think about what happens in countries with poor sanitation infrastructure. It’s an environmental disaster waiting to happen!
When you choose Eco-Responsible cleaning products you remove the need to use toxic chemicals to make our water supply safe and help the environment. It’s an obvious solution that benefits everyone.
7. You’ll reduce the demand for synthetic chemicals
Synthetic chemicals were developed to create alternatives to washing with pure soap. Rather than just one product in your laundry soap, these detergents use lots of different synthetic ingredients to help break down dirt, oil and grease so it can be removed from clothes.
In commercial brands, your laundry detergent will often contain hidden extras: enzymes to break down protein stains, bleaches to whiten whites, fabric softeners, synthetic colourings and fragrances. Most of these have nothing to do with getting your clothes clean and can cause irritation and allergies in those with delicate skin.
Getting rid of these chemicals from your home will help reduce the demand for this huge mix of synthetic chemicals, reducing energy demand and petrochemical use – and will benefit your family’s health too.
8. You’ll help save the rainforest
Palm oil is a hidden ingredient in many modern cleaning products. While it isn’t harmful in itself, its use has a huge impact on the planet. This is because rainforests in Malaysia and Indonesia are being cut down at a frightening rate to make way for palm oil plantations. 50% of the global orangutan population has been lost as a result.
Palm oil plantations are the largest cause of deforestation in South East Asia, so it makes sense that switching to natural cleaning alternatives will help to reduce the demand for palm oil. Sadly, palm oil is a common ingredient in many snack foods, so eco-friendly products will not solve the problem completely, but it’s a good place to start.
All ECO.3 products are guaranteed palm oil free, so you can clean with a clear conscience.
9. You’ll save money
Many green cleaning alternatives can be made cheaply at home from ordinary household ingredients. A combination of white vinegar, baking soda and fresh lemon is perfect for cleaning and deodorising your household surfaces. You can also use simple products such as pure soap and wash to tackle most cleaning tasks.
Even ready-made Eco-Responsible products can be cheaper than branded options. Taking alternative routes to market to reduce marketing costs and by providing refills that save on packaging, innovative companies are delivering eco-conscious products at reasonable prices and can be purchased in the comfort of your own home and delivered to your door. Just think what you could do with all the money you save!
10. You’ll be on the cutting edge of technology
New Eco-Responsible cleaning products have harnessed the latest technology to create the next generation of green cleaners. Brands like ECO.3’s cleaning range use dynamic micellar formulated liquid to cut through household grime to leave hygienic surfaces without a streaky residue.
Instead of using harsh chemicals to get things clean, ECO.3’s cleaning products are negatively-charged, they are smaller than the negatively-charged stains and electromagnetically push these stains up to the surface, making it easy for a positively-charged microfiber cloth to remove dirt and grease.
Micellar liquid cleaners also leave cleaned surfaces in a negatively-charged state so that they stay cleaner for longer. No more scrubbing or nasty chemicals! What more could you want?
ECO.3 have formulated a range of non-toxic household cleaners ideal for different surfaces including the kitchen, bathroom, glass and ceramic, plastics and metals. They’re completely free of hazardous chemicals and easy to use. Oh! Nearly forgot to mention that they also perform better than traditionally made cleaners.
To find out more about the ECO.3 cleaning revolution go to Why Eco3.
