How Safe Are Green Cleaning Products?
Jennifer Martiné threw a party Thursday night, and her guests brought food, wine — and empty spray bottles.Using vinegar, baking soda, essential oils and castile soap, they spent the evening making batches of natural household cleaners.
Martiné, 28, is one of more than 100 women who’ve signed up to host so-called green cleaning parties across the country this spring, part of a nationwide campaign led by Women’s Voices for the Earth, a nonprofit group based in Missoula, Mont.
Martiné’s interest in green cleaning stemmed from reading that mopping agents might harm her new puppy — and coming home one day to find that her husband had passed out while cleaning their unventilated bathroom. He had been using a combination of products and had hit his head as he fell to the floor. He was just coming to when Martiné, a food photographer, returned home to San Francisco.
“It was really scary,” she said. Her husband, Tyler, suffered no other problems, but the incident had at least one lasting effect. “I definitely don’t buy those strong cleaners anymore,” Martiné said.
Like her, a growing number of Americans are seeking so-called green cleaners — products made with natural, nontoxic, biodegradable ingredients. Few consumers may be going the straight DIY route, but sales of natural cleaning products totaled $105 million during the last 12 months, up 23% over the previous 12 months, according to SPINS, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based market research and consulting firm for the natural products industry.
Such cleaners make a variety of claims. Some promise that they contain natural (instead of synthetic) agents, break down quickly in the environment or pose less of a toxic threat to humans and ecosystems than do traditional cleaners. Others say they’re concentrated, packaged in recycled or recyclable materials, have never been tested on animals or are free of specific chemicals, such as petroleum distillates, phthalates, phosphates or CFCs. (Never mind that CFCs, proved to deplete the Earth’s ozone layer, have been banned for decades.)
Many of them also typically eschew known asthma triggers, common in many household cleaners, such as chlorine bleach and ammonia. Studies of people who work with cleaning products for a living have indeed suggested a link between conventional cleaners and an increased risk of asthma and skin irritation. So-called green cleaners rely on ingredients such as hydrogen peroxide to kill germs and remove stains, as well as citric acid and alkyl polyglucoside, a coconut-based detergent, to break down grease and dirt.
But critics caution that just because the ingredients in green cleaners are plant-based or natural doesn’t necessarily mean they’re safe. They too can cause skin irritation or trigger allergic reactions — and in a large enough dose, any ingredient can be toxic.
And though green cleaners may purport to list all ingredients, the market is largely unregulated — which means consumers still must be wary of what’s in the bottle. Even cleaning products labeled “natural” may contain some fraction of synthetic chemicals. Or they may contain natural ingredients consumers would rather avoid, such as petroleum distillates, some of which (namely, benzene) can cause cancer, and all of which come from oil, a nonrenewable (read: environmentally unfriendly) resource.
“This is not a regulated space,” said Matt Kohler, brand manager for Green Works, the brand of green cleaners launched by Clorox in January. “Any fly-by-night company can take a drizzle of lemon oil, pour it over a vat of chemicals and call it a natural cleaner.”
Focus on risks to humans
To most shoppers, going green is as much about their own and their family’s health as about the health of ecosystems.
It hasn’t taken scientific studies to prove that chlorine-based cleaners can irritate the eyes, nose and throat and harm living things. (Chlorine is, after all, employed for its ability to kill germs.) But concern about other ingredients’ effects has grown.
In the 1970s, several states, beginning with Illinois, enacted bans on phosphates in laundry detergents. The chemicals, which help produce spot-free glasses and dishes, cause algae to proliferate in lakes, streams, rivers and other bodies of water, eventually depleting the water of oxygen and choking out other marine life. Some states are now passing bans on phosphates in dishwashing detergents too.
In 2006, Wal-Mart announced that it would avoid stocking products that contain nonylphenol ethoxylates, or NPEs. The surfactants, or foaming agents, often found in detergents and other cleaning products, have been found to cause reproductive defects, liver and kidney damage, and death in fish and shellfish. In Canada and the European Union, but not in the U.S., regulations limit the chemicals’ use in cleaning products.
A variety of other chemicals are now drawing attention for their potential to harm not just ecosystems but human health too. Environmental activists have singled out such common cleaning ingredients as phthalates, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), glycol ethers, quaternary ammonium compounds and ethanolamines. For most of these chemicals, solid evidence of human health effects is only just emerging.
In the case of phthalates, evidence has been strong enough for lawmakers to take action. The class of chemicals, widely used in the plastics industry to make plastics soft, are added to conventional household cleaners (as well as cosmetics, bath soaps and shampoos) to help the products retain fragrance.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have demonstrated that most Americans have detectable levels of phthalates in their blood and urine, and preliminary findings have linked high bodily levels of phthalates to sperm damage in men and reproductive defects in newborn boys. The evidence persuaded California legislators to ban the chemicals from children’s toys, beginning next year.
The health effects of VOCs, volatile gases emitted by many cleaning products (as well as paints, markers, building materials and other products), have also come under scientific scrutiny. The solvents can irritate the nose and throat and cause dizziness, and long-term exposure may have more lasting effects. A handful of well-designed studies suggests a correlation between exposure to VOCs and an increased risk of asthma or other respiratory problems. In one, a study of more than 950 U.S. adults, published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2006, high blood levels of 1,4-dichlorobenzene, a VOC found in air fresheners and deodorizers, were associated with measurable decreases in lung function.
But other chemicals targeted by environmental advocates — solvents called glycol ethers, the disinfecting quarternary ammonia compounds and detergents called ethanolamines — have been shown to pose risks only to people who work with high doses of the chemicals for long periods.
Cleaning for a living
In fact, most of the evidence suggesting that cleaning products may pose harm comes from studies of people who clean for a living.
Researchers at the National University of Singapore published results in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in 1994 showing that people employed as cleaners had nearly twice the risk of asthma as people in other professions. A study of more than 15,000 working adults in Europe, published in the Lancet in 1999, found a similar increase in asthma risk among professional cleaners. A study by researchers at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, published in the European Respiratory Journal in 2002, found that professional cleaners were 50% more likely to develop asthma than administrative professionals.
Such studies included people who cleaned streets, chimneys and factories — admittedly dirty, hazardous environments. Professional cleaners working in factories or institutional settings also tend to use industrial cleaners, which are more highly concentrated and stronger acting than household cleaners. Nonetheless, researchers at Barcelona’s Municipal Institute of Medical Research have produced evidence suggesting asthma rates are increased among people who clean homes for a living too.
In a paper published in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health in 2001, the Barcelona researchers reported that housecleaners were roughly three times as likely to have asthma, compared with office workers. In 2003, they reported that women who had been employed as domestic cleaners were twice as likely to have asthma, compared with ones who had never been employed as cleaners.
In a 2005 report, the researchers showed that frequency and severity of asthma symptoms in housecleaners was directly correlated with how much bleach they used, though they could not rule out whether other chemicals in cleaning products they used contributed to their symptoms.
People who clean for a living are exposed to such a variety of combinations of chemicals (not to mention dust) over such a long period of time that’s it’s nearly impossible for studies to pinpoint the cause of symptoms — or to link them to individual chemicals.
That challenge is precisely what has some critics of the cleaning products industry concerned.
Figuring out which chemicals are safe, and at what levels, is a “highly imprecise science,” said Arthur Weissman, president and chief executive of Green Seal, an independent organization that certifies environmentally responsible products and has helped Los Angeles County and the state of California draft green purchasing policies. “We just don’t know that much about how chemicals act in the environment and in our bodies,” he said.
Long-term concerns
The gap in scientific understanding stems from the fact that chemicals included in consumer products are studied for their immediate toxic effects, and they’re often studied in isolation. In reality, however, chemicals — such as those in cleaning products — are used in a variety of combinations, and people are often exposed to low doses over long periods.
“We’re not saying these cleaning products are going to kill you tomorrow,” said Alexandra Gorman Scranton, director of science and research for Women’s Voices for the Earth. “We’re concerned about the long-term and cumulative effects, what happens when you add all these chemicals together over a lifetime.”
Others are concerned that even limited evidence of toxicity suggests some chemicals in cleaning products may be particularly dangerous for kids, who spend a lot of time crawling on floors and placing hands and toys in their mouths.
But industry representatives are quick to point out that health problems occur only when cleaning products aren’t used or stored properly — and that the toxicity of any chemical is determined by its dose.
“This stuff isn’t meant to be eaten, or drank, in any case,” said Brian Sansoni, vice president of communications for the Soap and Detergent Assn.
Still, said Deborah Moore, executive director of the Berkeley-based Green Schools Initiative, “if you have kids, why expose them to a chemical that might be toxic if you don’t need to?”
Heeding such consumer concerns, makers of natural cleaning products have swapped out petroleum-based foaming agents for plant-based ones, traded chlorine for hydrogen peroxide and opted for citric acid, tea tree oil and pine oil instead of synthetic disinfectants.
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day products, for example, contain ingredients derived from corn, sugar cane and coconut in place of synthetic solvents , petroleum distillates, bleach and phosphates. Seventh Generation makes a bathroom cleaner that relies on hydrogen peroxide instead of chlorine for stain removal, and Method’s all-purpose cleaner relies on soda ash to break down grease and oil.
No standards set
But just because a cleaning product is biodegradable and made from plant-based sources doesn’t mean it’s without its own potential adverse effects on health.
“Certainly many natural chemicals are toxic too,” Weissman said. Plant-based ingredients included in some green cleaners include limonene (a citrus-based oil that helps prevent residue build-up), pine oil and the foaming agent coconut diethanolamide — all of which can cause allergic dermatitis.
And in March, a study of natural and nontoxic consumer products, commissioned by the watchdog group Organic Consumers Assn., found the suspected cancer-causing chemical 1,4-dioxane in roughly half of 100 tested products — including several dishwashing liquids with words such as “Earth friendly” and “eco” in their brand names. The chemical is a byproduct of a process that uses petroleum-based chemicals to make detergents less harsh.
“It’s really confusing for consumers to try to understand the claims of these products,” said Moore, whose Green Schools Initiative has helped several California schools buy greener cleaning products. “You need a PhD to go to the supermarket and understand the labels on products.”
The problem, critics say, is that labeling in the cleaning products industry is highly unregulated. The use of terms such as “green” and “natural” is monitored by the Federal Trade Commission, which aims to ensure that such terms are not misleading to consumers. But neither the commission nor any other agency sets standards that products must meet before they can call themselves green.
” ‘Green’ and ‘natural’ are marketing terms — they’re not terms of science,” Sansoni said.
Cleaning product manufacturers — green or otherwise — are also not required by law to disclose all of their ingredients on their labels. Some green cleaner makers say they have disclosed all ingredients — but there’s no way for consumers to be certain that they have.
Consumer advocates therefore have pressed for stricter labeling rules, but the industry has resisted, arguing that long lists of ingredients would create a potentially hazardous distraction on product labels. “The safety and usage information is the most important information on a product label,” Sansoni said. “If you try to turn the label into an encyclopedia, you obscure the most important information on there.”
Proponents of greener cleaners, such as Weissman, say that if cleaning products didn’t include potentially dangerous ingredients, such warnings wouldn’t be necessary.
For now, green cleaning product manufacturers can opt to be certified by a third party, such as Green Seal or the Environmental Protection Agency’s Design for the Environment program.
Some say these certifiers don’t do enough to protect consumers. “There are different shades of green,” said Deirdre Imus, wife of radio jock Don Imus, who has created a line of cleaners. She said that some certifiers will give their approval to products containing chlorine or petroleum-based chemicals, with labels that don’t disclose all ingredients.
That pitfall isn’t lost on Martiné, who’s now cleaning her kitchen sink with a homemade baking soda scrub.
“It worries me that companies are doing the green thing just to make money,” she said. “I’m excited to make my own cleaners, because then I’ll know exactly what’s in them.”
© 2008 The Los Angeles Times
I use vinegar, borax, baking soda, salt, and lemon juice for all my cleaning. I got tired of looking for an ingredient list on cleaners and not finding one.
I cleaned the public schools during my college summers off and each summer had chronic bronchitus-my family doctor said it was probably from the dust and cleaners we used (and this was 18 years ago). So I had my crew walking around with masks on (which we bought ourselves).
People don’t understand just how caustic cleaners can be-in one instance, a coworker, added bleach and ammonia to the toilet bowl. I remember him running out of the bathroom saying that when he started cleaning, smoke came out. We all high tailed it out of there before we dry cleaned our lungs.
Though discussion about how safe “natural” cleaners are or aren’t is a great topic, this article doesn’t really leave me feeling like the author had anything new to tell us about. Though the intention may have been to be as balanced as possible, it sounded more like details strung together without much purpose. It seems to be perfect cherry picking material to help polarized people dismiss the opposing view.
Like Recycle1 above, I also use borax, baking soda, lemon juice for cleaning. I’ve found that a bit of olive oil on a rag shines furniture better than furniture cleaners. I also use Seventh Generation free and clear laundry and dishwashing detergent. I avoid anything that has fragrances.
I have to do this. About 10 years ago, I suddenly developed allergies to everything. The allergist called it something like Adult Onset Multiple Allergy Syndrome. Along with pollens, molds, and my cat, I also became sensative to any products with chemicals. The allergist didn’t believe that. I don’t know if there are tests for chemical sensativities. He did all the standard tests and shrugged off my other comments.
The local health food store pointed me to the book “Home, Safe Home” by Debra Lynn Dadd. It has a lot of helpful information. I also switched to an organic diet and avoided all sugars for a long time.
My allergies have disappeared. I want to keep it that way.
“People don’t understand just how caustic cleaners can be-in one instance, a coworker, added bleach and ammonia to the toilet bowl. I remember him running out of the bathroom saying that when he started cleaning, smoke came out. We all high tailed it out of there before we dry cleaned our lungs.”
Ah yes, the chlorine gas in the toilet routine. I’ve heard about one combination of cleaning products that actually caused a toilet to detonate. Not sure how that relates to green cleaning supplies, but it is one heck of an image!
I’ve had the same adult onset multiple allergy syndrome that Ruth describes, and have taken similar measures–eating whole foods, avoiding refined products and sugar, and trying to figure out how to defend myself from all of the chemicals in our environment. I used to be able to eat anything and had no sensitivities. When I first saw Tod Jaynes’ “Safe” years ago, I thought the main character was nuts…now I identify with her. I wish there was a database somewhere containing all products, where you could just type in the name and all the ingredients would be listed, the dangerous ones flagged.
Then again, using borax, olive oil, vinegar, and lemon juice is probably be the best approach. Let the corporate giants wither while we go back to basics.
Pine oil?! Some of the green cleaners use pine oil?
How safe can that be? As anyone who keeps birds ought to be able to tell you: pine oil fumes will kill your avian friend. (It’s surprosing how many people have unwittingly killed their pet birds, including through the use of pine cleaners.) Think of their deaths as miners would the death of the canary in the coal mine.
If you don’t go completely green, at least go to an avian care website to see what else would do in a bird. Or, if there’s a veterinarian near you with a sub-specialty in avian or exotic care, consult his/her office: many vets offer lists of dangerous plants/agents.
Re. chlorine and ammonia, I wonder why anyone would think of it being at all necessary or even useful to combine these to clean … pretty much anything. I’ve cleaned toilets with both, but singularly; if it was chlorine bleach, then only it was used, and the same for ammonia. Never had any problems with this and both disinfect.
And as for impact on the environment, I don’t know what the above chemicals represent, but haven’t used ammonia since a job at an IHOP back in the 1970s, and I assume bleach is okay, and prefer the fewest products possible. Besides, it doesn’t take much, and I wouldn’t be doing this more than maybe once, at most twice, a week if I was cleaning the toilet, which others here do. Nonetheless, if I knew it was harmful for the environment, then I wouldn’t use bleach for anything. I don’t care if white underwear, f.e., becomes less white just because of not using bleach; if it is harmful to the environment.
Re. PINE OIL, it’s a very good insect repellent and possibly insecticide, wholly natural; as is also cedar oil, or that which you get from the cedar leaves (not needles, but tiny leaves, I was told they are and by an senior and expert outdoors and wilderness guide). Want wholly natural, singular compound, and great smelling insect repellent? When there are cedars around, then grab a half of a handful or so of the leaves, rub hard enough between your hands to cause the oil to be secreted (or whatever term is better to use), dispose of the leaves and then rub the oil on yourself.
It was ‘white cedars’ that I had learned this with and I’m not sure if other kinds would also work, but would certainly give any of them a try. After all, many, if not all plants, contain their own insecticides or repellents, the advantage of NON-monoculture replacement of restoration logged areas, say, for the repellents of each plant contributes to the protection of not only the type of this plant, but also surrounding ones; ending with a complementary “batch” of repellents that work against various or different pest insects.
The guide, a senior aged woman who worked at what I believe was called the Ottawa Outdoor Field Society, something like that anyway, in Ottawa, Ontario, Ca, also introduced us to a plant growing right outside her house. It was a weed-like looking plant and I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it, excerpt to perhaps wonder why she had these tall weeds (I thought) alongside her house. Surprise, surprise, surprise; she introduced us (group from YMCA canoe club) to this plant, telling us that if we wanted to try an excellent insect repellent, then to just grab a little branch of this weedy or soft stemmed plant and to hang it over our ears, or if wearing a hat with a way to stick the little branch into a hole or under a strap, then that’s also an option.
That also had a great odour and worked greatly.
Plants with such good smelling but potent repellents (very effective and fast too) therefore seem like potentially all dangerous for birds or little birds; particularly in enclosed spaces, I suppose.
I forget the name, but there is (I suppose a small) business in Maine that provides excellent (I believe anyway) all-natural liquid soaps, highly concentrated, enough that they can all be diluted, while the peppermint one most of all. That’s a real burner that one, if it’s not sufficiently diluted and you apply it for bathing, for which I preferred to instead use the Lavender (great odour), or Castille (I think it’s the name), I believe Sandalwood, and some others; probably Rose or some other flower, other than Lavender.
The Peppermint, for bathing, I guess would be better to only use when unfortunate enough to sit on a public toilet, say, and get crabs, which can’t stand peppermint’s strong repellent; according to the directions on the container, but which I also don’t have trouble believing after having tried most of these soaps. For regular bathing, I’d probably dilute this one around 6x, and does that ever make a difference in your overall cost for this product; instead of $3 to $4 a medium sized bottle, say, you luck out with it being around 6x less per bottle for your personal usage.
(They’re also sold up here, but I found the price or cost to be 3x to 4x higher than in the U.S. and I can’t really afford this sort of price jacking, which I can’t understand at all; some, okay, but not 3-4x more. Of course that’s also in part due to 15% sales tax here.)
I found all of the others I tried to be great for bathing, though preferred the great smell of the Lavender kind. Actually, I don’t think I got around to trying the other flower one, I believe Rose.
When I roll my cigs, for I often buy loose tobacco, I like to add some herbs, such as sage, eucalyptus, sassafras, and the seeds of lavender, and that one particularly tastes good; while the sage and eucalyptus are next in line for flavour and pleasure, albeit I always like the sage. Just don’t want to put to many seeds in a cig. though, else … too potent.
I haven’t tried bearberry leaf for the local natural food store doesn’t carry this herb. And plenty of other herbs used for smoking (without any tar and nic. at all) can be found by reading the ingredients of the Indian Spirit Pow Wow blend, which is totally without tobacco; only being herbs, and tasting great, but also being unrollable, needing a pipe. Indian Spirit’s tobacco products are available in probably all tobacco shops, and often enough in country stores, f.e.
It helps to reduce consumption of both tar and nicotene, and that’s speaking of pure, natural tobacco, not the commericial Big Corp. stuff that is loaded with synthetic chemicals. And it seriously improves the taste of cigs. Otoh, I’ve read that purely natural tobacco has little nic. and that it’s believed to be possibly good for health in one more respects; and I found such tobacco to be like totally non-addictive, after having (many years before) experience Big Corp. cigs.
And tobacco is yet another plant that I’ve read can be easily enough used to make your own insect repellent; something about soaking leaves from a plant in water and the using the water, I believe to recall.
I used to trek enough in wilderness for recreation (physical and spiritual), but began to refuse to use Big Corp. insect repellents around the age of 20, if not earlier (am now 51), because I am against all these synthetic chemical compounds crap. So I always like to learn about natural repellents.
One I have bought and used was citronella, and that both smelled good and worked well; although had to apply it a second time and within minutes, after which the effect lasted. With the cedar and the other plant the guide of Ottawa taught us about, these did not require any second application, and we were out for a few hours in real wilderness. Loads of mosquitoes and enough other biting little buggers, but “man” do they scram from you when using these repellents the woman taught us about. They’re then NOWHERE in sight, I found; surely are, but a little too far to see them or make them out.
I also bought and used, numerous enough times, a pine oil-based repellent, supposed to be all natural ingredients, and this smelled good and worked very well; only needing to add a second application after a little while. The cedar was purely cedar leaf oil, and was tried maybe 15 minutes after having hung a little branch of the plant next to the woman’s house over my ear; and the latter seemed to suffice, but applying the cedar leaf oil not long afterwards doesn’t permit sufficiently long experience with the other plant’s branch alone. The cedar oil lasted for some hours; and it wasn’t much of this oil that I used, either.
Anyway, with respect to the soaps from the business in Maine, I believe to recall that all of these can be additionally used for washing dishes and laundry, as well as for cleaning a house; although I think I’d use the peppermint one for floors, sinks, tubs and toilets, given that it’s a potent herb, having both strong repellent for buggers, and I believe enough anti-bacteria, whatever; disinfectant I guess.
Those are blends of I guess oils from a variety of plants, I believe. It’s okay for me, for I was allergic to none of those I tried. And it meant NO more shampoo and house cleaning products; whether they be Big Corp. kind, so synthetics, or labelled environmentally safe. I don’t think I’d use the peppermint one for laundry, or not underwear anyway; did that with underwear and maybe I had put a little too much of this soap in, but it caused a sort of light burning sensation, as I also found when using the soap, even diluted a few times, to do in sensitive parts of the body; ouch, sting, burn. Probably hadn’t diluted it enough; but the dilution I had was okay for the rest of the body, albeit maybe a little too potent for the scalp, so I’d use extra dilution for replacing shampoo.
There seem to definitely be plenty of options. Look around.
Little “chief” Long-wind
I wrote, “Want wholly natural, singular compound, and great smelling insect repellent?”, and I guess it is not ’singular compound’, but singular ingredient (maybe?).
And it’s not Castille, but Castile soap; and I just learned, for the first time, that it’s vegetable oil, while some say that the only true Castile soap is made of OLIVE OIL, to my amazement. But other oils are also used for soaps given the same name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castile_soap
Quote: “Castile soap is also sometimes called Seafarer’s soap because of its broad range of uses”.
Wherein I above-posted:
“It helps to reduce consumption of both tar and nicotene, and that’s speaking of pure, natural tobacco, not the commericial Big Corp. stuff that is loaded with synthetic chemicals.”
Of course need to add [boosted] nic. content through the use of hybridised tobacco to have unnaturally high amounts of nic.; based on what I learned in the 1990s, anyway. If not true, then I still found the Indian Spirit very non-addictive nevertheless.
I included the comment of the mixing of the bleach and ammonia to help illustrate the author’s point of housecleaners bearing the brunt of the chemical byproducts-we were given no training on the safety or proper handling of the cleaners we were using. And why would we have access to both ammonia based and chlorine based cleaners? How many “Merry maids” are given reasonable training, I wonder?
Does anyone know if Citrasolv has any harsh chemicals? I use a diluted solution of Citrasolv as my main household cleaner. Other than that I use Seventh Generation dishwasher soap and Dawn with no antibacterial cleaner for liquid dish soap and some baking soda and borax for the sinks. I just bought some soap nuts for washing my clothes at my local natural food store and will give them a try.