|
|
|
The Laundry Roomby Paul Tick We love clean clothes (well, some of us do). But how we get them clean has a great impact on our health and on the health of the planet. Most of us use detergents, fabric softeners, bleaches, stain removers, etc. Usually, we don't even know what is in these products, because the companies that produce them keep the full list of ingredients legally hidden as "trade secrets." While phosphates may have been removed from detergents thanks to environmental activists, other ingredients in the products usually still come from petroleum, which means more drilling, oil spills, and pollution from refineries. When you finish your laundry, it all goes down the drain. Watch out for spot and stain removers. They usually contain perchloroethylene and formaldehyde, and fragrances that have skin-irritating chemicals. Dry cleaning your clothes leaves a bad and hazardous smell from "perc," the chemical shorthand for a solvent that causes fatigue, confusion, dizziness and skin irritation in small doses, and liver damage and increased risk of miscarriage in larger doses. If you must commercially clean your clothes, then take them to a safer "wet cleaner," who can be located through www.tpwn.net. And tell your local dry cleaner why you won't go there anymore. Only 0.2% of Americans use non-commercial cleaning ingredients-the kind found in the Coop and other natural food stores, or made at home. In the commercial world, catch phrases like "biodegradable" and "environmentally safe" mean little. Obviously, the easiest thing to do is to start buying your products from the Coop, where these phrases do mean something. Brands that are truly eco-friendly are not afraid to list the make-up of their products. There are also plenty of laundry aids already in your home that are safe and cheap. For whiter clothes, you can use baking soda. For coffee, blood and chocolate stains, and mildew try Borax dissolved in ice cold water. For other stains, you can use white vinegar or combine white vinegar with baking soda. For diapers or other items where you have concerns about germs, you can presoak in vinegar. For a softener, try baking soda added during the rinse cycle. If you want a store-bought softener, you can find one that is soy-based. For other ideas, you can see the book Home Safe Home by Debra Lynn Dadd. Use the cold water cycle except for the worst-offending clothes. If you are in the market for a washing machine, keep in mind that a front-loader is an environmentally better choice. It is initially more expensive, but it uses one-third to one half the water and less soap and will likely last much longer, thereby saving you money in the long run. Additionally, front loaders are gentler with clothes and remove more water in the spin cycle, lessening clothes' drying time. Line dry your clothes when possible and, if you are an average consumer, you will save $45 per year in energy costs. Your clothes will smell fresh and last longer, too. For more tips on energy saving and drying, try www.energyhawk.com . There are always ways to save energy around the home- and the more you practice, the more ideas you will come up with. We can help make our country less oil dependent, while protecting the environment. Information for this article was gathered from Sierra (Sept./Oct. 2002), the magazine of the Sierra Club, and from Co-op America Quarterly (summer 2002). |
CoopScoop
Home |
