Laundry Supplies

What To Look For

Laundry product manufacturers fill advertising images with mountainous landscapes, wildflowers and clean white sheets flapping in prairie winds to sell the idea that their products will leave your clothes feeling fresh and clean. These images also suggest that detergents clean clothes "naturally," yet manufacturers of laundry products rely on unnatural ingredients, like non-renewable petroleum, synthetic fragrances and chemical whiteners that can pollute your laundry room and nearby waterways.

What to Look for:
Always buy products that disclose ingredients on product labels, as most environmentally preferable brands do. Aside from that, here are a few more product-specific things to look for.

Laundry Detergents
Choose vegetable oil-based products that are free of all the problematic chemicals outlined in The Backstory. And if your water allows for it, choose powders over liquids. Powders are more efficient to ship and require less water.

Fabric Softeners
You can usually soften fabrics with vinegar or baking soda, but if you choose to buy a commercially made product, buy one with a vegetable, rather than petroleum, base that is free of synthetic fragrances.

Bleaches and Stain Removers
These, too, you can make from simple ingredients, like washing soda and vinegar, but commercial products should be free of chlorine. Look for bleach alternatives with either hydrogen peroxide or sodium percarbonate, an environmentally benign mixture of washing soda and hydrogen peroxide that breaks down into oxygen, water and soda ash.
To reduce packaging waste, buy the largest size available. Select products in bottles made with at least some recycled plastic or in cardboard boxes made with 100 percent recycled content. And choose concentrated formulas, which require less packaging and fuel for shipping.
Shopping and Usage Tips

Shopping Tips:

Shopping Tips:

• Avoid unsubstantiated claims like "non-toxic," "hypo-allergenic" and "natural." These claims aren't verified by third parties and are therefore meaningless. Use of the term "organic" on a cleaning product's label or in its title doesn't guarantee a safer product, either. There are no defined organic standards for cleaning products, and the term is only meaningful on food and some personal care products.
• Look for specifics. For example, "biodegradable in 3 to 5 days" holds a lot more meaning than simply "biodegradable," as most substances will eventually break down if given enough time and the right ecological conditions. And claims like "no phosphates" or "plant-based" are more meaningful than vague terms like "ecologically-friendly" or "natural."

DIY Detergents, Softeners and Bleaches

• To make your own laundry detergent, combine either liquid castile soap or plain soap flakes with either washing soda to cut grease (it is caustic, so always wear gloves when handling) or borax to remove stains (keep away from pets and children, as it can cause vomiting if ingested).
• If you need fabric softener, you can make your own by adding 1/4 cup of baking soda to the wash cycle. Adding 1/4 cup of white vinegar will also soften clothes, as well as remove stains and eliminate static cling.
• For stain removal, try soaking fabrics in water mixed with either borax, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide or white vinegar. Or scrub stained areas with a paste of washing soda and water; just be sure to wear gloves when using washing soda.
• Eliminate static cling in the dryer by drying natural-fiber clothes and synthetic-material clothes separately. Better still, line dry the synthetic clothing, as those materials tend to dry faster than cotton.

A More Energy-Efficient Load

• Launder clothes on the warm or cold water setting for washing, and always use cold water to rinse clothes. Washing clothes in cold water can cut CO2 emissions down by 100 pounds and save you up to $64 a year on your energy bill.
• Clean your lint filter with every load and check your dryer exhaust frequently to make sure it's clean and that the flapper on the outside hood opens and closes freely. This will help improve its energy efficiency.
• Irons can consume up to 1,800 watts of energy, and if used for two hours, one iron emits 4.8 pounds of carbon dioxide. Line drying clothes, drying with cold air or removing them promptly from the dryer will keep wrinkles to a minimum.
• See our Washing Machines Buying Guide for tips on selecting the most efficient washer.
• If time allows for it, line drying is the most ecologically safe alternative to energy-consuming appliances. Furthermore, sunshine works better on whitening whites than bleach.

Product Comparisons

Product Comparisons
Laundry detergents, bleaches and fabric softeners can do more polluting than they do cleaning. Opt for one of these cleaner alternatives for your next load.

The Backstory

The Backstory

Personal Health

Laundry detergent and fabric softener ingredients pose a variety of health risks, ranging from relatively minor—like skin irritants and allergens—to the severe—cancer, poisoning and neurological problems. Knowing which ingredients to avoid, however, will help you control the number of toxins entering your home.
Laundry Detergents
Laundry detergents and laundry stain removers frequently contain nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), common surfactants belonging to a class of chemicals called alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs). Surfactants, or surface active agents, are chemicals that make surfaces more susceptible to water, allowing cleaners to easily penetrate stains and wash them away. APEs can damage the immune system, and they're suspected hormone disruptors, which means they can mimic hormones in the body that regulate reproduction and development.
Used instead of or in conjunction with NPEs, linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), is another surfactant used in laundry powders and liquids. LAS, which is often listed on ingredients as "anionic surfactant," causes contact dermatitis, respiratory irritation and, if ingested, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. It is also corrosive to the eyes.
The fragrances in detergents, fabric softeners and dryer sheets may provoke skin irritation, allergic reactions and asthma, and they can contain hormone disrupting phthalates, chemicals that have been linked to cancer and reproductive system harm in lab tests. Fragrances can cling to fabrics for weeks after washing and may cause stuffy nose, sneezing, headache, skin irritation and other allergic symptoms in sensitive individuals, especially on clothing or bedding that's in close proximity to nose and mouth for extended periods of time.
Other ingredients turn dangerous when combined: Diethanolamine (DEA) and triethanolamine (TEA), which are found in liquid detergents and used to cut through oils, can react with nitrites (an often-undisclosed preservative) to form carcinogenic nitrosamines.
Bleaching Agents
Chlorine bleach, otherwise known as sodium hypochlorite, is highly caustic and may cause skin irritation and redness. Its fumes can irritate eyes, nose and airways, and it can be fatal if swallowed. According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, chlorine-based bleaches caused 19,581 poisonings in U.S. children under 6 years of age in 2005. Chlorine also poses a hazard because it can react with other cleaners to form toxic gases. If mixed with cleaners containing ammonia, chlorinated cleaning products form lung-damaging chloramine gases. Chlorine mixed with acids, such as those in some toilet bowl cleaners, can form toxic chlorine gas, which damages airways.
When released to waterways, chlorine bleach can create organochlorines that can contaminate drinking water. Organochlorines, which are suspected carcinogens as well as reproductive, neurological and immune-system toxins, have also been known to cause developmental disorders.
Another common bleach used in detergents is sodium perborate, which is a skin, eye and respiratory irritant. Ingestion of products containing sodium perborate can result in vomiting, nausea and diarrhea.
Fabric Softeners
Fabric softeners can build up on clothing, making them look dull. They also hinder the absorptive abilities of towels, so if you do choose to use them on other clothing, never use them on towels. In terms of health risks, however, a study in the May 2000 issue of the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health found that they emit, among other chemicals, the neurotoxins toluene and trimethylbenzene, styrene (a possible carcinogen), the respiratory irritants phenol and xylene, and thymol, which can cause abdominal distress.
Finally, laundry products sometimes contain optical brighteners intended to make clothing appear cleaner. These brighteners can rub off fabrics onto skin and cause rashes.

Environmental

Waterways and Aquatic Life
After bubbly detergents disappear down our drains, they are treated along with sewage and other wastewater at municipal treatment plants, then discharged into nearby waterways. Most ingredients in chemical cleaners break down into harmless substances during treatment or soon afterward. Others, however, do not, threatening water quality or fish and other wildlife. Chlorine bleach combines with carbon molecules, creating harmful organochlorines such as dioxin. In 2000, the EPA found that the San Francisco Bay, which had high levels of dioxin, was being fed by municipal gray water that included, in large part, laundry water containing fabric-bleaching chemicals.
In a May 2002 study of contaminants in stream water samples across the country, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found persistent detergent metabolites, which are detergent chemicals that have passed through microorganisms, in 69 percent of streams tested. Sixty-six percent contained disinfectants.
The detergent metabolites the USGS detected were APEs, including nonylphenol ethoxylates and octylphenol ethoxylates. When discharged in municipal wastewater, nonylphenol ethoxylates and octylphenol ethoxylates break down into nonylphenol and octylphenol, which are more toxic and do not readily biodegrade in soil and water. The presence of APEs have been shown to mimic the hormone estrogen, and their presence in water may be harming the reproduction and survival of salmon and other fish. For example, in Britain, researcher John Sumpter discovered that male fish exposed to APEs in rivers were producing female egg-yolk proteins.
According to the USGS, 3,500 kilograms of LAS are dumped into the Mississippi River basin every day, depriving water of oxygen and killing aquatic life. LAS also decomposes on heating, producing toxic and corrosive fumes such as sulfur oxides.
Surfactants of all types are harmful to the environment because they don't biodegrade quickly. As they build up in ground water, they deprive the soil of moisture, essentially creating "water-repellant soil" that hinders the growth of plants.
The bleaching ingredient sodium perborate has been shown to harm aquatic life and to emit toxic fumes when heated during incineration.
Solid Waste
The plastic bottles used to package cleaning products pose another environmental problem by contributing to the mounds of solid waste that must be landfilled, incinerated or, in not enough cases, recycled. Most cleaners are bottled in high-density polyethylene (HDPE, #2) or polyethylene terephthalate (PETE, #1) which are accepted for recycling in a growing number of communities. However, some are bottled in polyvinyl chloride (PVC, #3). PVC, otherwise known as vinyl, is made from cancer-causing chemicals such as vinyl chloride, and it forms dioxin, a potent carcinogen, as a byproduct during production and incineration. As a final insult, most sanitation departments do not accept PVC for recycling; less than one percent of all PVC is recycled each year.
As a general environmental precaution, most laundry detergents, fabric softeners and stain removers are made from petroleum, contributing to the depletion of this non-renewable resource and increasing our nation's dependence on imported oil.
Dryer sheets are not made of readily biodegradable materials and pile up in landfills. Some companies have introduced re-usable products that will soften clothes and eliminate static cling; among the most advertised are dryer balls made from PVC, which as stated earlier, releases cancer-causing chemicals during production. Another alternative are so-called "static eliminator" dryer sheets that are made from polyester, itself made of non-renewable petroleum.

Resources and References

Resources and References

From the Green Guide:

Virtuous Cycles

Laundry Dryer CO2 Calculator

Rediscovering the Clothesline

"GG Buying Guide: Laundry Detergents," National Geographic Green Guide, Summer 2008

From Outside Sources:
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry: www.atsdr.cdc.gov
Anderson, Rosalind, Ph.D. and Julius Anderson M.D., Ph.D. "Respiratory toxicity of fabric softener emissions." Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, 60:124-136, 2000.
Bond, Annie B. Home Enlightenment. (Rodale, 2005; $27.95)
Care 2: www.care2.com
Dickey, Philip. Troubling Bubbles: The Case for Replacing Alkylphenol Ethoxylate Surfactants. (Washington Toxics Coalition, July 1997).
Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine. Green Living. (Plume, 2005; $16.00)
Project Laundry List: www.laundrylist.org
Washington Toxics Coalition: www.watoxics.org