When It Comes to
Detergents, What’s the Least Irresponsible Choice?
Published: February 25, 2009
You turn down your thermostat,
replace burned-out bulbs with compact fluorescents and buy organic
cotton sheets. But when every single household purchase and decision
seems fraught with questions of the earth’s survival, what’s a
conscientious home dweller to do? In the Green Home, a new column that
will appear frequently in print and every week online, leading
environmentalists and consumer advocates will discuss ways to navigate
our new domestic landscape. Readers are invited to share their thoughts
and questions at nytimes.com/home.
THE supermarket seems to offer more and more cleaning
products labeled “organic” and “natural,” but are so-called green
detergents really better for the environment? Do they work as well?
Clive Davies, an engineer with the Environmental
Protection Agency, has tried out a lot of cleaners in his day. As
chief of the E.P.A.’s Design for the Environment Program, he awards a
government seal to detergents and cleaners made with chemicals that are
deemed less harmful than others to the environment.
If a
product has the Design for the Environment
logo, what does that mean?
We ask the manufacturer to provide us with a list of
ingredients. If they are using the safest chemical for each type of
ingredient, they earn the logo. If they’re not, we encourage them to
reformulate.
Do you
actually test the products to see if the company omitted any
ingredients?
That would be fraud. There’s a signed partnership
agreement.
According
to the Nielsen Company, Americans spent over $7.25 billion on laundry and dishwashing detergents in the last year. How
do these detergents affect the environment?
Most detergents contain surfactants, which enable them
to closely grab around the thing that you’re trying to clean. A group
of surfactant molecules form something called a micelle, which
surrounds the piece of dirt and carries it away. It’s this same
function that also makes surfactants toxic to fish. It gets into the
fish gills and impairs their ability to get oxygen from the water.
What
about phosphates?
Phosphates are another potentially harmful class of
chemicals that cause exponential growth of algae. The algae takes sun
and oxygen away from other marine life and causes those fish and
animals to die. Detergents contain a lot less phosphates than in the
’70s, so it’s not as big a concern as it used to be.
Which
detergents should consumers avoid?
Make sure you don’t use detergents with phosphates or
nonylphenol ethoxylate surfactants, but that information is rarely
available on the labels.
I
don’t know what you just said.
Nonylphenol ethoxylates are surfactants that break down
into increasingly toxic substances and stay around for a long time in
the environment.
Which
products contain those chemicals?
We identify the safest products out there. We don’t
track the ones that contain problematic chemicals.
If you
won’t single out specific brands, would you at least identify the types
of detergents that are harmful?
Some automatic dishwasher detergents contain phosphates.
“Some
automatic dishwasher detergents,” eh? Moving along, your program’s Web
site (epa.gov/dfe)
lists the various brands that have received the Design for the Environment seal, including Amway, Method Products and Greenworks from
Clorox. But I was surprised that Seventh Generation wasn’t there.
The Seventh Generation company is certainly well
intentioned, but they haven’t submitted formulations for evaluation.
They have their own approach to differentiating their products in the
marketplace.
It seems
that only 22 makers of consumer cleaning products have earned the
E.P.A.’s seal. Why so few?
It’s not a simple thing to formulate a safer cleaning
product. A company has to invest in the chemistry, and then they have
to invest in the performance testing, and they have to make sure that
it’s safer, and they have to make sure it works, and then they have to
make it through us.
Should we
avoid detergents altogether? I heard vinegar works and I tried it on my
counters, but it stank.
Yes, that is true. Homemade alternatives and elbow
grease will really do the job. But it doesn’t have the qualities a
surfactant has for lifting dirt away.
Interview conducted, edited
and condensed by Julie Scelfo.
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