Clean & Green: Clothes Call

Are you one of those people who stops by Sprouts to buy natural and organic foods, and then goes across the street to the conventional supermarket to buy your household cleaning products? Well, with a growing selection of environmentally friendly cleaners and detergents, Sprouts is starting to turn the Tide. In fact, Sprouts Laundry Detergent could help you clean up your act.

Laundry detergent is one of the prime offenders in polluting our waterways. By the late 1950s, nearly all U.S. detergents contained phosphates, which tend to impact lakes and streams by creating algal blooms. By 1983, over 2 million tons of phosphorus was used each year in the U.S. for laundry detergent alone – and each pound of phosphorous can grow 700 pounds of algae!

The situation has improved since then, in large part because of products like Sprouts Laundry Detergent – which, like all of our natural cleaning products, contain NO phosphates, NO harsh chemicals, NO chlorine, dyes or alcohol. And they are never tested on animals, either.

Look for 50 oz. Free & Clear (no scent) and the 50 oz. Lavender. These come in double-concentration formulas, which is what you need in today's higher-efficiency washing machines.

This detergent is made of gentle plant-based surfactants and purified water. The formulation is all natural, biodegradable, hypoallergenic, and yet still very effective on dirt! Even the bottle is made of 25 percent post-consumer recycled materials. There are no artificial brighteners or enzymes, which are found in most major brands.

Interestingly, the law does not require detergent manufacturers to list their ingredients. So all you find on most major brand detergents is vague information like "surfactants (anionic and nonionic) and enzymes." Dig a little deeper, and you'll learn that typical synthetic surfactants, like Linear Alkyl Sodium Sulfonates (or LAS) are manufactured using processes that typically release carcinogens and reproductive toxins like benzene into the environment. Others, like Alkyl Phenoxy Polyethoxy Ethanols, are slow to biodegrade and are often thought to play a role in health issues.

You won't find any of those scary-sounding ingredients in Sprouts Detergent.

And while you're at it, don't forget about our other natural cleaning products: dish liquids, all purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, dryer sheets and fabric softeners. They really do work – and the prices are so good, you'll be saving some green while you're saving some green.

from the June, 2010 edition of Fresh Off the Press