Go down the laundry aisle at your local supermarket and bottle after bottle of detergent will evoke images of open fields, spring flowers or even a tropical fruit fiesta. Despite the lovely pictures, we all know there’s really nothing natural about these chemically-ridden liquids and powders.
The scary part is that cleaning products are not legally required to list their ingredients, so there’s no exact way to find out what’s being used on our clothing or what’s being washed into the waterways. However, we do know that there are a slew of chemicals in detergent that are as toxic as they are difficult to pronounce.
The Environmental Protection Agency found that ingredients in bleach, such as sodium hypochlorite, dichloro-isocyanurate and nitrogen-trichloride, “can form hazardous gases” and “may form toxic gas” and is “a threat to human health,” respectively. The agency also found that alkylphenol ethoxylates, the chemical found in fabric softener, has “high toxicity to aquatic organisms, and may be endocrine disruptors (compounds that adversely affect the endocrine system that controls metabolism, reproduction, and growth).”
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It’s completely unnecessary for these harmful chemicals to be a part of our laundry routine, especially since there are plenty of eco-friendly detergents on the market.
And if you have the time, you can even make it yourself. DIY laundry detergent only requires three ingredients: washing soda, borax and bar soap. This blog post from The Simple Dollar breaks down the process step by step; it explains that the homemade soap removes stains just as effectively as name-brand detergents and saves money as well.
“Using my homemade stuff, I spend $8.15 for the detergent over the course of the year,” the author explains. “Using Tide with Bleach Alternative, I spend $73.23 over the course of a year. Using my homemade detergent instead saves me $65.08 a year. Plus, it was fun to make.”
TreeHugger recently featured zero-waste blogger Lauren Singer of Trash is for Tossers, who just started her own company, The Simply Co. and a Kickstarter campaign to make her three-ingredient, handmade, organic and vegan laundry powder available to the masses.
“There are over 85,000 industrial chemicals out there and the majority of ones that are in use today have never even been tested for safety,” Singer says in the video below. “In fact, cleaning product manufacturers aren’t even legally required to list their ingredients on their packaging, so we really have no clue what’s in them.”
So while it’s important to have clean clothes, for the sake of our health and the planet’s health, let’s all try to wash them more responsibly.
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Tag: laundry
The Problem With Your Washing Machine That’s Hard to See But Impossible to Ignore
How does doing the laundry cause pollution?
According to a 2011 study from ecologist Mark Browne, in an average wash, 1900 fibers come off a single synthetic piece of clothing such as polyester, acrylic and nylon. What’s scary is that these tiny plastic fibers — aka microplastics — are released into waterways around the globe. In his paper, Browne wrote that microplastic was found on every site he visited. That’s 18 coasts on six continents, from the earth’s poles to the equator.
As the Guardian reports from Browne’s study, 85 percent of man-made material found on coastlines were microfibers. Unsuspecting marine animals are also eating these synthetic particles, which means it can possibly enter the food chain.
“We found that these particles of plastic can transfer, once they have been ingested they can transfer from their gut to their circulatory system i.e. into their blood and accumulate in their blood cells and they are still there months later,” Browne said in an interview. “So our major concern is that there could be infiltration of this material into the food chain and so we really need to understand how much is in the environment and whether or not animals in the food chain have been affected.”
So that’s how innocently washing our clothes can cause pollution — and this is clearly a big problem.
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However, unlike the prominent fight to ban cosmetic microbeads, getting clothing and appliance companies to help stop the shedding of microplastics has been an uphill climb.
According to the Guardian, since his study, Browne has asked to partner with popular outdoor apparel companies such as Patagonia, Nike and Polartec to research ways to improve their textile design so it won’t shed as many plastic fibers. Unfortunately, besides women’s clothing brand Eileen Fisher, no other company has offered to support him in his research. Browne has also reached out to washing machine manufactures such as Siemens, Dyson and LG to discuss developing filters that can stop microfibers from reaching water, but no answer either.
So if these industries don’t listen, how can we fix this? Don’t buy synthetic fibers such as nylons or fleece. For the ones you already own, try not to wash it as often or choose gentler washing settings. Also stick with natural fibers such as wool, cotton, hemp or silk which break down but don’t harm the environment.
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