Keeping your house tidy is vital for good health — at least, that’s how it should be. Ironically, cleaning your home with certain regular products can make you sick. They can contain high concentrations of volatile organic compounds. These harmful substances become invisible after evaporating and are sometimes odorless, polluting the air you and your loved ones breathe.
Use these 12 eco-friendly cleaning products instead to kill germs without jeopardizing your family’s well-being.
Supernatural Cleaner Starter Set
This starter kit consists of four 1-fluid-ounce cleaning concentrates specializing in unique surfaces — bath tiles, glass mirrors, wood floors, and granite countertops — plus four 13-ounce refillable spray bottles. Supernatural blends high-quality plant-based ingredients with essential oils to concoct effective, luxurious, fragrant cleaners.
Each variant gives off an aromatic natural scent thanks to these plant extracts:
- Bath tile: Basil, eucalyptus, fir, lime, litsea cubeba fruit, palmarosa, peppermint and rosemary
- Mirrors: Lemon peel, lime, pink grapefruit seed, rosemary and sweet orange
- Wood floors: Basil, fir, lavender, palmarosa, peppermint and rosemary
- Granite: Basil, fir, litsea cubeba fruit, palmarosa, peppermint and rosemary
None of the cleaners have ammonia, bleach or chlorine — notorious irritants and toxins you find in ordinary household cleaning products. Supernatural’s solutions are all-natural, so don’t worry about any synthetic chemicals derived from nonrenewable sources.
Regarding the glass spray bottles, their nozzles aren’t prone to clogging and jamming. However, the bottles aren’t leakproof, so close them properly and tightly. Each one has a silicone bottom, keeping it in place and reducing the chances of breakage.
Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds All-Purpose Cleaner
This concentrated all-around cleaner is a sustainable alternative to specialty cleaning solutions. It’s a potent product for general household cleaning tasks — including washing laundry, mopping floors, scrubbing sinks and tubs and sponging down countertops — to keep allergens like mold from growing in high-moisture areas and spreading throughout your house, especially after the rainy season. It cleans well in hard or soft water and rinses quickly, hot or cold.
The Sal Suds multipurpose cleaner is gentle on the skin and appeals to your sense of smell. Its mild pine scent comes from Siberian fir and spruce essential oils, so it doesn’t rely on synthetic fragrances. Thanks to its plant-based surfactants, it easily mixes with water.
The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics has certified this green cleaner as cruelty-free. ISO 14593 has proved more than 60% of it naturally decomposes after 28 days, so it doesn’t linger in the environment for long. Dr. Bronner’s bottles this product in recyclable 16-ounce, 32-ounce and 1-gallon plastic containers.
Public Goods Walnut Scrubber Sponges
This hypoallergenic scrubber consists of walnut fibers and vegetable cellulose, making it a natural companion to many eco-friendly cleaning products. It doesn’t contain toxins like triclosan — an antimicrobial pesticide detrimental to health and the environment.
If you’ve been aching to retire from ordinary scrubbers made with polyester and polyurethane, this scrubbing abrasive won’t disappoint you. You can scour any part of the house with it, for it can handle the toughest cleaning jobs just as well as its non-eco-friendly counterparts.
Every order comes with four sponges wrapped in a thin paper envelope. Since they’re biodegradable, you can toss them out without guilt when they lose their scrubbing power.
Defunkify Stain Remover Spray
This plant-based stain remover is for messy-eating eco-warriors. The manufacturer blends environmentally safe ingredients to create an effective product without using harmful substances found in popular cleaners, including:
- Chlorine
- Dyes
- Phosphates
- Potentially toxic surfactants such as sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate
- Optical brighteners
- Synthetic fragrances
Instead, Defunkify leverages green chemistry to unleash nature’s prowess as a spill, splatter and smudge remover. This Oregon-based company uses:
- Purified water to dissolve substances.
- Alcohol alkoxylate to dislodge dirt and blemishes.
- Amylase, cellulase and protease enzymes to remove stains.
- Sodium polyacrylate to prevent redeposition.
- Citric acid and sodium hydroxide to balance the pH level.
- Calcium chloride to stabilize the formula.
- Benzothiazolinone and methylisothiazolinone as preservatives.
Although the stain remover contains numerous synthetic ingredients, it has undergone a stringent toxicity testing procedure. Defunkify discloses its complete formula for transparency, aiding anyone wishing to scrutinize it in decision-making. It has secured 11 EPA Safer Choice certifications for this miracle worker, indicating safer chemical ingredients.
Juniperseed Mercantile Sweeper Pads
If you’re torn between making floors spotless and reducing waste, you can transition away from disposable mop pads for good with these reusable ones. These sweeper pads boast thick, absorbent cotton chenille fabric, making them suitable for dry and wet applications. They fit any mopping system that accepts an 11-by-5-inch mop head.
This Juniperseed Mercantile product isn’t wholly eco-friendly — it contains polyester loop fabric. Nevertheless, you can throw it in the washing machine for countless reuses.
Tru Earth Eco-Strips Laundry Detergent
Using something sustainable when washing your reusable eco-friendly cleaning products is only fitting. Tru Earth Eco-Strips laundry detergent fits the bill.
This greener detergent curbs waste on many levels. Each strip is premeasured to ensure you don’t use more than necessary when hand- or machine-washing and avoid exhausting your supply prematurely.
Switching to this product means you never have to buy massive jugs of liquid or powdered detergent again. Plastic detergent containers typically wind up in landfills or in ocean ecosystems. Tru Earth packages its cleaner in a slim cardboard sleeve — a recyclable and biodegradable material that helps you reduce your plastic consumption and enjoy sustainable living without significant sacrifices.
Branch Basics Oxygen Boost Laundry Booster
This human- and septic-safe detergent supplement consists of sodium bicarbonate — baking soda — and sodium percarbonate — baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. The former helps dissolve dirt, grime and grease, while the latter brightens and deodorizes garments.
Although Branch Basics’ Oxygen Boost isn’t all-natural, its mineral-based ingredients don’t threaten ecosystems. Sodium bicarbonate is harmless to animals in small quantities, and sodium percarbonate decomposes into oxygen, water and sodium carbonate.
This laundry booster contains no ammonia, bleach, dyes, endocrine disruptors — chemicals that may interfere with your body’s hormones — and fragrances. It has earned the stamp of approval from the environmental activists at the Environmental Working Group. This product is also part of the Leaping Bunny Program, which means the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics has verified it’s cruelty-free.
Seventh Generation Dish Soap
This dishwashing liquid contains 95% renewable, plant-based ingredients — enough for it to make the exclusive USDA BioPreferred catalog. It also bears the EPA Safer Choice and Leaping Bunny logos.
It’s available in seven variants — one unscented and six scented. All formulas contain no dyes to suit people with sensitive skin, and the scented variants use organic botanicals. Seventh Generation bottles them in 100% recycled plastic containers.
Three Bluebirds Swedish Dishcloths
These stylish dishrags made of cellulose and cotton are fast-drying, not giving bacteria or fungi time to grow.
You can clean these dishcloths from Three Bluebirds in your washing machine or on your dishwasher’s top rack about 200 times before they show signs of degradation, which can take months. They’re also biodegradable — you can throw them away without a guilty conscience.
Marley’s Monsters UNpaper Towels
These 10-by-12-inch handmade towels are a must-have to achieve zero waste. Made from single-ply 100% cotton flannel, they’re helpful for any household chores and allow you to graduate from paper towels more frictionlessly.
Marley’s Monsters UNpaper Towels become more absorbent after a few trips to the washing machine in warm water with items of similar colors.
Cloud Paper Bamboo Paper Towels
Not ready to go paperless yet but want to quit using towels made from virgin pulp? Bamboo towels represent a circular middle ground. Bamboo is very eco-friendly — it’s a type of grass that grows 30 times faster than trees and has low water requirements.
Cloud Paper’s premium bamboo paper towels are a cut above the rest sustainability-wise. They only come from responsibly managed forests where bamboos natively grow, as certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Due to bamboo’s inherent sturdiness, this product isn’t the softest. However, don’t fret — it’s a feature, not a bug. Each of the 150 sheets per roll is absorbent but doesn’t fall apart easily. Cloud Paper also elementally bleaches these towels without chlorine.
Cloud Paper delivers rolls in 100% post-consumer recycled boxes perforated in half sizes to minimize waste and eliminate plastic altogether. This packaging material is recyclable and compostable.
GreenPolly Tall Kitchen Bags
GreenPolly only uses post-consumer polyethylene — one of the most common plastics — to make trash bags, earning them the coveted SCS Recycled Content certification. Pound for pound, recycled polymers are weaker than their virgin counterparts. Nevertheless, adopting these unscented trash bags is embracing circularity, which is a step toward sustainability.
The recycled-content drawstring bags come in colored and clear varieties. The former is suitable for holding solid waste, while the latter is best for collecting recyclables when participating in municipal recycling programs.
Use Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products at Home
Making every effort to lead a greener lifestyle can help address the world’s environmental ills. While it won’t be enough to reverse climate change and remove garbage from ecosystems, your actions will be more impactful if you inspire others to follow suit.
References
- International Organization for Standardization: https://www.iso.org/standard/24154.html
- United States Environmental Protection Agency: https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/triclosan
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration: https://www.fda.gov/science-research/bioinformatics-tools/endocrine-disruptor-knowledge-base-edkb
- National Center for Biotechnology Information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9637970/
Here are the answers to some of the most common questions about eco-friendly cleaning products:
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Eco-Friendly Cleaning?
Eco-friendly cleaning involves consciously using green products — like those listed above — without substances harmful to humans, wildlife and vegetation when making your home spotless. Avoiding household cleaning paraphernalia that causes various pollutions is vital in sustainable living.
How Do You Know If a Cleaning Product Is Eco-Friendly?
The fastest way to determine whether a cleaning product is eco-friendly is to look for reputable third-party environmental and sustainability certifications. Examples include The EPA Safer Choice, SCS Recycled Content and Leaping Bunny. The products listed above are great places to start.
What Is the Most Natural Cleaner?
As discussed, eco-friendly cleaning products can be very beneficial — and hot water is the most natural cleaner. Vinegar is another potent disinfectant found in the kitchen. Lemon’s citric acid is also antibacterial and antiseptic. Although these natural cleaners are effective, they aren’t suitable for every task.
