Cleaning the bathroom can be daunting, even if you’re armed with traditional cleaners laden with bleach and strong but perhaps environmentally unfriendly ingredients. But what if you want to go green and still get the toilet bowl, sink and tile to sparkle? Start by stocking up on white vinegar and baking soda. These two staples of the kitchen can help keep your bathroom clean in a way that’s safe for the environment. Just as the move toward green in general is growing, so is the interest in green cleaning products, said Urvashi Rangan, director of the consumer safety group for Consumer Reports. The number of products on the market has grown. “Within what we have looked at, anecdotally speaking, we have seen some green cleaners start to perform better and better,” she said. What makes a cleaner green? “In my book, green has to be both good for health and the environment,” Bond said. Many conventional cleaners can damage both, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA advises consumers to be alert for “signal words” on labels. Among them: danger-poison, corrosive, severely irritating, highly flammable, highly combustible or strong sensitizer. [Read this article]

Newly formulated laundry detergents can wash most clothes perfectly well in cold water, manufacturers say, but customers are stubbornly refusing to turn down the temperature. Although some of these detergents have been available for several years, customers cling to mom’s age-old advice that hot water washes best – squandering energy and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, some consumers have long preferred to wash their clothes in cold water to prevent them from shrinking or the colors from fading, and many others wash darks or delicate clothes on the cold cycle. But the idea of reformulating detergent so that all types of clothes can be washed in cold water is relatively new, at least in North America and Europe. About three-quarters of the energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions from washing a load of laundry come from heating the water – a practice that, scientists say, is often wasteful and unnecessary. [Read this article]

We spend a good amount of time in the bathroom – most of us start and end our days in there - and it’s an easy place to lower your environmental impact in numerous ways without sacrificing an ounce of style or comfort. Investing in a PVC-free shower curtain or liner is an easy way to improve the indoor air quality of your home. That is, unless you enjoy spending time in a hot n’ steamy enclosed room as your shower curtain off-gasses phthalates – a chemical plasticizer linked to a myriad of health concerns - and a slew of other toxic chemicals. Although they’ll usually cost you a few bucks more than not-recyclable-because-it’s-so-filled-with-toxins PVC vinyl, there are numerous eco-friendlier shower curtains out there to choose from at most major retailers. Most affordable are PEVA and EVA plastic shower curtains which are essentially, in chemistry terms, vinyl but minus the PVC. Conventional cotton shower curtains are also a popular – and often classier – alternative to plastics but come with their own eco-downsides. [Read this article]