What are eco-friendly cleaning products?

You may have thought about making some eco-friendly changes to your home but the information and choices out there are overwhelming. Going green in your home isn’t just about recycling (although that’s a great step!), it’s about changing your mentality and recognising what you can do to save the planet. You don’t have to change your whole routine overnight but swapping your cleaning products are a cost-effective and easy way to be greener. Here’s why…

Essentially, eco-friendly cleaning products clean your home naturally using toxin-free ingredients that won’t harm your home, family, pets or the environment. They’re better for the environment because the lack of chemicals reduces pollution in our waterways and air and reduces the gradual thinning of the Earth’s ozone layer (ozone depletion).

Why use eco-friendly cleaning products?

You’ve picked up cleaning products before and seen the long list of hard-to-pronounce words and chemicals that sound dangerous. We wouldn’t put them on our skin like a moisturiser so why do we allow our skin to soak in the residue chemicals? When we spray our surfaces with regular cleaning products the toxic chemicals are in the air, which means we end up breathing them in. If you consider all the different cleaning products you use in a year, that’s a lot of chemicals!

Whilst they are deemed safe to use, there is long-term risk of frequently inhaling residue toxins. Regular used chemicals like ammonia, phthalates, chlorine and nonoxnyols are harmful to your family, especially your children and pets. Eco-friendly cleaning products usually have fewer ingredients on the label so you know exactly what you’re bringing into your home and the lack of chemicals means they smell a lot nicer. Your belongings are likely to last longer too: all those toxic chemicals in regular products build up over time and cause damage but green products will prevent this.

Eco-friendly cleaning products also use less packaging and they’re designed to get more out of the product, like the OceanSaver Bottle for Life. The award winning anti-bac spray is a concentrated cleaning solution that dissolves in water. The bottle is 100% recyclable and it’s designed to be refilled for life. It’s a winner across the board as it’s plant based, non-toxic, cruelty-free, 100% biodegradable and kills 99.9% of bacteria. Even better, if you have an empty bottle at home, all you need to do is purchase the EcoDrop refills.

Do eco-friendly products work?

There’s a common misconception that green and natural cleaning products can’t do the job. In a 2020 study, Bryan Ursey, a professor at the University of East Anglia found that when a brand highlights its sustainability features, consumers believe that it will perform worse than its regular competitor. But like the Bottle for Life, the products speak for themselves! You can save the environment and keep your home safe and clean.

Similarly, we love the Ecoegg. It cleans your clothes without the harsh chemicals and it reduces your plastic waste because you can refill your egg again and again. The Ecoegg is kinder to the planet and your wallet: it can save up to 40 bottles of detergent and fabric softener a year from ending up in landfill – and for just 14p per wash. It won Good Housekeeping’s 2020 Getting Greener Reduces Plastic award and The Independent raved about it, calling it a “genius product”.

A further misconception about green living is that they cost much more and are less efficient so take more of your precious time. The average UK family spends up to £135 a year on disposable household cleaning products but as we’ve addressed above, eco-friendly cleaning products in the long-term are cost effective and super easy to use.

People tend to stick with what they know and we’ve only recently started acknowledging and exploring the negative impact we have on the planet. We weren’t looking for green solutions because we simply didn’t realise we needed them. But now we’re able to put our time, money and resources into finding new eco-friendly products that do the job without harming the planet.

However, it is important to check the label when buying eco-friendly products because some brands make products appear more environmentally friendly than they are. When in doubt, stick to our researched suggestions, or make your own!