Chances are you’re here because you care about finding the best ways to care for your family.  Part of that is caring for, and cleaning, your home; you would never put dangerous chemicals at arms length from your children or pets.  At Ecover, we don’t think that leaves room for dangerous mixes in the form of cleaning products in the kitchen and bath either! 

We all know that we can clean just as well without the chemicals, so why use them?  Compare a stroll down the cleaning aisle full of conventional cleaners, versus a stroll down the cleaning aisle at a store that stocks only ecologically made cleaners.  The difference is not winding up with watery eyes, an itchy nose and perhaps nausea and dizziness! 

It has been widely researched that homes are typically the most polluted places we inhabit all day, due in part to those cleaning products under our sinks!  (Other culprits are carpeting and furniture, yikes!) Enter the great household eco-cleaning debate of the moment: making your own cleaners or buying from the pros?  Some people do make their own green cleaners, and Ecover truly salutes those who take extra time and efforts to make less of an impact on the environment.  Of course, there are pros and cons to the steps we take towards greener pastures.  Making your own cleaners has pros, including: cost, health and peace of mind.  But at Ecover, with over thirty years into the science behind our products, we know about the cons, too. 

One of the biggest drawbacks to brewing home cleaners is that it’s not necessarily more convenient.  Being able to pull out that surface cleaner when you’ve got a nasty spill in the kitchen, or worse, when the dog pees on the floor, is no small luxury!  Additionally, some tout homemade cleaners as cleaning “just as well” as the premade stuff… while this may hold true for minor solutions (like baking soda to get out a stain in a jam) hoping that the vinegar in you cupboard will get your bathroom tiles nice and shiny may leave you sorely disappointed. There have been years of science invested in formulating products to clean up life’s messes.

Another con often overlooked with home-brewing cleaners is the potential for putting you and your family in serious danger. Some combinations of innocuous ingredients can become quite literally explosive!  The same goes for storing some homemade alternatives; many become increasingly dangerous the longer they are enclosed in air tight containers.

Not to say that your cleaners need to be loaded with harsh and dangerous chemicals.  That’s where the science bit really comes in, and the benefits of the ingredients and formulations that Ecover has developed, like completely and quickly biodegrading, and using the cleaning power of nature!  Because they are mineral and plant-based ingredients, they can go back into our waterways without detriment to aquatic life.  Additionally they can be used for grey water systems as well as septic tanks. That means you can take your waste water from washing dishes or doing laundry and use it to water your lawn or plants!

The biggest challenge these days is the misconception that natural cleaners don’t work. This is left over, we think, from the big environmental push in the 1980s when the green cleaners didn’t do as much as today – but that was over thirty years ago! Innovations since then have been huge (we didn’t even have the internet way back then)! 

So go ahead: trust in the Power of Nature to do your toughest household cleaning jobs!  Ecover is Feel Good Cleaning. 

First Image via Al Power on Flickr
Second Image via Keith Williamson on Flickr