Now more than ever, people around the world are putting every aspect of their lives under scrutiny, looking for ways to minimize their carbon footprint. Although we shouldn’t develop a ‘carbon disorder’ or an ‘obsessive-compulsive warming complex’, rather we can slowly and systematically learn how to live more lightly. Whether it is holding a plastic-free birthday party for your child, not purchasing pesticide-covered flowers and blood diamonds for Valentine’s Day or building an eco-friendly house, everything from the food we eat to the clothes we wear to the furnishings that fill our home, use resources and have a carbon footprint.
Our choices matter.
Let’s start with a simple example: the humble bottle of dishwashing liquid. Most common dishwashing liquid bottles are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource. Each time we buy a bottle of dishwashing soap and ‘recycle’ the bottle, it takes resources and energy to reconstitute the plastic back into another plastic bottle - if indeed it can be made into another bottle since often the recycled material is downgraded in the recycle process. Making the simple choice to utilize a reusable service like a soap co-op or household product refilling station can have significant impact in saving resources, energy and preventing waste from ending up in the landfill.
If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25 oz. petroleum based dishwashing liquid with a 25 oz. vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 U.S. homes for a year.
Most household dishwashing liquids contain dyes (see picture above), non-biodegradable chemicals, petroleum and even some toxic ingredients including ethanol, ammonia, phosphates, benzyl acetate and ethyl acetate, to name just a few. Many cities and towns have inadequate sewage treatment systems and what we pour down the drain or flush down the toilet often ends up in our oceans and rivers.
Often household products are petroleum-based. Seventh Generation, makers of green household products, estimate that “if every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25 oz. petroleum based dishwashing liquid with their 25 oz. vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 U.S. homes for a year”.
Many mainstream household products have their ingredients, substances like dyes or perfumes, tested on animals. Switching to natural vegan or non-animal tested products helps to ensure you are not complacent in a system of animal cruelty. Global Action Network reports Arm & Hammer, Aim, Brillo, ArmorAll, Glad, Liquid Plumber, Pine-Sol, Soft Scrub, SOS, Tilex, Ajax, Fab, Palmolive, Easy-Off, Lysol, Mop & Glo, Spray ‘N Wash, Drano, Glade, OFF!, Pledge, Shout and Windex, are all manufactured by companies that conduct animal experiments and tests, even though they are not required to do so by law.
Suddenly, a simple thing like a humble bottle of dishwashing soap has long-reaching, multi-layered ramifications. Now if you look around your home, office or school, you can see that each and every choice we make has environmental, social and often political implications.
It is time to start greening our world…and we can start with the dishsoap.
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