In recent years, we have seen steady growth in the number of people that switch to eco-friendly laundry products. The appeal of greener options – when it comes to keeping your clothing and linens clean and free of harsh chemicals and plastic – is there. But with the non-obligation to list all ingredients on product labels in North America, it’s easy to be fooled. So, how can you be sure that your laundry products are, in fact,  eco-friendly?

Conventional laundry detergent vs eco-friendly laundry detergent

Before answering this question, we are going back to why you should switch to eco-friendly laundry detergents. First, reaching for an eco-friendly laundry detergent is the best thing to do for the environment. Did you know that conventional laundry detergents can have petroleum based-ingredients but also dyes, synthetic fragrances, and other chemicals that endanger our health and our environment too?

Eco-friendly detergents leave a lighter footprint. Contrary to conventional laundry detergents, their natural or plant-based ingredients will be broken down within a reasonable amount of time when they find their way into our ecosystems. They are also better for your health. For example, our AspenClean laundry products are non-toxic, and artificial fragrance-free, that wash & whiten your whites. Pet-safe, baby-safe and hypoallergenic are other pros that can be added to the list.

How do you choose your eco-friendly laundry detergent?

The first thing you need to do is to look at the product labels. The more transparency they put into their product labels, the better they are. The second thing would be to look at the green labels. As we said before, that part is also tricky because, with the emergence of so many eco-labels, it can be challenging to know which ones to trust. Fortunately, there are three green labels that you can believe in:  EWG Verified, EcoCert and Leaping Bunny. Let’s focus on those three for a few minutes:

• EWG: The Environmental Working Group (EWG), founded in 1992, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment. The organization has been a trusted source for chemical safety advice. EWG, it’s also a team of scientists, policy experts, lawyers and communications and data experts who work to reform broken chemical safety and agricultural laws. They push industries to adopt their standards and stand against chemicals of concern. Millions of consumers rely on EWG’s tips on how to avoid dangerous chemical exposures. Speaking of tips, EWG provides on its website a free guide to decode product labels, and find the best EWG Verified eco-friendly laundry detergents. When in doubt, especially when you are at the grocery store, you can also use EWG’s Healthy Living App. You will be able to scan a product, review its rating and pick the better choice. Those EWG tools will need to be your go-to sources!
• EcoCert – for homecare products:  This certification is a written assurance that the products are organic and ensures the genuine practice of environmental respect throughout the formulation and manufacturing of a product. EcoCert uses a functional document listing all the criteria to be implemented, as well as the control procedures for obtaining certification and the associated labels. All the standards selected by Ecocert promote practices with a positive impact on the environment and society. It is internationally recognized and the leading ecological certification across Europe. You might want to keep an eye out for the EcoCert – Eco Detergent label. This one highlights all the ingredients of natural origin, ensures that there is only a maximum of 5% of synthetic ingredients among the restrictive list, and no environmental risky statement is authorised on the product. Finally, if you want to be even more thorough about this certification, for the organic products 95% of ingredients must be of natural origin, and 10% of them must be organic.
• Leaping Bunny:  When ‘cruelty-free’ shopping became popular, companies started designing their own bunny logos and abiding by their own definition of ‘cruelty-free’ without the participation of animal protection groups. In response, eight national animal protection groups formed the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC). The CCIC promotes a single comprehensive standard and an internationally recognized Leaping Bunny Logo, which ensures that the products are vegan.

If these three labels are the ones you need to look at first, some great ones still exist too like Ecologo (for Canada) etc.

To summarise: green eco-labels are essential because they make it possible to differentiate between products with actual certification and those whose brands use greenwashing. At AspenClean, we are very proud to print these labels on all of our products – as we are certified – and be able to spread the word about these green labels. By the way, did you know that we also have a collection of eco-friendly cleaners and eco-friendly dish soaps? You might want to check them out on Well.ca.

Now that you know a little more about green labels don’t hesitate to share some tips with us in the comments section. It could be from the ones you truly trust to the ones you definitely need to avoid.