Tribewanted: Vorovoro

A favorite blog of mine, inhabitat, had some good pointers about household cleaning products – and links to guides that help you sort through what’s really green and what is just being green-washed (the eco equivalent of whitewashing):

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/09/24/green-home-101-guide-to-green-cleaning/#more-14209

Specifically, I found broad principles like this to be helpful, for when you’re in the store and not sure what to do:

“A safe general rule of thumb is if you can’t pronounce it, don’t use it. If you can’t tell what the active ingredient in a cleaning product is, then you might want to reconsider slathering it all over the house. Don’t fall prey to the anti-bacterial craze. The FDA has found that antibacterial soaps and hand cleansers do not work better than regular soap and water and should actually be avoided. Unless you live in a hospital or a clean room, there is no reason to eradicate all the germs from your home.”

And this terrific website is a resource I’ll be using from now on to help understand what the labels actually mean and make sure my favorite products (method, ecover, mrs meyers) are really non-toxic, biodegradable, and good for me and the planet:

http://www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/eco-home.cfm