The Load on Laundry: Toxic Products, Safer Solutions

Slipping into soft, natural cotton or bamboo sheets your skin loves so much, with no scent but the outdoor sweetness of fresh air from an open window, is an incomparable way to go to sleep. No jarring chemicals to cause a steady and insipid niggle of disruption and jangle to your central nervous system, nothing that can hurt your liver or your lungs while you sleep, just all supporting rest and relaxation. Such is the gift of sleeping in bed linens laundered in clean water and green laundry products.

Of one thing I am certain: If you really took a whiff of commercial laundry products most of you will wriggle your noses and say you don’t like the smell. So why sleep with it? Have it on your clothes to breathe all day long?

Have the most serene time possible in your bed, in your clothes, in your laundry room, by washing your clothes in the greenest and cleanest products. Here are my reasons for switching to what I think are safer solutions for different types of laundry products:

Products with perfumes and dyes
Chemicals found in scented products can include 2-butanone, acetate, alpha-Pinene, and more., according to a study by The Washington Toxics Coalition. If you look up 2-butanone at scorecard.org you will see that it is a suspected kidney, reproductive, respiratory, skin, gastrointestinal, liver, cardiovascular, blood toxicant, and neurotoxicant. The reproductive toxicant part means that it can affect your hormones, and cause fertility problems, including lowering sperm counts. The neurotoxicant part means that the fumes can affect your central nervous system resulting in a less-than-restful sleep, and even hyperactivity in children.

Dyes/Colorant
Studies indicate that certain colorants may cause cancer or other adverse health effects in humans, according to the EPA.

Safer Solution: FREE & CLEAR products, and if you like a scent add ½ teaspoon or so of an essential oil, such as lavender, to the rinse water to achieve some aromatherapy benefit as well. Or make Lavender Linen Water for your sheets.

Detergents That Disrupt The Hormones of Wildlife
Detergents with Alkylphenol ethoxylates surfactant, an endocrine disruptor and long-lasting in the environment, are really bad for aquatic life and to be avoided for altruistic reasons. Anything bad for aquatic life or wildlife as a whole comes back to haunt us in the end.

Safer Solution: Find a trustworthy brand that would never use such a chemical. In my book, such brands would include Seventh Generation and Ecover.

Fabric Softener
I’ve written about the fumes from dryer sheets and fabric softeners in the past. Dinged By Dryer Sheets is an expose on the chemicals found in these products.

Safer Solution: Here are some alternatives and DIY help from Fabric Softener: Easy Greening. Also, there are a number of good “green” fabric softeners on the market. Check them out at your natural food store.

Commercial Spot Removers
C12-13 Pareth-15 is a common ingredient in commercial spot removers, and it is a mixture of petroleum and ethylene oxide, a recognized carcinogen, reproductive toxicant, and much more. Especially stay away from “Wrinkle Control Fabric Softener,” because its ingredients, including hexylene glycol are suspected of a number of things including being an immunotoxicant.

Safer Solution: Follow Care2′s tips: Effective Ways to Remove Laundry Stains and Reader to Reader: Your 20 Greatest Stain Removing Tips

Bleach
Should you worry about chlorine in household cleaners? The answer is certainly yes, although I don’t think a bleach “stick” is at the top of the “never do” priority list.

Safer Solution: Sodium percarbonate is a white crystalline water-soluble chemical compound of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide.

Keep Whites White

Optical Brighteners
This one requirement will most likely be the piece of the commercial laundry puzzle that will turn you from simply Free & Clear commercial laundry products, or it was the one for me that at last got me go out of my way to buy a fully green laundry detergent. All of the mainstream laundry detergents have optical brighteners. The EPA notes that toxicity data indicate that these compounds may cause developmental and reproductive effects, but additional testing is needed to confirm these concerns.

Safer Solution: Concentrated, “green” laundry detergents available in natural food stores, Free & Clear, including free of brighteners. Note that “concentrated” really means that and so you don’t need as much product, so the higher price looks worse than it is. In fact, because the consumer couldn’t wrap their heads around the hidden price savings in concentrated products, the push towards concentrated by the mainstream manufacturers in the ’90s failed.

Solvents
Solvents are usually petroleum-based and toxic to humans and aquatic organisms. Propylene glycol ethers are suspected of being neurotoxic, organ toxicants, and especially a skin toxicant. Given the skin is exposed to clothing and sheets, finding solvent-free detergents and spot removers is a must.

Safer Solutions: Green detergent, green spot removers (see above).

Monoethanolamine (MEA)
Used in detergents, MEA is linked to asthma and neurotoxicity. It is found in mainstream FREE & CLEAR products.

Safer Solution: Green detergent.

P.S. To convince your college student to eschew endocrine-disrupting laundry products, check out Green Girl Turns the Tide on Laundry.

Annie Bond is the author of four books on healthy and green living, including Home Enlightenment (newly out in paperback), and Better Basics for the Home.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Marcia M.

3:23PM PDT on Jun 11, 2011

Thanks..

send a green star

Robert P.

7:31AM PST on Feb 28, 2009

I have severe allergies and have a heck of a time finding scent free/chem free detergents..I live out in the boonies and local stores don't really carry such things..and have to drive 40 miles to a city. Though I have found a tide green product(i cant remember the ingrediants it was almost a year ago that I bought it and poured into a container that I can dispense 1 table spoon at a time..my roomie a sometime chemist looked at it and said it was 'good' enough til I find better.
He also said oxyclean is basically equal parts Baking soda and Borax, but had other chems too. So I make my own plain borax and plain baking soda I break each up with a fork then blend it together with same fork and then sift it together and use 1 table spoon per load. I have a bosch nexxt 500 with onboard heater. I add the oxy in with the clothes , close and start the machine and pour the liquid in the slot on top for soap. We will be adding a gray water system to use the wash water and make a wetland in a large tub outside with boron tolerant plants that soak it up, then the water will be used on our orchard trees. Olives are boron tolerant actually use some of it up and same with baking soda. They take calcerous (spelling?). meaning lime stone based..I have to work that out, but I need to do it quickly as I have 2 olives to plant. am in zone 7b.

Lynn M.

2:14PM PST on Nov 15, 2008

It is great to see all the safer products being made available. I wonder about some of the big companies just jumping on the "green" wagon to increase their profits. It is nice that they are manufacturing better and safer products, but they still are selling a huge amount of toxic products. I like to support those companies who truly care about the environment.

Michelle T.

1:41PM PST on Nov 5, 2008

I forgot to add that my machine is HE. Thanks.

1:35PM PST on Nov 5, 2008

I've been wanting to use baking soda, but I'm not sure of the best way to use it in my machine. I upgraded last year to a front-loading machine with the pull-out drawer that holds the detergent, bleach, etc. There's not a section that would work well with adding baking soda for the rinse cycle. And I'm too busy to sit and watch for the rinse cycle to come around to add it really quick. Should I just measure out some baking soda and put it directly on the clothes before I start a laundry cycle? Also, does it matter whether you add baking soda to whites or colors?
If someone could answer these questions, I'd be really grateful. Thanks!

Rhiannon M.

7:36PM PDT on Oct 24, 2008

thanks for all the tips.

Ariel W.

6:42AM PDT on Oct 23, 2008

I actually work from home with a company that provides a line of over 400 amazing household products people use every single day in their homes that are natural and organic alternatives for cleaning products, vitamins and supplements, makeup, medicine cabinet and personal care products. We have found things like tide, oxyclean, downey, palmolive, johnson and johnson shampoos (including baby shampoos), deoderant, toothpaste, and much much more all have cancer causing agents in them. www.beinggreeniscool.synthasite.com
Ariel

Trisha K.

5:18PM PDT on Oct 19, 2008

With the water shortage I have cut down from washing almost daily to 3 to4 times a week

Zee N.

1:38AM PDT on Oct 18, 2008

Reference to Valerie Curtis comment, does the baking power / vinegar affect the washing machine......Zee

Joan B.

1:17PM PDT on Oct 16, 2008

I have been using unscented products for 13 years now, since my son was born and we found out he is very allergic to scents and has asthma. With my front loader washer I have to use an HE product. I've been using Method Free and Clear,Oxyclean Free for stains and as a bleach alternative and I use Bounce Free dryer sheets. I'll look to alternatives after reading this article. The dryer balls scare me. One purpose to having a front load washer is that it is much more gentle on the clothes, dryer balls will beat up the fabric causing "wear and tear". I wish that all of this 'Green' had been popular years ago...! We have struggled for so long due to people wearing so much perfume and cologne let alone their laundry products!