Going even further on the self-sufficient route, why a sponge?  For the kitchen I use little squares of terry cloth from old towels and change them every day, a very sanitary practice.  I also use them for general cleaning such as washing floors (with a deck broom).  These little squares take hardly any space in the cloth washer.

I had the opportunity to speak with one of the founders of Method at a recent Method-sponsored soiree in Seattle. I was concerned about the fragrance oils (synthetic derived, can anyone say phthalates?)they utilize for their products. He did admit to the use of synthetic fragrances and justified the use by the by pointing out the parts per billion amount they use. Blah, Blah, Blah, still  fake fragrance, still toxic.

I, for one, am a very busy person (full-time work and full-time grad school) with little time for family, never mind to do laundry.  Some day I aspire to the level of keeping my house clean and being able to do so with bits of self-made rag (I have said rags - a load's worth - that have been waiting to be laundered for at least month) and the above-mentioned staples. In the meantime, I am happy that there are products such as Method's bathroom wipes, that make it easy for me to actually get some cleaning done with less impact than the alternative.

Better to have these products on the market so we can slowly get all of us doing our part. They are the things that get our friends and parents and siblings thinking green. Baby-steps folks.

As for the product effectiveness, I've had mixed results. The daily shower spray has not reduced my scrubs.  Consumer Reports just reviewed some of these and liked Clorox's green cleaner.  Clorox? Seriously?  Anyone know how green THAT one is?

I just got back from Target (in the Bronx) this afternoon and was amazed to find they not only stock Burt's Bees now, but Kiss My Face, Alba Botanicals, and even Dr. Bronners soaps.  

Umbra, your very polite and nicely conceived para on not getting sucked into the shopping vortex--even with green things--won me over. You're my hero today, and I am now your loyal reader.

We use the green stuff and everything tastes like the dish soap after. Yes, we rinse (as we do with other products), but that stuff doesn't rinse off easily. I like their hand soap & general spray cleaner.

Vinegar forever!

My kitchen cloth of choice is a little thing I picked up at the San Diego Earth Fair this year called a skoy cloth.  Feels like a cloth, absorbs like a sponge, and dries overnight so the nasties can't grow.  My old sponge always reminded me of a petri dish science experiment that smelt bad after a day or so.  The cloth is wood cellulose and cotton so it composts away in no time at all once you are done with it.  I shred mine and feed it to the worms who gobble it up in no time at all.  Great find!

I am a big fan of Method Cleaning Products. I agree that we don't need 8 different types of sprays for each surface in our home... On that note, use your own good judgement on which Method Products to buy and you won't be disappointed. (Exception: the dishwasher soap). I love the hand soap, the baby products (the best Ive tried), laundry soap... you will find all the basics at my house! Happy cleaning, you might as well have a fun fragrance and catchy labels.

for eram:
try diluting out your dish soap, say 25% with water. the brand i use doesn't cling so much to the dishes at that dilution. also, a little vinegar in the rinse water may help cut it loose.
emmer

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I recently heard somewhere that the Method products are made by a large consumer products company - Clorox, or Proctor and Gamble - something like that.

Although I (sort of) like this foray into greener products by Big Business, I, too, am gimlet-eyed (e.g., the fragrances mentioned above) and still think it is a nice little bit of green-washing PR on the company's part.

BTW, the fragrances of the Method products are mostly, IMHO, way too strong and even retch-inducing in a fake-scent kind of way. Adding such strong fragrances is NOT a green concept. And some of the spray cleaners not only don't clean that well, they leave behind a sort of sticky residue.

but the Method bottle we inherited when we rented our house does great at dispensing foamy soap. We put our tea tree oil soap in there, which is a great grease cutter and does wonders for acne-prone skin.

I've found very good recipes for both laundry detergent and dishwasher soap that only take a couple of minutes to make and eliminate a few more cleaners from my grocery list!

do you have a web site to purchase these from???

can you share the site, or where you found these recipes?????

I have been using the Method bloq body wash for months and i love it. Even with synthetic fragrance it still is much friendlier to the body and the environment than other body washes. It has no parabens or animal by-products. On top of that it is very affordable.

I don't like Method, it still smells too strong for me.  I have been using Shaklee products and find them excellent.  They are super concentrated so you use small amounts of the product each time, they last for a long long time.  I hope those products are as said all natural, or else I would be really disappointed.  Has anyone read anything bad about them?

Punkdiddy: I can't use Method detergents because of the overpowering perfumes, which I irritate my chemical sensitivity problem. My take as an environmentalist is to quote Bill McDonnaugh: "Less bad is not good." And Umbra's suggestion to forgo most cleaning products for the tried-and-true basics our grandmothers used is spot-on.

My take on Method as a professional marketing communicator and graphic designer: they have a brilliant marketing strategy and a sophisticated appreciation of the influencing power of design. Something many "green" companies could learn from. The knee-jerk distrust of "slick" marketing and design plays in mainstream culture as "hippy-dippy-doo treehugger stuff that doesn't work." Like it or not, that is the perception in suburbia. Method adopted a strategy of "cool, clean upscale design," and underplay the overused "green." The attitude is " of course it is green. It is well-designed. "  

The proof of the effectiveness of their strategy is proven by Clorox, and their new "green" line of products. How clorine-based chemistry could ever be "sustainable" is beyond me. But something has them scared.

If environmentally sustainable business want to succeed, they had better learn to preach to the unconverted. Method is an excellent case study in how to start.