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Editor's Note: It being the dog days of August and all, Umbra Fisk has trotted off for a well deserved vacation. In her absence, we've decided to dust off some oldies but goodies from the archives. And since we were dusting, we thought we'd start with this timeless green cleaning advice. Enjoy!

Q. Dear Umbra,

I'd like to start making my own environmentally friendly cleaning products for my home. Are there any books or websites you would recommend for cleaning "recipes"?

Rachel

A. Dearest Rachel,

No bleach required.You'll be disappointed if you were expecting elaborate, paella-like recipes to replace the commercial products we're told are essential to germ-free living. Turns out the steel wool has been pulled over our eyes. Without even turning to my research stacks, I can tell you that all homebrew cleaning recipes invoke four simple ingredients: white vinegar, castile soap, baking soda, and water.

Baking soda is the scrubber. Abrasive, soluble in water, and anti-fungal (or at least anti-some-fungi), baking soda requires a bit more elbow grease than chlorinated powders, but leaves you with a working windpipe. Vinegar is the deodorizer and sanitizer; its mildly acidic nature is anathema to bacteria and mold. Soap is the ... soap. It cleans away dirt. Don't mix it with vinegar. Castile is a mild cleansing soap, usually liquid in form (one example on the market is Dr. Bronner's, but there are others). Other components of a good, healthy cleaning regimen include hot water and arm strength.

There are mental aspects, too: Resist the television-induced notion that typhoid fever lurks in every corner of the house. In general, the kitchen is Bacteria Central and is the place that needs special attention. To wit, use common sense when handling meats, change dish rags and sponges often, keep the sink clean, and practice other habits recommended by Karen at the USDA. For most other places -- the living room, the bathroom, the porch, etc. -- soap, vinegar, and hot water are all fine.

I'm trying to get away from recommending particular internet sites when any decent site will do, so I'm going to dodge and recommend punching "natural cleaning recipes" into your favorite search engine. See what works for you. Forget any site that recommends ammonia. Nasty. And as for books -- frankly, simple, common-sense homebrew cleaning recipes don't merit the cost of an entire book.

I'm duty-bound to report my floor-finishing friend's admonition against Murphy Oil Soap for cleaning wood floors. He swears it leaves a film that he has had to sand out of many a floor. Instead he recommends that you use ... vinegar and water.

Gleamingly,
Umbra

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Turn your turkey carcass into a spectacular gumbo

Apparently I have a confession to make: I was, until this time, unaware of the fascinating depth of the world of paper napkins.

Word.osde8info via flickrTo begin with, there was my discovery that there are “lunch napkins”—the square, scratchy kind—and “dinner napkins,” the comparatively elegant, rectangular, softer kind. Seriously? I’d never noted this distinction at the store, let alone honoring it at my dinner (I mean lunch) table.

More to the point, there are my newfound feelings of confusion over my lifelong paper-napkin use. Do I, like the average American, really use 2,200 paper napkins a year? Could I, along with my fellow Americans, use one less napkin a day and save a billion pounds of tree-killing, chlorine-bleached napkins from heading to the landfills? Should I invest in bamboo cloth and PVC-free rings and join the ranks of virtuous wipers who reuse their napkins for several days?

The cloth vs. disposable debate has a certain ring of familiarity to it, and your leanings will depend upon squeamishness, upbringing, and other factors. If you are among those who use disposable napkins regularly or occasionally, this great offense can be somewhat ameliorated by buying those made from recycled paper. But do the suckers work?

I found six brands of lunch napkins and put them through a series of tests. First there were the everyday encounters: pizza grease, grape jam, maple syrup, spilled water. Then there were the wet and dry strength tests. Then there were the in-a-pinch tests: How did the napkin perform as an ersatz rag for stove cleaning? Mirror polishing? Nose blowing?

Here’s what I found:

Scott Naturals by Kimberly-Clark
Eco-claim: A “sensible blend” of 80 percent recycled fiber
Price/quantity: $4.29/400 one-ply napkins
Cute slogan: “Green done right”

Just a few months ago, the launch of the Scott Naturals line incurred the wrath of activists including Forest Ethics’ Ginger Cassady, who wrote a scathing op-ed right here on ye olde Grist. But last week’s news of sustainable commitments by parent company Kimberly-Clark has given treehuggers new hope. Still, this product is the least impressive of the lot, in eco-terms: with a comparatively piddling 80 percent recycled fiber and a pretty flimsy feel, it’s more pretender than contender. It did rank among the most absorbent in these tests, but loses major points for scratchiness.

365 Everyday Value by Whole Foods
Eco-claims: 100 percent recycled paper (80 percent post-consumer content), whitened without chlorine bleach, fragrance free
Price/quantity: $2.99/250 one-ply napkins
Cute slogan: None

As usual, we’ve included the 365 “brand” in this lineup, even though it’s secretly someone else’s brand in Whole Foods’ packaging. That’s how private-label products work, friends! In this case, I’m fairly certain the secret brand is Marcal (see below), judging by the identical pattern, performance, and price point. Would these do as everyday table napkins? Absolutely. Do they hold up under heavy-duty oven-cleaning and strength tests? Not hardly.

Green Forest by Planet Inc.
Eco-claims: 100 percent recycled paper (minimum 90 percent post-consumer content), whitened without chlorine, unscented
Price/quantity: $3.69/250 one-ply napkins
Cute slogan: “Soft on nature”

The curious history of this brand wends from its creation at a small Wisconsin paper company to near-demise under the Georgia-Pacific umbrella to rescue by “Planet Inc.” in 2005. Methinks, based on pattern and performance, that these too are a private-label version, this time of Seventh Generation’s product*. [Apparently methought wrong; click on the asterisk for details.] Unlike that company, Green Forest uses a reclosable bag and boasts of a “special partnership” with River Network. Performance-wise, the napkins were strong, although they crumbled a bit under pressure. They’re on the softer side of the spectrum, which is sweet on the schnozz.

Small Steps by Marcal
Eco-claims: 100 percent premium recycled paper, whitened without chlorine bleaching, no dye or fragrance added
Price/quantity: $2.99/250 one-ply napkins
Cute slogan: “A small, easy step to a greener Earth”

Based in New Jersey, Marcal says it’s been “saving trees since 1950” by making paper from recycled paper. The company has gotten super PR-savvy of late, rebranding its napkins, TP, tissues, and paper towels as “Small Steps” products and encouraging customers to “help us save 1 million trees” (a ticker on its website counts more than 21 million trees saved since 2000—three cheers for underpromising and overdelivering!). While these napkins would be fine for everyday use, they did not hold up as well in strength tests. However, I give Marcal extra points for its reusable drawstring package.

Full Circle Foods Paper Napkins
Eco-claim: 100 percent recycled paper (80 percent post-consumer content), whitened without chlorine bleach
Price/quantity: $2.99/300 one-ply napkins
Cute slogan: “Return to a natural way of living”

At first blush, these napkins struck me as the weakest of the bunch. They were softer than the others, and seemed thinner—they almost felt like a facial tissue or toilet paper. But damned if they didn’t perform like a champ. They handled maple syrup, grape jam, and pizza grease with aplomb, scored up there with eco-faker Scott’s on absorbency, and held their own in a drip test too. Give me a reusable package, and I’d be in lunch-napkin heaven.

Seventh Generation Recycled Napkins
Eco-claims: 100 percent recycled paper (80 percent minimum post-consumer content), whitened without chlorine bleach, free of dyes and fragrances; this recycled paper product helps fight global warming; saves natural resources, reduces pollution
Price/quantity: $3.69/250 one-ply
Cute slogan: “In our every deliberation ...”—you know the drill

The grandpappy of green household products scores fairly well in the napkin department—commendably strong when both wet and dry, they left the least residue when wiping maple syrup and were bearably soft on the nose. But they landed on the weak side when pressed into oven-cleaning service, and felt a bit drippier than some of the others.

The Bottom Line: Full Circle wiped away the competition, based on performance, softness, and strength. While the Seventh Generation/Green Forest* version fared slightly better than the Small Steps/365 version, any of them would make a fine table napkin. And all are better than Scott’s Unnaturals, which uses less recycled content and is bleached with chlorine; it’ll be interesting to see whether Kimberly-Clark greens up this product over the next few years in light of its new sustainability commitments.

*The public affairs manager from Planet, Inc., contacted me after publication to clarify that Green Forest is “absolutely not” a sub-brand or private-label version of Seventh Generation and that the companies are in fact competitors.

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Entrepreneur Jeffrey Hollender launched a mail-order catalog business 20 years ago and nursed it for more than a decade before it became profitable. That company is now Seventh Generation, and there's no more catalog, but there certainly is a ton of recycled toilet paper -- and all-natural cleaning supplies and non-toxic personal-care products.

It's a product category that has seen massive growth in the last few years as environmental issues have risen to front-page news status. In fact, Seventh Generation saw its biggest numbers recently -- posting about 50 percent growth last year. Which is exactly why Hollender has decided it's time to step down from his role as CEO.

Sound like odd timing? Not for Hollender. "I realized that I lacked most of the experience that would be required to manage that growth to its fruition," he says. Hollender was also growing increasingly torn between other projects like writing -- his next book, In Our Every Deliberation, comes out next month -- and speaking gigs, and a TV program called Big Green Lies. "As I wandered around the offices, I began to wonder what all the people in different rooms were doing."

So as of last week, there was at least one more new face in the Seventh Generation offices: Chuck Maniscalco. He comes to the company from PepsiCo, where he was CEO of the $10 billion Quaker, Tropicana, and Gatorade division, which he calls "very purpose-driven businesses." Maniscalco, who actually came out of retirement to take on this job, says he's determined to manage Seventh Generation's growth in a way that remains true to the company's commitment to sustainability.

As for Hollender, he'll be continuing in the role of "Chief Inspired Protagonist," focusing more on corporate responsibility and sustainability advocacy work rather than being involved the company's day-to-day operations.

I spoke to the two of them in a three-way conference call just days after Maniscalco took over his new office. Here's what they had to say:

Q. One of the reasons you're leaving, Jeffrey, is because of the massive growth Seventh Generation has seen recently. What do you attribute that success to?

A. Hollender: I think that we live in a world where there is a tremendous sort of search for purpose and meaning. In some respects, who Seventh Generation is and what we aspire to helps people be the people they want to be and live the lives they want to live and that is a stark contrast to what they often experience from [other] companies and businesses ... [It] builds a strong and deep connection to people that I think is more important than it has perhaps ever been. Now, that's not enough; you have to also get your products on the shelves of stores at the right price and the products have to work the way people expect them to work.

Q. Speaking of getting your products on the shelves at the right price, are you still refusing to sell them in Wal-Mart?

A. Hollender: Historically, that was true; up until a year ago while we were in a very close dialogue with Wal-Mart and working to help them become a more sustainable and responsible business, we were not comfortable selling to them. But the progress that Wal-Mart has made in the past three to four years is astounding and absolutely an incredible inspiration for what's possible of a large company. Does that mean they're perfect today? No, but they have made more progress than just about any company that I can think of and that progress has led us to experiment with them in a small group of stores. ... So it's really a question for Chuck in terms of when is the right time and what is the right way, but there is no philosophic issue that restrains us from doing business with them.

Q. Do you feel like it's possible for a big company like Wal-Mart or PepsiCo to commit to the same standards of sustainability that Seventh Generation has?

Chuck Maniscalco (left) and Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation.Photo: Chrystie HeimertA. Maniscalco: I think it would be difficult for any company to ever reach up to the standards that Seventh Generation has set. I've never seen it before, and I probably will never see it again and that's why I'm here. Having said that, Wal-Mart, for example, was a very big customer for PepsiCo and Quaker Oats, and Wal-Mart over the course of the last several years has been the single biggest force in getting companies in the consumer packaged-goods world to take waste out of their products, out of their packages, and out of the supply-chain stream. So I think they can be a force for good.

Hollender: And they can move quicker than government or any regulatory agency. Now, they don't all use that power in ways that are beneficial, in fact we wouldn't be in the situation we are if they did. But I don't believe that we can solve the urgent problems that face us -- whether it's global warming, or whether it's a crisis of fresh water or species disappearance -- without aggressive leadership from the business community. Part of the role that Seventh Generation wants to play is showing business that being responsible is good business and being sustainable is good business, and that we can't afford to have business stand in the way of the progress we need to make to become more sustainable.

Q. In the same vein, is it possible for a company like Seventh Generation to scale up? You've said your goal was to take the company from $150 million annually to $1 billion. How do you plan to do this while maintaining a commitment to sustainability?

A. Maniscalco: It's a question of how to get big and be authentic at the same time ... Even with all of the growth this business has had over many, many years, we have still tapped into a minority of the consumers out there who care about what we offer in our products and who care about what the company stands for ... so there's still distribution opportunities. And from a consumer standpoint, this group of people is already big and it's growing by the day, because all of the issues that we all know the world is facing are becoming much more apparent to more people. So I absolutely think it's doable, but you have to do it with real care and real discipline. And that's our charge.

Hollender: It helps to be a private company so that we don't have to answer to shareholders who've purchased stock in the company who might not share our vision or our values. We choose our investors as carefully if not more carefully than our employees, because the alignment of those investors is absolutely critical. I also think that what I've experienced is that a company with the mission we have is a magnet for the best talent in the marketplace ... that's one of the ways in which we will scale, because we can get the best and brightest people to come and join what we're doing.

Q. When you started Seventh Generation, you were a big fish in a little pond. That pond is more crowded now; is there enough room in the pool for everyone? How do you feel about the competitors like Method who are on the shelves with you at Target or other stores?

A. Maniscalco: People always say they love competition and they rarely mean it. I would say, in this case, we love competition and we do mean it. In my view, the more people who come into this space -- and do so legitimately -- the greater good we're serving. And as Jeffrey pointed out before, we don't succeed against our mission if we do it all by ourselves. Secondly, the more people that come into this space and do it right, the more awareness and understanding consumers will have about how to behave responsibly. The challenge for us, I think, is to ensure that we keep driving standards higher and higher and higher, so that as other people come along, we still have a significant edge over them.

Hollender: One of the biggest gaps that exists today is a green product does not make a green company. And what we need to do -- and what we need our customers, consumers, and partners to do -- is to push businesses beyond greening a teeny part of their business, to embrace sustainability across everything they do. When you look at the competitive landscape today, it's mostly large companies taking a small part of their portfolio and making it greener than it was before. I think that consumers will increasingly look for sustainable companies, not just sustainable products.

Q. You're touching on a major problem for consumers: greenwashing -- companies putting out products that have green labels on them, but aren't really following that up within the actual product or their company as a whole. What can consumers do to make sure they're buying a legitimate product?

A. Hollender: Well, I'll just mention two things. One is we have a great application that you can download to your phone or your computer or your PDA. As you're walking down the aisles of a grocery store, you can use this application to help make better choices. Secondly, we are big advocates of what the Good Guide is doing, and we think that the service that a third party like the Good Guide provides in making independent evaluations of the products on the shelf is a very valuable service to consumers.

Q. What is the biggest challenge for a business wanting to be truly sustainable?

A. Hollender: I think we face a couple of challenges. Clearly, education is a huge challenge, so it is critical that we help consumers make conscious and responsible choices. We need greater transparency so that they can make informed decisions. Secondly, we live in a regulatory environment that often encourages us to do the wrong thing because companies are allowed to externalize so much of their costs that dangerous, environmentally irresponsible products often cost less than sustainable, responsible products. If consumers are shown the full cost of the products and services that they're buying, there's no question that they will increasingly choose responsible, sustainable products.

Q. How can we show them that cost?

A. Hollender: There are hundreds and hundreds of examples, and some of them directly affect our business. We're in the business of selling recycled tissue paper, and the government -- for the last year in which a calculation was made -- spent a billion dollars subsidizing the virgin timber industry by building roads and allowing that timber to be cut at below-market prices. What that does is it artificially makes recycled fiber more expensive. All of these things send the wrong message to the consumer, and we need to actively make sure that the government and the regulatory agencies are reflecting decisions that are in the best interest of future generations, not the shareholders of some of America's largest companies.

Q. So, it's got to be a political-activism sort of thing?

A. Hollender: It does, and Chuck's going to allow me more time to do that, which I'm looking forward to.

Maniscalco: The great news is we've now got Jeffrey playing a much bigger role in that big external environment, and I can get really focused on driving [the company] from the inside, and I think that's a really good one-two punch.

Hollender: Absolutely. We're subtly sending a message to all these large companies that they better, to a certain extent, watch out because this is a game-changing event for our business and for our industry. The addition of Chuck to Seventh Generation will dramatically accelerate the need for everyone to rise to a higher standard and move more quickly in a sustainable direction.

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This Friday, don’t just Buy Nothing—use nothing!

Sure, you've greened your bathroom – fixing leaks and retrofitting for low-flow flushes – but what happens when you clean your bathroom? Are you undoing all your good deeds by flushing toxins down your toilet?

Many conventional toilet bowl cleaners contain corrosive ingredients like hydrochloric acid and chlorine bleach that can irritate eyes, skin, and the respiratory tract, and can be fatal if swallowed. Phosphates, which can cause harmful algal blooms, are also commonly used in bathroom cleaning products.

Natural toilet-bowl cleaners replace these harsh chemicals with plant- and mineral-based ingredients that are nontoxic and biodegradable. But are these eco-products worth a shit? I decided to find out. (Hey, it's my potty, and I'll try if I want to!)

I gathered eight different eco-options and wielded a toilet-bowl scrubby brush against the evils of long-mellowed toilet bowls near and far. Here are the results:

Biokleen Soy Toilet Scrub
Eco-claims: Environmentally friendly with no negative effects on rivers, streams, plants, or wildlife; kind to those with chemical sensitivities and allergies; no artificial fragrance, colors, or preservatives; 99 percent VOC free and ozone safe; contains no phosphate, chlorine, ammonia, petroleum solvents, alcohol, butyl, glycol ether, SLS or SLES, EDTA, DEA, No SARA Title II, CA 65, or EPA priority pollutants; no materials listed by the ACGIH as hazardous; no animal testing or animal ingredients
Scent: Mint
Price: $4.99 / 32 fl. oz.

This soy scrub is a thick, white paste; add that to the minty scent and it feels a bit like you're squirting the toilet with kaopectate. It does cover the bowl well, but the opaque white coloring makes it hard to see where it's been squirted – and also where there might be extra dirty spots to scrub. It works OK, and it's one of the few that doesn't require a soaking or wait time, which is nice if you're in a hurry to freshen up before a surprise visit from the mother in law.

Clorox Green Works Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Eco-claims: Made with plant- and mineral-based ingredients; biodegradable; not tested on animals; contains no phosphorus or bleach
Scent: Original (lemony)
Price: $2.59 / 24 fl. oz.

Don't let the Clorox name on this one scare you – there's no bleach in this product. Like the other Green Works products, it carries the Sierra Club logo and promises natural ingredients. It delivers on Clorox cleaning power, though – producing the cleanest bowl of the bunch. The thick green liquid fully covers the toilet bowl and the mild lemony/lime scent is pleasant. My only complaint would be that it produces long-lasting bubbles that don't go away, even with a second flush.

Ecover Ecological Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Eco-claims: Plant-based ingredients -- not based on petrochemical ingredients; no chemical residue; optimum level of biodegradability (far exceeds legislative requirements); safe for river and marine life; no animal testing
Scent: Pine
Price: $3.99 / 25 fl. oz.

I like that the bottle notes that Ecover's ecological factory is built using a grass roof for insulation, wood beams from sustainable forest, and bricks made from coal mine waste. However, the contents are less likable – the strong piney scent almost made me gag as I scrubbed the toilet. And the color-less liquid made it hard to see which parts of the toilet bowl were covered.

Seventh Generation Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Eco-claims: Nontoxic; biodegradable; no dyes; not tested on animals; no animal ingredients
Scent: Emerald cypress and fir
Price: $3.59 / 32 fl. oz.

While the Ecover product left a strong artificial piney scent, the Seventh Generation cleaner had much more natural pine scent to it, leaving the bathroom smelling like a forest rather than a Pine-Sol crime scene. Unfortunately, it was not as strong a cleaner as some of the other options – getting the bowl only about 80 percent clean after a hefty scrubbing down.

Method Lil' Bowl Blu
Eco-claims: Nontoxic, naturally derived, biodegradable; not tested on animals
Scent: Eucalyptus mint
Price: $5.49 / 24 fl. oz.

This one definitely gets points for creative design and marketing – the curvy bottle is cute enough to leave out and the wordsmiths at Method are as punny as (some) Grist staffers. The blue liquid cleans fairly well, but the strong piney-eucalyptus scent fumes are long lasting and too strong to be pleasant.

Earth Friendly Products Toilet Kleener
Eco-claims: Does not contain phosphates, dyes, or perfumes; does not contain SLS or Cocamide DEA
Scent: Natural cedar
Price: $2.99 / 24 fl. oz.

This one has a mild smell – more burnt orange than cedar. My main complaint about it (aside from the Kute product name!) is that it is so thick that it doesn't flow down the bowl to cover it. Instead, the thick, clear get clings right where you squirt it. You're supposed to leave it there 5-10 minutes, but I'm not sure the purpose, as it will only clean the thin line where it lands until you scrub.

J.R. Watkins Natural Home Care Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Eco-claims:  Biodegradable; no animal ingredients; free of ammonia, benzene, boron, butyl cellosolve, chlorine, dye, ether, formaldehyde, isopropanol, kerosene, mineral spirit, toxin, perfume, petrochemicals, phosphate, phosphoric acid, propylene glycol, SLS, sulfate, sulfuric acid
Scent: Lemon, natural cedar
Price: $4.99 / 24 fl. oz.

This cleaner had a mild lemon scent – not too overpowering – and got the bowl mostly clean, though it recommends soaking overnight for tough stains. It was a clearish, cloudy color, which made it hard to see what parts of the bowl it covered. Bonus points for the “Gristy” labeling on the bottle boasting its “conscience cleaning power” and “guilt/anxiety-free contents.”

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Eco-claims: Cruelty-free, not tested on animals; septic safe; biodegradable; no chlorine or solvents
Scent: Lemon verbena
Price: $4.99 / 32 fl. oz.

The “lemon verbena” scent was piney rather than being citrusy, but it still offered a bit of a “pick-me-up” effect. The toilet bowl was nice and white after scrubbing the blue cleaner away. This is a good choice, though more expensive than some of the other options.


The bottom line: The best clean for the least green was the Clorox Green Works Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner. For about a dollar more, Mrs. Meyer's is also a good option.

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Tip #4: Simplify your cleaning routine by tossing out toxic stuff and sticking to the (very cheap) basics.

Do you really need a different spray or scrub for every surface in your home? Marketing mavens want you to think so.

But the dirty truth is that many mainstream cleaners are major contributors to indoor air pollution and other health problems.

Clean up your act by tossing any cleaners with ingredients you can’t pronounce. The only ingredients you really need are white vinegar, castile soap, baking soda, water, and a little elbow grease.

Umbra demonstrates how to DIY your own cleaning products in the video below.

Find out why Grist is bagging Earth Day.

Missed Tip #1? Or Tip #2? Or Tip #3?

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Here's a crazy fact: A baby's body contains nearly 300 chemical compounds by the time it takes its first breath. It's the consequence of a chemical industry that has long paid little mind to where its products end up or what they do to people and the planet; of the estimated 83,000 chemicals on the market, some 80 percent lack basic health and safety data. But in reaction to stricter regulation and increased consumer demand, manufacturers are using green chemistry to cook up nontoxic versions of everything under the sun. It's not about "simply choosing the next, less-bad thing off the shelf," says chemistry professor Paul Anastas. "It's about designing something that is genuinely good." After all, why use petrochemical-based paint when water-based is just as durable? Companies are finding that they can make polyester with cornstarch, household cleaners with coconut, plastic with sugarcane -- and money with green innovation. Says Method cofounder Adam Lowry, "The companies that don't do it will become the dinosaurs."

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Dear Umbra,

I desperately need your help. My house has become infested with bedbugs! I'm trying to find an environmentally friendly way to get rid of them. I've tried a thorough cleaning and tried using diatomaceous earth (fossil shell flour) to no avail. The local exterminator is looking more and more appealing. Please stop me before I do something rash like resorting to him and the nasty chemicals he'll be using.

Ofer
Pasadena, Calif.

Dearest Ofer,

Yipes. Would it help to know that you are not alone, or is that cold comfort? Can I distract you by offering scintillating scientific information about this blood-sucking, night-feeding parasite, Cimex lectularius? For example, the female bedbug possesses a secondary copulatory aperture -- a notch, or invagination, in her body wall -- known as the Ribaga's organ. During mating, the male actually pierces her exoskeleton with a dagger-like, spermatozoa-carrying organ in a process known as traumatic insemination.

Don't let the bedbugs bite.

But back to the reality at hand: Bedbugs were largely eliminated from the U.S. during the DDT years but remained fairly common overseas. Now they're reappearing with a vengeance, showing up in apartment buildings, hotels, dorms, and other places across the country. They are quite wee (the adults are described as lentil-sized) and very flat. They're hard to spot, fit easily inside tiny crevices all about your home, and happily travel between apartments through wiring holes -- or as stowaways in luggage, clothing, bedding, and such. Their enticingly named "blood meals" can result in very itchy and persistent red welts. Bedbugs can go a year without eating, so starvation by abandonment is not an option.

The upshot of all this is: The exterminator is likely your best hope. Let me clearly state that we're all environmentalists here, and we wish to avoid using pesticides. But we also have a social responsibility to the greater Public Health, and this responsibility requires us to kill those bedbugs dead and spare our neighbors, coworkers, fellow bus riders, and world-at-large from the resurgent scourge. The little critters are so wily -- and so resistant to and/or hidden from steam, vacuuming, cleaning, squishing, and other methods -- that a professional is often the only one with enough training, patience, and skill sets to get rid of them. The most helpful information I found about managing an infestation was from the Harvard School of Public Health and from the University of Kentucky. Read these documents if you suspect bedbugs are biting you and yours; I cannot do justice to the detailed instructions here.

If you are a tenant with bedbugs, call your landlord immediately and work with him/her to make an eradication plan. As you already know, Ofer, it's also important to clean and declutter your dwelling, tightly bag up all your garments and bedding, and vacuum every crevice of the house (don't forget to discard the vacuum contents within a tightly sealed bag).

These steps should be taken in preparation for having a licensed, recommended professional with a thorough Integrated Pest Management plan come to debug your home. The responsible pest controller will not put pesticides on your bed, and will use a combination of physical controls (e.g., more vacuuming), and pesticides to fix you up like new. Hopefully.

Be extremely cautious with your infested possessions, including those that you need to throw out. Keep everything isolated, encased in plastic -- or even defaced, to make sure a dumpster diver doesn't take it home (again, see Harvard's detailed instructions).

Don't let infested furniture fall into the hands of an innocent thrift store shopper, or leave them out on the curb as freebies. That would be cruel and unusual charity.

Unfortunately,
Umbra

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Dear Umbra,

I've noticed lately that Method cleaning products are now being sold in a number of different retail outlets, whereas before they were only sold in Target. This shouldn't seem too weird in our every-store-sells-the-same-thing world, but seeing these products on the shelves in Whole Foods got me wondering more about them. You see, I went looking for some trusty Bon Ami cleaner the other day and found it gone from the shelves and many Method products in its place. The Method stuff seems a little too good to be true (though they don't seem to offer an elbow-grease product like Bon Ami in their line). Maybe it's the slick packaging; maybe I'm just a cynic. Is it really true that such a positive cleaning product is being sold in big retailers around the country? Are there any bad things we should know about these products? Thanks!

Micha M.
Tucson, AZ

Dearest Micha,

A madness to your Method?

You are far from the only cynic among us. I have also given Method the gimlet eye. Method products have become omnipresent, the bottles look good, yet I've never noticed any green claims. My cynicism feels a little deflated after researching your question: I can't seem to find anything bad about Method merchandise. Of course, I'm not without a bit of advice regarding the complete line of Method products. But I'll give said advice at the end. First, let us celebrate what seems to be the mainstreaming of environmentally-better products. We pick Method for the first round of applause, but that's only our latest example. Tom's of Maine and Burt's Bees, mentioned months ago, are everywhere I look. Target, the store you mention, not only carries the Method brand but also is reducing its use of PVC. Just a few brief reasons out of many for celebration.

In no way should this rejoicing certify the effectiveness of Method -- I have read a review by Grist's Sarah v., and I've checked out the Green Guide, which does approve of Method's cleaning power. I, however, have never used Method products. To inspect their bonafides, I looked at the company website, which is filled with cute humor and very thorough FAQs. Method claims to ne'er use phthalates, parabens, ammonia, triclosan [PDF], or to test on little animals (these are all bad things, in case you've never heard of them). Then it claims that it's assessed by the EPA (true) and, even better, by a European organization that uses cradle-to-cradle methodology (basically, nothing becomes waste). That's true, too. All this sounds like a giant Method infomercial. Instead, please interpret it as a consumers-make-a-difference infomercial. There is no way the two young (environmentalist) fellows who started this company would have been able to infiltrate Target if the ecological shoppers weren't known to be there, waiting to buy less-awful cleaning supplies. Yay.

In the context of this celebration, here is my actual environmental advice regarding all cleaning products: Beware of buying stuff you don't actually need. Yes, we need to purchase cleansers made without known poisons and pollutants, and we need laundry detergent, dish soap, and maybe dishwashing liquid. But almost all of our other general household cleaning needs can be met with soap, white vinegar, baking soda, borax, a sponge, scrubby, and a pile of old T-shirts. Individual grapefruit-scented wipes (non-toxic and bamboo-based or otherwise) are, basically, silly. They're probably very nice-smelling and convenient, but there's no call for a one-use wipe (30 for $4 from Method) when a sponge will probably do the trick. What I'm saying is, watch out for getting sucked into the shopping vortex, a place where convenience and enticing packaging suddenly erase all our heartfelt commitment to reduce.

Air fresheningly,
Umbra

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OK, I admit it: it's not the sexiest product to test. Hard as I tried to convince a recent pair of weekend houseguests to take part in my experiments, they left without touching a single sheet. But paper towels are an everyday item that can make a big impact -- not just on your countertops, but on the planet. (And hey, we can't all get the beer-tasting gig.)

Conventional paper processing is intensive -- not only does the quest for virgin fiber lead to massive deforestation, but the manufacturing process typically involves chlorine, a toxic chemical that releases carcinogenic dioxins and furans. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the paper industry is the third-largest industrial contributor to global warming.

Grist's Picks

But recycled paper offers a different route: a Green Seal report [PDF] says if all paper towels were made with 100 percent recycled paper, 1 million tons of used paper would be kept out of the waste stream. With each American using an average of 741 pounds of paper per year, it's time to change how you roll.

To test out a few alternatives, I loaded up on five eco-brands, and threw Bounty into the mix as a control. I then subjected the contenders to a rigorous series of tests: how they tore when dry, how they tore when saturated, how they absorbed a quarter-tablespoon of juice and a quarter-tablespoon of oil, and how it felt when I blew my nose with them.

The competition lines up.

Things were pretty much neck and neck until the final test. Drawing inspiration from an old Bounty commercial (and a Consumer Reports truth-check of said commercial), I decided to conduct a "bowling ball strength test" -- using a miniature pumpkin instead. This is where my associate and I were really able to see some distinctions emerge.

Here are the results. (And remember, a dishcloth or cellulose sponge may be the greenest choice of all.)

Earth Friendly Products
$2.99/67.22 sq ft ($.044/sq ft)
Two-ply, 8x11" sheets
Green claims: 80 percent post-consumer content, chlorine-free, 100 percent biodegradable
Made in: USA

This family-run company has been making green cleaning products "since before Corvettes had fins." But in all that time, they haven't quite gotten it right: while they have found a way to make their recycled-paper towel feel soft to the touch (a minor miracle in this product category), theirs was the flimsiest of the group, tearing easily when wet and dry, and doing just an OK job soaking up the juice and oil. It also came in second-to-last in the highly revealing mini-pumpkin test.

Seventh Generation Whitened
$1.69/45.4 sq ft ($.037/sq ft)
Two-ply, 10.8x8.7" sheets
Green claims: 100 percent recycled paper (with a minimum 80 percent post-consumer materials); hypo-allergenic; no dyes, inks, or fragrances; whitened without chlorine bleach. Saves natural resources, reduces pollution.
Made in: Canada

You could spend an hour with this towel's packaging alone, which carefully explains how buying recycled, unbleached paper products helps the environment, as well as rolling out plenty of stats on how great life would be if every U.S. household replaced just one 70-sheet roll of virgin-fiber paper towels with recycled (we'd save 544,000 trees!). But how did it perform? It wasn't super-strong in the juice and saturation-tear tests, and was just average in the mini-pumpkin test. It felt thick enough to get the job done, but had a somewhat scratchy texture.

Seventh Generation Natural
$2.50/82.5 sq ft ($.030/sq ft)
Two-ply, 11x9" sheets
Green claims: 100 percent recycled paper (minimum 90 percent post-consumer materials), hypo-allergenic, unbleached, unscented, no dyes
Made in: USA

For some people, these paper towels may be too reminiscent of grade-school bathrooms to feel like a fit in the kitchen -- but don't let the natural color (which "comes from the mix of colors in the cardboard, office waste, and other paper materials recycled into this product") scare you away. This utilitarian entry outperformed its fellow Seventh Generation towel, holding up to water, juice, oil, and mini-pumpkins with ease. Just don't expect to blow your nose with it.

Don't dry this at home.

365 Everyday Value
$1.39/60.9 sq ft ($.023/sq ft)
Two-ply, 11x5.7" sheets
Green claims: 100 percent recycled paper (80 percent post-consumer content), whitened without chlorine bleach, fragrance free
Made in: USA

The Whole Foods house brand feels thicker than its eco-competitors, and has those handy perforations that let you use only as much paper as you need. It held up well in the tearing, juice, oil, and nose-blowing tests, but failed miserably in the mini-pumpkin test. Still, with the lowest price point and a surprisingly soft feel, it's not a bad option.

Green Forest
$1.79/43.4 sq ft ($.041/sq ft)
Two-ply, 11x8.8" sheets
Green claims: 100 percent recycled paper (minimum 40 percent post-consumer content), whitened without chlorine, hypo-allergenic, "soft on nature," supports non-profits including a "special partnership" with River Network
Made in: Canada

This Georgia-Pacific offshoot boasts "state-of-the-art papermaking technology" that makes its towels "very bright and extremely soft" -- not "stiff and scratchy" like many eco-brands. But in fact, it was on the scratchy end of the spectrum -- and relatively flimsy, too. Although it held up surprisingly well during the mini-pumpkin test, it fared poorly on the rest, shredding messily when saturated and dripping more than the others after clean-ups. It also has the lowest post-consumer content of the recycled brands.

Bounty
$1.99/63 sq ft ($.031/sq ft)
Two-ply, 11x11" sheets
Green claims: None, though "one sheet keeps working" -- let's hear it for reuse!
Made in: USA

Oh, quilted picker-upper -- why must you be so soft, so thick, so luxurious? And why must you be so ... chlorine bleached? If performance were the sole criterion here, Bounty would win the day. And if "you can reuse it again and again!" counts as a truly green philosophy, I'd even feel OK about that win. But I can't overlook the nastiness of the bleaching process, and the thoughtlessness of using virgin fiber. Sigh.

The bottom line: Until Bounty does an about-face on bleaching and recycled-paper content (a girl can dream ...), the winners of my absorption derby are Whole Foods' 365 brand and Seventh Generation's natural option. Aesthetics and availability may well determine which one you choose.

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Toxic suds want to watch you shower

Forget the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker -- if your rub-a-dub tub is filled with grime and grub, it's time to scrub. But with what? Before you reach for just any cleaner, ask yourself whether those scrubby bubbles are going to make your bathroom surfaces even more toxic. To help you avoid soap-scummy gunk and harmful chemicals, I've taken a down-and-dirty look at a number of green-cleaning products.

If she'd used Borax, she'd already be at the ball.

Photo: iStockphoto

Much like when shopping for detergents, I steered the cart away from products that include phosphates (which cause harmful algal blooms) and bleach, a lung irritant. You might also look for products listed as petroleum free (for obvious, oil-related reasons) and biodegradable, as many of these products will get washed down the sink or tub after use. Read the product labels -- if they have strong warnings about the product's hazards, that's a good sign to steer clear. Check out this handy guide [PDF] for more information.

In choosing which products to test, I grabbed a range of options -- from powder to liquid sprays to cream cleansers that combine properties of both. On the advice of several Grist readers, I even tried "less-product-y products" like baking soda and Borax -- and was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Since I keep my own bathroom sparkling clean with a strict regimen of preventative care (ahem), I sought out a test bathroom in the home of a Grist staffer who will remain unnamed. The bathroom she shares with six roommates proved the perfect testing ground.

Grist's Pick

I used each product on the walls and floors of the house's shower stalls. Most of the products cleaned well enough on the wall tile -- which wasn't as dirty to begin with. The floor was the real battleground, though, its textured surface covered in black grime. That's where I found clean evidence of each product's relative efficacy.

Here are the results:

Pure Baking Soda
16 oz. powder, $1.15
Eco-claims: Safe, effective cleaning and deodorizing
Ingredients: Sodium bicarbonate (an antacid)
Cleaning instructions: Sprinkle baking soda on a damp sponge or cloth for cleaning of all countertops, appliances, metal cabinets, and tile.
Smell: No scent. At all.
Elbow grease required: elbow injury imminent
Resulting sparkle: a glint

Buy one little box of this stuff and you're set for litterbox odor control, tooth whitening, laundry, household cleaning, minor skin irritations, fridge freshening, and upset stomachs -- not to mention baking, of course! It was a little messy sprinkling the powder onto the damp sponge, and I had to reapply it a number of times, but the baking soda's grit did get some of the grime out. This one required a lot of elbow grease though -- for not as much return as some of the other products.

Biokleen Soyblends Kitchen & Bath Soy Cream Cleaner
32 fl. oz. cream, $4.69
Eco-claims: Natural, nontoxic, biodegradable; no negative effects on rivers, streams, plants, or wildlife; kind to those with chemical sensitivities and allergies; no artificial fragrance, colors, or preservatives; 99 percent VOC free and ozone safe; contains no: phosphate, chlorine, ammonia, petroleum solvents, alcohol, butyl, glycol ether, SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) or SLES (sodium laureth sulfate), EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid), DEA (diethanolamine); No SARA Title III, CA 65, or EPA priority pollutants; no materials listed by the ACGIH (American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists) as hazardous; no animal testing; no animal ingredients
Ingredients: Soybean oil extract, surfactants from coconut and/or corn, xanthan gum, zeolite, low pH silicate, linear sulfonate, food-grade lime extract, less than 0.2 percent environmentally friendly polymer, natural volcanic perlite, filtered water
Cleaning instructions: Apply with sponge, soft brush, or directly on stain. Rub lightly, letting the microscrubbers do the work. Rinse with damp cloth and water.
Smell: Strong citrus scent
Elbow grease required: a little scrub'll do ya (per instructions on bottle)
Resulting sparkle: let's just call it "less dirty"

This orange creamsicle-esque bottle lists fewer actual ingredients than it does noningredients -- which is great, except that other products containing very simple ingredients out-cleaned it. The bottle said "let the microscrubbers do the work," and I just kept waiting ... but no apparent microscrubbing occurred, even after I did some macroscrubbing of my own. This guy was also the worst on the grout. But hey, it smelled yummy!

Bon Ami Polishing Cleanser
14 oz. powder, $1.29
Eco-claims: No chlorine, perfume, or dye; contains no phosphorus; biodegradable
Ingredients: Calcium carbonate
Cleaning instructions: Wet surface. Sprinkle on Bon Ami. Rub with wet sponge or cloth.
Smell: Slight flour-y scent, though hardly noticeable
Elbow grease required: scrub-a-dub and then some
Resulting sparkle: ooh! shiny

The holes at the top of this cylindrical container are grouped in the center, which made for messy pouring onto the sponge -- meaning I had to clean twice (once on the tile, and once on the floor where I spilled). The upside, though, is that this stuff has barely a scent and barely an ingredient -- so by default, there's no ooky stuff inside. It required some elbow grease, but did a pretty good job cleaning off the muck.

20 Mule Team Borax
4 lbs. 12 oz. powder, $4.49
Eco-claims: Does not contain phosphates or chlorine; safe for septic tanks
Ingredients: sodium tetraborate decahydrate (a chemical compound and mineral)
Cleaning instructions: Sprinkle on damp sponge or cloth and wipe.
Smell: Almost none -- a very slight soapy scent
Elbow grease required: a little scrub'll do ya
Resulting sparkle: blinding bling

Sign me up to be on Team Borax ... aside from the messiness of it being a powder and the big, heavy box, this product was amazing! I tested it because you readers recommended it, and I have to say -- y'all know what you're talking about. Using Borax, I was able to get the shower twice as clean in half the time -- almost no effort for a sparkling clean. I'm a convert! Next up: washing those soiled t-shirts in this stuff.

Ecover
16 fl.oz. cream, $2.69
Eco-claims: Plant-based ingredients, not based on petrochemical ingredients; no chemical residue; optimum level of biodegradability -- far exceeds legislative requirements; safe for all river and marine life; no animal testing; safe for septic tanks; recognized by the United Nations for outstanding practical achievements for the protection and improvement of the environment; Ecover's factory is built using a grass roof for insulation, wood beams from sustainable forest, and bricks made from coal mine waste
Ingredients: Plant-based, nonionic, tension-active surfactants, water, chalk powder, clay, natural gum, glycerine, and 100 percent biodegradable preservative
Cleaning instructions: Apply either directly to surface or onto wet sponge. Clean surface and then rinse off.
Smell: slight soapy scent
Elbow grease required: scrub-a-dub and then some
Resulting sparkle: bright

The not-quite-powder-not-quite-liquid cream consistency was less messy than either alternative, but I did end up using a lot of it. Because there was some grit in the cream, I was able to scrub off more grime than I thought with less work. Overall, this would be a good choice if you didn't want to mess with a powder.

Method Tub + Tile
28 fl. oz. liquid, $5.99
Eco-claims: Nontoxic and biodegradable; naturally derived; never tested on animals
Ingredients: Soap scum dissolver, nonionic surfactant, naturally derived solvents, essential oil fragrance
Cleaning instructions: Spray and wipe.
Smell: strong, lingering spruce-y, lemon scent (container says eucalyptus mint)
Elbow grease required: wipe on, wipe off (per instructions on bottle)
Resulting sparkle: a little scrub'll do ya

Because it's a spray, application on the vertical wall of tile was a bit messy as the liquid followed gravity's call. Per the bottle's instructions, this one didn't require much scrubbing -- but it also didn't do much to dent the deep-set dirt. Furthermore, the smell (while more clean-smelling than some) was a bit overpowering and definitely lingered long after I finished spraying.

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Surface Scrub
11 oz. powder, $5.99
Eco-claims: Chlorine and phosphate free; cruelty-free and not tested on animals
Ingredients: Calcium carbonate, oxygen bleach (natural cleaning activator), plant-derived surfactants, fragrance, and essential oils of geranium, rose, and clove
Cleaning instructions: Wet surface, sprinkle on powder and scrub; if facing a difficult stain, sprinkle powder on wet surface, lightly scrub, and let sit for a few minutes before final scrub.
Smell: strong flowery scent (container says geranium)
Elbow grease required: scrub-a-dub and then some
Resulting sparkle: ooh! shiny

I really liked the clever packaging on this one -- that is, until I tried to use it. Built like a powdered Parmesan cheese container, the lid required some swiveling and poking. I'm not sure if it's meant to be child-proof or just dummy-proof, but either way, I failed. It wasn't until my lovely assistant suggested I poke the top with a pen that I was able to get it open. And even then, the powder lingered on the cap after I poured it onto my sponge -- much like powdered Parm. For the amount of scrubbing (not much), there was good return sparkle-wise, but the scent -- pretty as a perfume, but overpowering for the bathroom -- was too much for me.

Seventh Generation Natural Tub & Tile Cleaner
32 fl. oz liquid, $4.69
Eco-claims: Nontoxic, biodegradable, no fumes; free of chlorine, petroleum based solvents, glycol ethers, phosphates, strong acids, caustics, and dyes; not tested on animals, no animal ingredients
Ingredients: Natural lactic acid (to remove soap scum and lime scale), coconut surfactants (for soil removal), whole and natural plant essences (a blend of emerald cypress, balsam fir, and lime essential oils), water
Cleaning instructions: Spray the area and wipe clean; for heavy soils, spray and allow to sit for one minute, scrub or wipe clean.
Smell: strong piney, lemony scent (container says emerald cypress & fir)
Elbow grease required: wipe-on, wipe-off
Resulting sparkle: let's just call it "less dirty"

It was nice to spray on this cleaner and leave it for a few minutes (though it dripped down the tile walls), then come back and have the grime in the grout wipe clean without much effort. This might also work in a shower stall that starts out fairly clean. But for this grimy floor, it couldn't do the trick -- no matter how much I scrubbed.

The bottom line: Forget complicated ingredient lists, fancy spray bottles, and flowery fragrances. We suggest you join Team Borax and use the power of 20 mules to get bathroom surfaces sparkling for little effort and even less moola.

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After spending a few minutes with Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan, I began to wonder if they weren't part of a modern-day adaptation of The Odd Couple. The 30-something founders of the Method line of home-care products, friends since high school, are about as different as two business partners could be.

Lowry (Method's "chief greens keeper") is tall and lanky, with dark brown hair. The day we met, he was wearing a classic slacks-and-button-down number and a serious look on his face. He's a chemical engineer with an environmental degree and has worked as a climatologist at the Carnegie Institution. And his favorite Method scent? "Classic lavender."

Ryan ("chief brand architect") is about a head shorter. His tousled blond hair and wide smile give him a laid-back surfer air; his tailored jeans and tee, an edgy hipness. He's a marketing guru who's worked for Gap, Saturn, and other brands. His favorite Method scent is "whatever's new."

Put them together, and you've got a philosophy that blends substance and style -- and a product line that boasts more than $75 million in annual sales. The company has also received accolades for packaging design -- a distinction that quite literally sets them apart from competitors on the shelves. Partnering with designer Karim Rashid, whose clients range from Dirt Devil to Prada, they've created, among other things, an hourglass-shaped dish-soap bottle that squirts from the bottom via a non-leaking spout.

Squeaky Green, by Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry.

They've also been recognized for their commitment to sustainability -- receiving nods in 2006 both as PETA person(s) of the year and in Time's "Who's Who Eco-Guide" -- for their pledge to create products that are nontoxic, cruelty-free, and made of "ingredients that come from plants, not chemical plants."

As old friends tend to do, Lowry and Ryan continually played off each other during our conversation. They made jokes and finished each other's sentences as we talked about their upcoming book Squeaky Green, the "green chefs" who test and re-test every product, and a philosophy that focuses on progress rather than perfection.

A big part of your philosophy is the intersection of sustainability and design -- can concern for health and the environment be both hippie and hip?

Lowry: What the style element does is it creates mass market relevance for a green product. And I'm not just talking about Method right now, although that is very much our strategy. We're not the first company to think cleaners should be green, but we are doing them in a way that makes them accessible both from a price-point standpoint and from a design/aesthetic standpoint to everyone else who isn't this sort of tree-hugging granola -- forgive the expression ...

Why would you do all this green stuff and then just hang out with other greenies? That's one of the biggest reasons why the traditional environmental movement has not succeeded. It's not democratic.

One of the big goals with Method, and why design and sustainability are inextricably linked in our brand, is that if you don't have the design element, you're only going to appeal to people who are already green, so you're not actually going to create any real environmental change ... To us, "sustainability" and "green" are just aspects of the quality of our product -- they are not a marketing positioning ... I mean everything should be that way. Just build it into the quality of the product and let the experience of the product be the real hero.

Ryan: Before Method came in, the whole idea of an eco-cleaner's design was that it was supposed to look like you were suffering. Like the packaging was a little drab, a little ennui -- that was kind of part of choosing to buy one of these products. You were making that badge of "I'm gonna suffer, I'm making this compromise for the environment."

Lowry: It's a very Catholic sentiment. You're paying your penance for the Earth that's dying, and you need to save it. And there are very few people who are willing to do that. I was one of those consumers when I was working for Carnegie. I was continually frustrated that you buy these green products, and they cost more, they don't work, they're not fun to use. It's like guilt and absolution, instead of living a positive, healthy lifestyle.

Ryan: To Adam's point, that's how you create mass-market relevance: you bring the style and the substance. It's challenging, though, because a lot of things that are very stylish really are not very good for the environment. We could make our products look way better than they do today, but unfortunately it would require making trade-offs with materials that, while they look beautiful on the outside, aren't necessarily that beautiful on the inside.

Speaking of not being beautiful on the inside, your new book is basically revealing "dirty little secrets" of the cleaning-product industry.

Lowry: The purpose of the book is to be really provocative, and to just challenge some of the assumptions of why is cleaning such a dirty job and what is really dirtier -- the things that we're cleaning up or the things that we're cleaning with? Method's one part of that, but there's lots of other parts that are important -- whether it's countertops, the Energy Star appliances, the flooring, or just simple things like kicking your shoes off when you walk in.

What "dirty little secrets" are people most surprised to hear?

Ryan: The light bulb goes off the most [with] things that seem so obvious but you never stop to think about it. [Like] the idea that you clean your tub with toxic cleaner, but then you soak in it afterward.

Are there any products you wish you could create? Problems you haven't found good solutions for?

Lowry: One of the ones we've been working on for a long, long time is toilet-bowl cleaner.

Ryan: I thought it was toilet paper. What have I been testing at home, then? [Laughs.]

Lil' Bowl Blu and Le Scrub: A greener blue toilet.

Lowry: With the toilet-bowl cleaner, for a long time, we have struggled to make it work as well as the toxic, phosphoric-[acid], sulfuric-acid toilet-bowl cleaners. But we have now found a technology that will allow us to do that, so we're very close on that product. [Ed. note: their Lil' Bowl Blu nontoxic toilet cleaner launches this month.]

Ryan: We like to do what we call "two revolutions a year" -- which are big, revolutionary products. O-mop, [a microfiber-cloth floor mop], is one from [last] year; the other one is the "bloq line" of personal-care products. For 2008, we've got a couple of "revolutions" lined up that are really cool -- we can't let the cat out of the bag right now, but they will be in two new categories where it's ripe for revolution. Beyond that, it's classified, and I'd have to kill you ...

Tell me about the decision to sell your products in mainstream stores.

Lowry: If you want to use your business to create change, you need to create change where the change is needed -- and that is with people who are unaware of even the fact that we have these issues, or even worse, they're people who have decided that the trade-off that they've been told they must make in order to live a green or a healthy lifestyle isn't worth it. We're trying to show people that if they had a misperception that green had to cost a lot of money or green had to be difficult or green had to be penance-oriented or--

Ryan: Can't come in bright colors --

Lowry: Right, then that's wrong. And it's not only wrong with our stuff, which helps maintain your home, but also that assumption is wrong with the way that you decorate, the foods that we eat, the experiences that we have -- so top-to-bottom in the home. You can do it, and it's actually really easy. Because if it's not easy, people aren't going to do it.

Ryan: Plus, these retailers really got behind us and helped us push that change. Target was a great partner in that and Costco's been a fantastic partner ... We didn't want to go try to steal share from the other natural cleaners; we wanted to go where there were no natural cleaners at that time.

Lowry: One of the things that I think we're really proud of ... is [how] the success that we've had in bringing green- and health-focused products to the mass market [has] actually changed the market much bigger than our own footprint.

In 2004, we launched the first triple-concentrated laundry detergent into the mass market that was successful, and we did that on a national basis. Wal-Mart saw that; we talked to them about the benefits of triple-concentrated laundry detergents, and they started pressuring their manufacturers into it.

... [B]asically, the entire laundry category has changed because Method paved the way and showed that there was an innovation that could be done here that was better for the consumer because you're not carrying this giant jug of stuff around, it was better for the environment because you're not wasting as much, and it was better for the washing machine and for your wallet -- and it was really just a simple design solution.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, have you ever been accused of greenwashing?

Lowry: I'm sure that there'll be more criticism as we get bigger ... I can even anticipate what some of those things might potentially be. But our philosophy ... is about progress, not perfection; it's about moving that ball down the field one innovation at a time.

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Nearly half of 100 consumer products claiming to be "natural" or "organic" tested positive for a carcinogenic petrochemical manufacturing byproduct, according to the Organic Consumers Association. The products tainted with scary-sounding 1,4-dioxane came from various well-known brands, including Alba, Jasön, Kiss My Face, Method, Nature's Gate, and Seventh Generation. Some of the companies said they would review their ingredients, while others lamented that eliminating 1,4-dioxane would at this point mean using alternatives that irritate skin or reduce cleaning effectiveness. They continue to work on the issue, says Martin Wolf of Seventh Generation: "We're not there yet. We have more work to do."

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Let's get down and dirty ... about your laundry habits. You may think you're in the clear, but every time you use your conventional, chemical-filled detergent, you could be affecting your health -- as well as the health of waterways downstream.

That doesn't sound so fresh (and so clean, clean), so I decided to seek out green laundry detergents and find out which one performs best.

Lean, green, cleaning machines?

Photo: Sarah van Schagen

While shopping, I kept an eye out for the nasty stuff -- the surfactant nonylphenol ethoxylate or NPE, an endocrine disruptor and estrogen mimic; phosphates, which help remove minerals and food bits but cause harmful algal blooms in waterways (these have been phased out by U.S. companies); and bleach, which gets it white, but doesn't treat your lungs right. The problem is, most detergents don't so much list ingredients in that sort of detail -- and they're not required by law to disclose their ingredients to consumers even when asked. Instead, they use more vague terms like "surfactant" or "washing soda" or "brightener," so I found myself looking at their various eco-claims -- that is, what they say their products don't contain.

I also decided to go with detergents "free and clear" of dyes and perfumes, because why bother with possible irritants and allergens if you have the option? A number of the bottles proudly announce that their contents are biodegradable or petroleum-free. According to the Seventh Generation bottle, if every U.S. household replaced one bottle of petroleum-based detergent with a plant-based one, 149,000 barrels of oil could be saved -- enough to heat and cool 8,500 homes for a year.

GRIST'S PICK

I chose relatively small bottles of detergent as well. Normally, I'm a fan of buying in bulk to save packaging, but I knew I'd be lugging them all home in a backpack, by foot, uphill both ways in the rain. Most of them are also labeled as "concentrated" -- an important distinction because, as the Method bottle states, over 400 million gallons of water are used to dilute conventional laundry detergents. The concentrated formulas use less water but still rinse clean -- and work in both conventional and high-efficiency machines.

To test the detergents, I planned to do a load of clothes with each. But my clothes don't usually get very dirty -- me working a posh desk job and all -- so I wanted to do some elaborate stain experimenting like they do in all the commercials.

This is where I went wrong.

Using cotton T-shirts that were headed to the Goodwill anyway, I applied six-inch stains of ketchup, balsamic vinaigrette, blueberries, and red wine to the front side, and then rubbed the back of each shirt in mud. All without thinking about how detergents on their own aren't really meant to get out stains that tough, and if I were really doing laundry, I'd use vinegar and club soda and whatever else until I was sure it would wash clean. Instead, all I did was follow the instructions on each bottle for pre-treatment.

Do you know how hard it is to get blueberries out? I'm no Lady Macbeth, but by the end of the trial, I was pretty close to cursing those damned spots and washing my hands of the entire project. That hitch aside, the rest of my clothes came out just fine with each load -- so the real differences lie in the eco-claims, the smell, and the bang for your buck.

Here are the results:

Biokleen Free & Clear Laundry Liquid
64 fl. oz./1 oz. per load/64 loads/3X concentrated
$9.99
Eco-claims: Fragrance free; clear of dyes and brighteners; environmentally friendly with no negative effects on rivers, streams, plants, or wildlife; kind to those with chemical sensitivities and allergies; no artificial fragrance, colors, or preservatives; rapidly biodegrades and ozone safe; no animal testing and no animal ingredients; contains no phosphate, chlorine, ammonia, petroleum solvents, alcohol, butyl, glycol ether, SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) or SLES (sodium laureth sulfate), EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid), DEA (diethanolamine; no SARA Title III, CA 65, or EPA priority pollutants; no material listed by the ACGIH (American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists) as hazardous.
Ingredients: Surfactants and conditioners from coconut and/or corn, grapefruit seed and pulp extract, linear sulfonate, filtered water.
Stain instructions: Pre-treat stains by applying directly to stain, gently rub in and launder as directed.
Actual smell: Soapy, like a bottle of bubbles, but not overpowering.

This bottle is the least exciting looking of all of them, but it has some hefty eco-cred. The laundry list of chemicals it doesn't contain makes me wonder about what all is in the other detergents I tested. Still, this is a performance review, and with that in mind, I have to comment on the claim that this one "removes the toughest dirt, grease, stains, and odors." It just didn't happen. Most of the dirt is gone from the back of the shirt and the ketchup and vinaigrette are hardly visible, but the blueberries and red wine did this one in.

The winner is clear as mud.

Photo: Sarah van Schagen

Earth Friendly Products Ultra ECOS Free and Clear All Natural Laundry Detergent
100 fl. oz./1 oz. per load/100 loads in HE machines, 50 in non-HE machines
$12.99
Eco-claims: Phosphate-, formaldehyde-, and petrochemical-free; kind to sensitive skin; neutral pH; plant-based, non-polluting ingredients; septic safe and gray-water safe; 100 percent biodegradable; sodium lauryl sulfate-free and free of non-ionic surfactants derived from SLS; not tested on animals and no animal ingredients.
Ingredients: 100 percent natural anionic coconut kernel oil-based surfactant, soap bark, chamomile, horsetail plant, and purified water.
Stain instructions: Pour some directly onto stained area, rub lightly, and wash as usual.
Actual smell: Slight vinegary scent.

Interestingly, this one says it's "designed to quickly remove ground-in dirt and stains" -- a claim I'd have to question, seeing as how the dirt that I ground in is still very much visible and the blueberry stain still looks good enough to eat. The ketchup and vinaigrette stains are mostly faded, though, so perhaps this one works better on grease.

Method Free + Clear Laundry Detergent
32 fl. oz./1 oz. per load/32 loads/3X concentrated
$9.99
Eco-claims: Contains no perfumes or dyes; phosphate-free; biodegradable; never tested on animals.
Ingredients: Anionic and non-ionic surfactants, enzymes, buffering agents, stabilizer, stain penetrant, brightener, and foam control agents.
Stain instructions: If heavily soiled, add an extra 1/2 oz. of detergent.
Actual smell: Like baby powder and rubber, or the inside of a latex balloon.

The Method-washed shirt still has about half its dirt, maybe all of its red wine, and visible amounts of the ketchup, vinaigrette, and blueberries -- though the blueberries are more faded than some detergents left them. This one does come in one of the more stylish bottles, though, which I applaud -- but performance is key.

Mountain Green Skin Sensitive Free & Clear All Natural Ultra Laundry Detergent
32 fl. oz./1 oz. per load/32 loads/3X concentrated
$11.99
Eco-claims: No harsh perfumes, alcohol, dyes, chlorine bleach, petroleum-based ingredients, enzymes, optical brighteners, SLS, or parabens; neutral pH; cruelty-free; readily biodegradable, nontoxic, 100 percent phosphate and phosphorus free; safe for septic systems and for gray-water use.
Ingredients: Purified mountain water, vegetable-based cleaning agents (derived from coconut/palm oil), mild preservatives (food grade).
Stain instructions: Apply directly onto stained area, rub gently, and soak before normal wash.
Actual smell: Like a lemon pie, a slight sugary lemon scent.

All of the stains on this tester are still visible, though a bit fainter. The vinaigrette seems to have given it the most trouble, while the red wine is the most faded. If you can look past the stain-fighting abilities of this one, it does have an impressive list of eco-claims and the scent was by far the sweetest.

Planet Ultra Liquid Laundry Detergent
50 fl. oz./4 oz per load/12.5 loads
$6.49
Eco-claims: Certified biodegradable, no added dyes or fragrances, not tested on animals, 100 percent phosphate free, hypoallergenic.
Ingredients: Coconut oil based cleaners, salt, washing soda, ethoxylated alcohol (an alternative to NPE).
Stain instructions: If heavily soiled, add an extra 1 oz. of detergent.
Actual smell: Almost odorless, very slight vinegar scent

I recommend eating your balsamic vinaigrette verrry carefully if you'll be using this detergent to clean your soiled shirt. This oily stain stands out the most among the faded blueberries, ketchup, and, to a lesser degree, red wine. Half the dirt remains as well.

Seventh Generation Free & Clear Natural Laundry Detergent
32 fl. oz./1.6 oz. per load/20 loads/2X ultra concentrated
$6.99
Eco-claims: No optical brighteners, no dyes or fragrance, no phosphates; safe for septic and gray-water systems; no animal derived ingredients; all ingredients disclosed.
Ingredients: A low-foaming blend of naturally derived cleaning agents (coconut-derived surfactants, glycerin), natural water softeners, alkalinity builders, anti-redeposition agents (sodium citrate, borax), non-animal derived enzymes to remove protein and starch stains and protect fabrics, plant derived anti-foaming agents (glycerol monooleate, oleic acid), cleaning enhancer (calcium chloride), preservative (less than 0.05 percent), water.
Stain instructions: Sort and pretreat (pour directly on stained fabric and rub gently; allow to soak before washing); use a full cap for heavily soiled loads.
Actual smell: Like Play-Doh.

Of all the detergents, this is the only one that claims to disclose all of its ingredients and appears to do so -- even if that means listing chemicals we can't pronounce. It also does a great job of explaining what that all means. In terms of the stains, the dirt is only visible upon close examination and the ketchup is gone. The remaining vinaigrette, blueberries, and red wine are pretty well faded -- this detergent was the best at removing most of all of the stains.

All Small & Mighty Free & Clear
32 fl. oz./1 oz. per load/32 loads/3X concentrated
$7.45
Eco-claims: Free of perfume and clear of dyes, No. 1 recommended by dermatologists and allergists, safe for septic tanks, does not contain phosphorus, surfactants are biodegradable.
Ingredients: Cleaning agents (anionic and non-ionic surfactants), buffering agent, stabilizer, and brightening agent.
Stain instructions: Rub a small amount directly into the stain before washing.
Actual smell: Virtually odorless, faint scent of clay

I added this detergent into the mix after all the rest of my trials came back with stains. I wanted to make sure my experiment wasn't just taking the eco-brands to the cleaners. This one still couldn't make a clean sweep of it, though. The dirt and ketchup are gone, and the red wine is mostly faded, but the vinaigrette and the blueberries are still causing trouble.

The bottom line: It's a wash -- none of the detergents fully removed all of the stains, but they all produced otherwise-clean clothes. And though all claimed to be free of perfumes, each had a singular scent. For maximum eco-claim and stain removal with the lowest price and least-perfumy scent, we suggest Seventh Generation Free & Clear.

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Laundry detergent made from flowers! Cars that don't pollute! Potato chips fried in organic oils! These days, everything seems to be marketed with an eco-spin -- even products that are notoriously bad for people and the planet. So are companies truly seeing the green light, or are they just greenwashing?

Photo: iStockphoto

If green is the new black, then greenwashing -- the practice of putting an eco-friendly spin on a not-so-eco-friendly product or company -- is the new gray area.

Do you have to devote all your time to investigating every company's corporate record to figure out who's really making change and who's just talking a good game? Fortunately, no. Here are a few red flags to watch for, and a few tips for shopping smarter -- put them together, and you can feel more confident about choosing products that really make a difference.

The official U.S. organic label.

Vague claims. Words like "natural," "green," "eco," "nontoxic," and even "biodegradable" don't mean much on their own. They're easy to slap on a product, and they're not currently regulated. Look for more concrete terms like "organic" and "recycled," which are overseen more closely by the federal government and can be verified with a symbol on the package. (And note that "recyclable" just means you might be able to recycle the product in your community, while "recycled" actually means the company has already incorporated some amount of recycled materials in the product.)

Pretty packaging. More and more products, especially cosmetics and household cleaners, are adopting a "natural" look, eschewing the bright colors of old and replacing them with a cleaner, softer design. Is your laundry detergent really made from flowers, or has it simply added 1 percent flower oil to its chemicalicious mix? Read the ingredients to find out.

Nontransparency. If a company doesn't have the space on its product to explain its green claims, it should make the information available on its website or through its customer service department. Look for a phone number or web address on the package -- if you can't find it, or if it's hard to track down more details once you contact the company, there's something fishy going on.

Big promises. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Can you really make up for a year's worth of driving by paying a carbon-offset surcharge when you buy a car? Can a biodegradable diaper really biodegrade if it's smooshed into a deep, dark landfill? (Doubtful, and no.) Companies want to ease your mind with such promises -- but try not to make purchases based on emotions. Instead, learn as much as you can about the realities behind the claims.

The Energy Star label.

Look for certification. There are a few trustworthy certifications out there that, while not perfect, are reliable. Use them as your guide. Look for the federal government's Energy Star designation on appliances and electronics; the USDA organic seal on food and cosmetics; Green Seal (and, in Canada, EcoLogo) on household cleaning products; and the Forest Stewardship Council logo on wood and paper products. (Beware of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative label, which was concocted by the timber lobby.)

Think about how you buy, not just what you buy. Green products can be great, but the choices you make when you buy any product can be just as important when it comes to lessening your impact. Some tips: buy in bulk to reduce individual packaging; when you buy a product or package that's recyclable, make sure it's actually recyclable in your area (and make sure to actually recycle it!); buy durables instead of disposables (things like rechargeable batteries and reusable mugs); and always think carefully about whether you really need the item in the first place.

Trust your gut. If a company is making green claims that seem counterintuitive, approach with caution. Car companies and oil companies are great examples of industries that are eager to convince the world they're "green," through ads with happy children or logos with puffy clouds -- but meanwhile, they keep manufacturing low-mileage vehicles and plunging ahead with damaging resource extraction. These are polluting industries, and it will take more than token gestures to clean up their act. While their green leanings should be encouraged, consumers shouldn't lose sight of the big picture.

Do your research. Sometimes you've got to make a decision while standing in the grocery aisle, but if you have time in advance or if you're considering a bigger purchase -- like a car, washing machine, or TV -- it pays to do some digging before going to the store. Sites like Consumer Reports' GreenerChoices.org, Greenercars.org, and the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) can help you make sense of manufacturers' claims on big-ticket items; the Environmental Working Group and Responsible Purchasing Network have helpful information on smaller items like cosmetics, cleaners, and food.

Check out more green-living hints on easy ways to cut energy use and recycle unusual items.

And get oodles more green living tips from Grist's book, Wake Up and Smell the Planet: The Nonpompous, Nonpreachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day.

*This article originally mentioned a Today show appearance scheduled to happen on Tuesday, Jan. 29, but, alas, that appearance was canceled.

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