Green Living Archives - Eco at Heart

If you’re anything like us, you take great care in keeping your household as toxin free as possible. Foods, skin care and personal products are carefully screened, and you spend extra time in the shopping aisles reading ingredient lists to be sure a product is safe for you and your family.

But have you considered the ingredients in your laundry products? You may not even think about it, but the toxic chemicals in your laundry powder that’s meant to keep you clean and healthy, can often be deadly.

Here’s a list of our top 10 harmful laundry product ingredients, and how to avoid them. Plus scroll down for a simple recipe for making your own!

Name:	Found In:	Can Cause:
*Artificial fragrances*	Laundry detergent, dryer sheets & fabric softener	Skin and eye irritation, suspected carcinogens
*Benzaldehyde*	Laundry bleach & perfumes	Have shown reproductive and developmental problems in animal tests
*Chlorine*	Laundry bleach	Irritated eyes, upper respiratory tract and lungs
*Diethanolamine*	Detergent	Skin and eye irritation, is linked to liver and kidney diseases and developmental and reproductive toxicity in animal studies
*Ethyl acetate*	Fabric softener	Irritation and is a neurotoxin
*Ethylenediamenetetraacetic acid*	Fabric softener	Reproductive and developmental effects in animal studies
*Nonylphenol ethoxylate*	Laundry detergent and dry cleaning aids	Hormone disruptor
*Perchlorethylene (Perc)*	Chemical used in dry cleaning	Liver and kidney diseases, irritation & suspected carcinogen
*Quaternium-15*	Detergent	Releases formaldehyde, a known carcinogen that causes rashes and skin inflammation
*2-Butoxyethanol*	Dry cleaning chemical and stain removers	Reproductive and developmental effects in animal studies, carcinogen, birth defects
*ER, KSN, OB, OB-1*	Optical brighteners	Developmental and reproductive effects

But the good news is these deadly chemicals are easy to avoid! Natural laundry powders are available now more than ever. Or why not make your own? Below is our recipe for a laundry powder concentrate. Why not give it a try, and let us know how you go in the comments!

Laundry Powder Concentrate

Author: Eco at Heart

Recipe type: Laundry

Ingredients

1 cup soda ash
1 cup baking soda
2 ounces liquid castile soap
1 teaspoon of water
a few drops of your chosen essential oil

Instructions

Put the soda ash and baking soda in a food processor to combine.
Mix the castile soap and water together in a separate bowl and pour slowly into the powders with the processor is still running. You should get a white powder.
Add the essential oil and continue to process until mixed.

You can keep the powder in an airtight container. Use approximately 1Tbs per load of laundry, and double the amount if it’s a heavy load. Suitable for top and front loaders.

Can you imagine a world without plastic? Just this morning I was getting my gluten free sourdough bread out of the freezer, and what does it come wrapped in? Plastic. Even the organic spinach from the farmer’s market comes wrapped in the stuff! Plastic products are used so often in our everyday lives it can seem impossible to picture eliminating, or even just reducing how much you use. But by making a few tiny changes, you can make a huge impact.

One easy way to lower the amount of plastic you dispose of is to make the switch to reusable stainless steel straws. But it’s not just the environment that benefits when we make this change – your body and your wallet will thank you for it too!

Here are our top five reasons to make the switch to reusable straws you simply can’t ignore:

1) Disposable plastic straws are TOXIC

Plastic drinking straws can contain harmful toxins that can be detrimental to your health and the health of your loved ones, including Phthalates and Bisphenol A. More commonly known as BPA, Bisphenol A has been linked to brain and behaviour problems, increased risk of cancer, heart problems and increased health issues for young children. But don’t worry. By switching to reusable stainless steel straws you can cut down on your family’s exposure to these harmful toxins and create a safer, healthier environment.

2) Better for the Ocean

Did you know that disposable plastic straws are one of the top 10 most common items of trash found in the ocean and on our beaches? Yes, you heard me right! With over 500 million plastic straws being used every day in the US alone, it’s no wonder that many of them end up in our oceans and waterways. But we can change this! By switching to using reusable straws we can drastically reduce the amount of disposable straws that are made, used and then thrown away. Plus, when you choose Eco at Heart reusable stainless steel straws we donate 5% of all profits made to help clean up our oceans and reverse the damage done by throwaway plastic straws. Huraah!

3) Save Money

Buying cheap, throwaway items can seem like a cost-effective choice at first glance. However the cost of replacing these disposable items regularly quickly starts to add up. Reusable stainless steel straws are just that – reusable! Made with high quality stainless steel, our straws are long-lasting, durable and will quickly have you saving money when you no longer have to to replenish your plastic straw supply.

4) Better for the Environment

Many disposable plastic straws are made from polypropylene, which is made from the same stuff that powers our cars. That’s right, much of the plastic straws that are used every day are made from fossil fuels!

The use of fossil fuels contributes to greenhouse gasses and climate change, so switching to reusable stainless steel straws reduces our reliance on fossil fuels and so helps curb global warming. This is vital if we want to make sure our children and grandchildren have a healthy and stable planet to inherit in the future!

5) Be a Trend Setter

We need more and more people like you to make the switch to sustainable and reusable products. Why not lead the way and be a trendsetter amongst your friends and family? Our reusable stainless steel straws are beautifully designed and are a great addition to your clean, green kitchen and home. Get family and friends hooked on eco-friendly products by being an example. It all starts with YOU!

If you haven’t already, make sure you check out our reusable straws now. You can also sign up to our Eco at Heart VIP Club or subscribe to our blog for more tips and resources for living a truly Eco at Heart lifestyle.