Green cleaning

 I want to be green when I clean, but exactly what does this involve?

In a nutshell, green cleaning means cleaning in a way that’s not just safe for people and safe for the environment, but that’s also sustainable in the long term.

Making cleaning more sustainable

Sounds complicated, but the concept is simple. It just means cleaning in a way that we could keep on doing, day after day after day — and in particular without draining the planet’s resources to the point that future generations couldn’t do the same.

The fact is, in developed countries like the UK, we have lifestyles that would need the resources of several planets to maintain them, using today’s methods and technology. So we need to find ways of doing the cleaning using less resources, which means using less materials, less energy and less water for each job.

Sustainability is about living our lives, and meeting our needs, in a way that doesn’t undermine the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Once safety is assured, making cleaning more sustainable is primarily about getting things clean using less resources such as materials and energy for each job, and minimizing emissions and waste.

Of course, it’s essential that in doing the cleaning with less we maintain a good level of performance. To be resource efficient, products must get things properly clean first time. If not, that could mean re-washing, or sometimes people overdose to try to compensate. Either way, the use of resources goes up rather than down.

Cleaning supports so many aspects of sustainability, and poor performance can undermine health and well being and lead to items wearing out more quickly. Cleaning keeps everything fit for use so it can be used time after time after time. Imagine how resources would dwindle if we threw clothes, dishes and furniture out when they got dirty and bought new ones! And a poor cleaning product is neither value for money for the user nor likely to be viable in the long term for the manufacturer.

The whole life cycle of a product

Resources such as materials, energy and water are used at many different stages of the “life cycle” of a cleaning product, from manufacture of the product, through transport and storage in the shops, to the point at which it is used for cleaning and the spent cleaning solutions and packaging disposed of after use. Improving sustainability means finding ways of making an overall improvement across the whole life cycle. For example, devising a product that took less energy to manufacture would make no sense if it needed twice as much to transport and use.

To help sort out all the swings and roundabouts, there’s a technique called “life cycle analysis” (LCA). LCA studies show that for most cleaning jobs in the home, the key resources consumed are:

• Raw materials to make the product’s ingredients
• Packaging to keep it safe, intact and easy-to-use from manufacture until it’s all been used
• Energy to manufacture both product and packaging, transport them to the shops, and to heat water or run washing machines during the cleaning job itself
• Water, at all the same stages from cradle to grave

Sustainability — the big picture

Ensuring that the development of human society becomes sustainable for the long-term is a vital goal for the 21st century. To make sense of the big picture, it helps to think about things under three key headings — economic, social and environmental.

So, thinking about cleaning the home for example:

• Economic sustainability means having products and equipment that are affordable for those who use them as well as financially viable and providing stable employment for the people and companies who make them.
• Social sustainability is about health and well being — cleaning protects our health by removing harmful germs or allergens, and contributes to our well being by keeping our homes and clothes attractive and comfortable. But cleaning mustn’t harm health — products and equipment must be safe for users and safely manufactured so they don’t harm the workers who make them.
• Environmental sustainability is about living within the resources of the planet and making sure the environment and wildlife are not harmed, either when they are made or when they are used and disposed of after use.

The real challenge

It won’t be a quick fix — it’s about making the whole cleaning job more sustainable, and then making it better still, again and again. And it needs to be a team effort to succeed, because no matter how efficient the product or the machine, it depends on the person who is doing the cleaning to control how much of these resources are used each time.

Resources are consumed and emissions arise at every point in the cleaning life cycle from manufacture of the products to use and disposal. So it’s not surprising that everyone needs to play their part in making cleaning sustainable.

But the way you use the product is even more important than that you might think. Detailed studies of the cleaning life cycle show that the greatest part of the total impact occurs when the product is used in the home.

Sustainability has been improved enormously over the years. Manufacturers have been developing products that give much better results, with much lower dosage, at low temperatures in machines that use much less water. And it’s still going on, with a new Charter for Sustainable Cleaning scheme to ensure manufacturers keep doing their bit.

But ultimately, the user controls much of the impact by determining how much product is used, how much water, and how much energy to heat the water. So there’s plenty you can do to clean sustainably.

Environmental impacts across the life cycle

The chart below shows the results of detailed analysis of every step in the life cycle of doing the laundry using a typical washing powder.

There are substantial impacts in making the ingredients for the detergent but most of the impact comes at the end of the life cycle, when the product is used and disposed of. It’s been calculated that the person doing the laundry controls about 70% of total energy use, 90% of the emissions and 80% of the solid waste across the whole life cycle.

What are manufacturers doing to be green?

It’s not something you notice from day to day, but just think back to how washing used to be done. If you think about the main impacts – materials, energy, water and waste – you quickly start to see how much greater the environmental impact of washing would have been then.

It’s not so long ago that most washes were done at high temperature, 60 degrees up to as high as 95 °C. The amount of product used per wash was double or treble what we need to use today – and so was the amount of packaging. Boxes and bottles today are a fraction of the size to do the same amount of washing. That means today’s products don’t just use less cardboard and plastic for packaging, they also need fewer lorries, and less fuel, to transport them and they take up less space in supermarkets and warehouses. And today’s wash needs only a third of the water it used to.

These dramatic improvements are the result of innovation:

• new ingredients such as enzymes that digest dirt, activators to make the bleach work at low temperatures and polymers to make the dirt come off clothes more easily
• clever blends of ingredients to give better results at low temperatures and clever ways of making products to shrink the volumes and save packaging

Such innovation relies on the competitive efforts of individual companies and suppliers. But over the last 15 years industry associations like UKCPI and our European counterpart A.I.S.E. have co-ordinated a series of initiatives that have encouraged the whole industry to work to match the best standards.

From 2005, manufacturers across Europe have been invited to sign up to a new Charter for Sustainable Cleaning. This commits them to continuously improve the sustainability of all their operations – minimizing the impact of their manufacturing and distribution operations, designing more sustainable products and guiding users to use them in the most sustainable way. Each year they must report their performance against the key measures of sustainability, such as energy and water use, safe working and waste, and all this is independently audited. The manufacturers of over 90% of all the cleaning products sold to consumers in the UK, and the majority of those sold to professional users, are signed up for this Charter, as are many leading retailers.

And the work goes on. In 2010 an extended Charter was launched which for the first time allows companies to qualify individual products as meeting advanced standards of sustainability. The first standards launched cover laundry detergents and fabric conditioners and set limits for the amount of product and packaging needed per wash, as well as requiring good performance at low temperatures. There’s also a specific check on the product formulation to ensure good margins of safety for the environment when disposed of down the drain after use. Products that meet these standards, and whose manufacturers meet all other requirements of the Charter, can put a logo on pack.

So as these logos start to appear, you can check you’re buying a product with a good sustainability profile made by a company that’s doing its bit. That’s important to know when it comes to doing

So how are we doing?

In a nutshell, we’re doing pretty well. But we could do much better, and save money in the process.

As laundry detergents have become more concentrated over the last 10-15 years, and tablet products have been introduced to promote more careful dosing, not only has the amount needed per wash been halved, but users have been dosing more accurately too. The wasteful tendency to add a bit extra to make sure is becoming much less common.

On energy, the average wash temperature in Europe about 15 years ago was around 50 °C and 15% of washes were still “boil washes” at 95 deg C. Now the boil wash is almost a thing of the past and average wash temperature has dropped a full 10 °C. Many washes could now be done at 30 degrees C, but in the UK only 32% are. If the average for Europe dropped to 30 degrees, we’d save enough electricity on laundry alone to power every home in Ireland.

The good news is we’re making real progress — sustainability has already improved dramatically, especially in the last two decades. But there’s still a long way to go. To find out more about how you can clean greener.

Cleaning safely

In comparison, isn’t difficult. Manufacturers of cleaning products have a legal responsibility only to supply products that can be used safely and to provide use instructions and labeling where necessary to guide safe use. Products are risk assessed to ensure there will be no harm to people or the environment when they are properly used. So whichever product you choose, cleaning safely is really just a question of doing what it says on the pack. To find out more about how to be sure you’re cleaning safely.

Golden rules for cleaning safely

Cleaning in a way that’s safe for people and for the environment isn’t at all difficult. If you follow the instructions, you can be sure that what you’re using, or what you’re doing, won’t cause any harm.

1. Read and follow the instructions on the pack
2. Note any Hazard symbols. These are to important things to be aware of, not things you need to steer clear of
3. Note any Safe Use pictures and follow these tips
4. Store cleaning products safely, always out of the reach of children
5. Always store cleaning products in the original container. Only pour the contents of refills into the original container for the same product
6. Dispose of unused product and empty packaging safely

Cleaning helps keep us safe from germs, but we also want to be sure we do the cleaning in a way that’s safe for us and safe for the environment