What’s the Safest Laundry Detergent?

#EcoAdvice from our expert

Dear Dr. Donley,

While doing my most recent load of laundry, I noticed that my bottle of laundry detergent doesn’t list its ingredients. I’m curious about what chemicals it might contain. What laundry detergents are best for both my health and the environment?

Signed,

Feeling Hung Out to Dry

Dear Leary Laundry Loader,

Because of pressure from states and public-health advocates, laundry detergent manufacturers have made some progress in eliminating dangerous chemicals from their products. For instance, in 2013 Procter & Gamble, the manufacturer of Tide detergent, agreed to start reducing the amount of the probable human carcinogen 1,4 dioxane in its detergents. In the mid-90s, the industry agreed to reduce or eliminate the use of phosphates in laundry detergent after multiple states enacted bans because these chemicals were destroying the Great Lakes and other aquatic ecosystems.

But there’s no easy way to spin it — many laundry detergents, especially most popular name brands, still contain worrisome ingredients that can have negative impacts on your health and the environment.

One ingredient commonly used in detergents to help remove stains from clothes is alcohol ethoxysulfate. While this substance might be effective in getting rid of a ketchup stain from your favorite shirt, when it enters waterways, it’s highly disruptive to the growth and development of many aquatic species like tadpoles.

And to give your clothes that fresh, “look how clean and hygienic I am!” smell, many detergents are made with synthetic fragrances. Cleaning products aren’t required to list their ingredients, and even when companies disclose their ingredients online, the word “fragrance” is used in lieu of the many individual chemicals that are actually in the product. So the process of identifying the chemicals in your detergent can be just as nebulous as finding out where on earth that lost sock went. In fact 4,000 chemicals are used as fragrances, and nearly half of these ingredients require a warning label to identify a health hazard under the “Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals” developed by the United Nations.

Many mainstream laundry detergents — and some “green” ones — are also comprised largely of petrochemicals, which are derived from dirty fossil fuels.

So, Detergent Detective, your instincts were entirely right about the hidden and harmful ingredients lurking in your bottle of laundry soap. Thankfully, though, there are several steps that you can take to remove yourself from the spin cycle of our overdependence on synthetic chemicals.

You can start by purchasing laundry detergents that are biodegradable and fragrance- and petroleum-free. Some consumer groups have published helpful guides to healthy cleaning that provide information on specific products. If you’re up to it, you can try making your own laundry detergent. And if you’re feeling really adventurous, try setting up a laundry-to-landscape greywater system to save on water costs at home (and to save water, of course). If you do that, just make sure the detergent you use is safe enough for your laundry wastewater to be used in your yard — some detergents are!

Finally, you can become politically active about your laundry. The Cleaning Product Labeling Act of 2017 is a bill recently introduced in the House of Representatives that would require chemically formulated cleaning products like detergents to bear a label and list online all the products’ ingredients, including individual ingredients in dyes, fragrances and preservatives. You can make your voice heard by writing a letter or personally calling your representative to urge them to support this bill so that it can become law.

With pressure from informed citizens like you, manufactures of dangerous detergents will eventually be forced to make changes to the ingredients in their products so that they’re loads safer for humans, animals and ecosystems.

Stay wild,

Dr. Donley — with help from Natasha Tandler

Dr. Nathan Donley is a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity who answers questions about how environmental toxins affect people, wildlife and the environment. Send him your questions at AskDrDonley@biologicaldiversity.org

Natasha Tandler is an intern at the Center for Biological Diversity

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