Most supermarkets in Singapore have green cleaning products–laundry detergent, multi-purpose cleaner, dishwashing liquid, etc–in their stock. You only need to sharpen your eyes when exploring the shelves. If you still can’t find them anywhere in the supermarket, however, you can try searching online instead.
The first thing we look for when buying green cleaning products in Singapore is the Green Label.
This label was first created by the Singapore Environment Council as a national standardized indicator if a product is friendly for the environment. However, most cleaning products do not put this mighty label on their packaging and hence makes our search difficult.
If so, how about looking at their ingredients?
Sadly this does not help too much either. I notice that many cleaning products do not list down their ingredients in their packaging, like this one:
Please don’t get too pessimistic yet! As a smart consumer, we can always have other ways in finding better products to save our planet.
It might be easier to look at other aspects to determine how toxic our cleaning products are. Some examples:
Look for the word ‘Danger’ (highly hazardous), ‘Warning’ (moderately hazardous), or ‘Caution’ (mildly hazardous). Also look for the nature of the hazards, such as ‘flammable’ or ‘may cause eye irritation’. A good green cleaning product will not cause any of those risks.
Look for specific ecological terms. Simply saying ‘natural’ and ‘eco-friendly’ does not mean the ingredients are truly derived from nature and will not cause harm to the environment. Instead, look for the terms ‘plant-based’ or ‘no phosphates’.
Choose a product which has plant-based ingredients instead of petroleum-based, if ingredients are listed.
Buy cleaning products in bulk to reduce packaging waste. Make sure that the packaging is recyclable and/or made from recyclable material.
If you are still not sure about those products in the supermarket, how about making them yourself at home?
Image source:
1. http://www.greenbusinesstimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Singapore-Green-Label.jpg