Seventh Generation

[tmcg]

As many of you are well aware, I am not a very domestic person, so this is a weird post for me to be making...but lately I've been trying to clean greener, and as I'm also trying to update my journal more often, voilà, an entry about environmentally friendlier household products.

I started out by substituting things like baking soda and vinegar for general-purpose cleaners because I didn't want to mop the floors and clean the carpets and bathroom with stuff that could poison my pets, and that's worked out fantastically well. The past couple of weeks I've been trying Seventh Generation products--paper towels, laundry detergent, trash bags, and so on. I figured that if I found environmentally friendlier stuff that worked as well as what I'd been using, I'd be willing to switch over even though it does cost more. (Paper towels especially; like any pet owner, I go through a ridiculous amount of paper toweling, no matter how good I try to be about using washable cloths instead.) I used a drugstore.com coupon to pick up some things from the site's Seventh Generation store, and then found a whole shelf of SG products in my local supermarket and grabbed a roll of the toilet paper to try too.

I haven't done a lick of research into claims like this made by the company...

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25 oz. petroleum based dishwashing liquid with our 25 oz. vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 U.S. homes a year!

...but they sure sound good, and here's what I thought of the stuff I tried.

Wholehearted thumbs-up on the liquid laundry detergent and the dishwashing liquid. Works as well as Era or Tide and Dawn in the same amounts. I'm converted.

Thumbs-up on the kitchen-can trash bags. User reviews complained about them tearing easily, but I have to wonder what the hell those people were stuffing into their trash. We're pretty hard on trash bags here, and nary a poke-through to report, never mind catastrophic breakage.

Thumbs-up on the (natural brown) paper toweling. Kevin grumbles a four-letter word at it every now and then because he's a loyal Bounty user, but as far as I'm concerned it's a worthwhile compromise for the recycled content: it feels flimsier and less absorbent than Bounty, but in service it's perfectly good. It doesn't fall apart during vigorous scrubbing of things like cast-iron pans, it absorbs just fine, and I don't find that I'm using two sheets to do the job one sheet of Bounty would do.

Not-a-thumbs-down on the toilet paper. It's definitely harder and more industrial-feeling than ScotTissue, my usual brand--and, granted, I don't like the fluffy perfumy stuff like Charmin--but using it is not, IMO, the horrific scratchy experience some user reviews reported. Nevertheless, I don't think we'll be adopting this one. After we finished up the roll I'd bought, I said to Kevin, "So, how much did you hate that toilet paper?" Having used the test paper without complaint and having been admirably silent on the topic until I brought it up, he promptly said, "I went from Charmin to ScotTissue to sandpaper." I'll be satisfied with doing my part for the environment by using the other products. :)

Oh, and I almost forgot: Thumbs-up on the facial tissue too. Just as good as Kleenex, and a lot of people around here have had bad colds lately, so testing was extensive.

Now to hope I can find this stuff cheaper in quantity at a place like BJ's or Costco.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

Trader Joe's has a decent affordable recycled toilet paper. (Though I don't remember the exact proportion of post-consumer waste in same.)

But really, I figure if there's anything we ought not waste new paper and old trees on, it's that. :-)

[davidbcoe.livejournal.com]

In that part of my life that most people never see, I run the organic coop here in town -- we order monthly from United Northeast -- and so Nancy and I have tried lots of the green household stuff. We liked Seventh Gen on some things, but really preferred Ecover for things like dish soap. But the most important thing is that there are good products out there that really do have less impact. That said, we still use Quilted Northern....

[amysisson.livejournal.com]

I use lots of Seventh Genration products too! Or, if Whole Foods (natural food grocery store chain) is out of Seventh Generation, they usually have lots of other choices.

With facial tissues, I'm so used to these now that actual Kleenex feel so fluffy (and therefore almost dusty) that I don't like them anymore.

[lrcutter.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's available where you are, but I like the Green Forest TP -- it's the softest recycled TP I've ever used, and for some strange reason -- it's *very* cheap. And thanks for the thumbs up for the dishwashing liquid -- I'm just about out of the Dawn and so will try the SG product now.

[tmclarke.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of this before, thanks.

After the recent Blog Action Day (http://blogactionday.org/) I decided I needed to do more. Mostly it small things: using more cloth towels instead of paper, reusable grocery bags, more recycling, conserving water.

If it's easy to do the right thing, folks will.

Tim

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Oh, good! I'll stop by there tomorrow and see what I can find. Thanks!

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I've still got incandescent bulbs in some fixtures that I can't find CFLs to fit, and I just went for that car that isn't a hybrid, so I know I won't be able to substitute the way I'd like to a hundred percent of the time, but it definitely feels good to make some more greenward moves. I'll look for Ecover; thanks for mentioning that. And very cool about the organic coop!

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I know just what you mean about that dusty feel! Great to hear that you use Seventh Generation stuff too...and I'll check the local natural-foods stores for more options on other products; I hadn't thought about looking there. Thanks!

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I hope you like the dishwashing liquid. I'm not picky about scents, but the clementine-and-lemongrass is the one I've been using, and it's nice. Thanks for mentioning Green Forest! I'll see if I can find a roll to take for a test run. Softer will definitely help its chances of adoption around here. *g*

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

That's one reason I was delighted to see a Seventh Generation shelf in the supermarket. (Actually, I was delighted for a second, and then quickly turned cynical, wondering whether the product's appearance in a big chain store meant that its manufacturer would soon be bought out by P&G or somebody who'd turn around and begin stinting on the environmental criteria that made it a success to begin with...and then I'd bought my roll of toilet paper and stopped thinking about it. *g*) If it's a big effort and expense to buy what are essentially specialized products, not many people are going to do it. I'm quick to supplement my local shopping with online shopping, but even that takes some investigating and time. Best if the choice is right there in front of you when you're strolling down the aisle.

Hope you find some useful and green stuff!

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

Big business has moved in pretty seriously on the organic and green businesses these days. There are still plenty of smaller independent firms around but they keep getting picked off.

Toms of Maine and Ben and Jerry's come to mind right off. Most of the packaged organic veggies you find at the local food coop probably comes from some large conglomerate.

This is why the local food push is such a big deal. Most of those corporations aren't locally supplied. If you can find a community supported agriculture program (CSA) in your neighborhood, that would probably improve your planetary footprint a lot. For example:

Just Food: CSA in NYC
http://www.justfood.org/csa/

[hand2hand.livejournal.com]

good for you! and happy thanksgiving.

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering about Marcal. That's the one I always bought, because they claim to be recycled. I can't find it out here, unfortunately. I do use Seventh Generation bathroom cleaner, heh. I never used to use any paper towels at all (even with 5 cats) until I got some cast iron pans that have to be really dried, and everything else I own (cotton dish towel) always have... cat hair on them!

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Wow, look how far behind on comments I am. I'll see your "happy Thanksgiving" and raise you a "Happy New Year"! *g*

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, I have a dim memory of hearing that Marcal was recycled. I'll have to look into that. It's certainly less expensive than the green brands I've tried, and probably feels better (although I don't think that Kevin'll be giving up his Bounty for anything any time soon). We're so ridiculously dependent on paper towels; I'm amazed and admiring that you got along entirely without them, especially as a pet owner. I know what you mean about the cast-iron pans, though. Great pans, but they kind of necessitate paper toweling.

Cat hair gets in everything. Christmas-tree needles and sand got nothin' on cat hair.