Bathroom cleaners, toilet cleaners, oven foam: most people use many cleaning products that can harm the environment. Which cleaners can you use to clean without a guilty conscience?
Have a look: how many different cleaning products do you have in your closet? Most of us may have accumulated a few special cleaners, some of which are very aggressive. The advertising promises that cleaning is almost effortless. But often these means are not good for the environment.
And we don't even know. "The problem is that most people believe that nothing can happen - otherwise the legislature would have banned everything possible. But that is by no means the case," says Marcus Gast, an expert on cleaning agents at the Federal Environment Agency. But if you flush chemical substances that are not biodegradable down the drain when cleaning, they can harm fish, mussels or crustaceans. And the sewage treatment plants cannot break down all substances.
In addition, many of these substances are harmful or of concern to our health. Examples are preservatives whose names end in "-iazolinone". Fragrances also break down poorly and can cause allergies. Therefore, among other things, you should avoid toilet scent stones.
Luise Körner from the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) also advises avoiding cleaning agents with ingredients that end in "-eth" and are referred to as PEG. These consist of non-renewable petroleum and are dangerous for the environment.
The long list shows that it is not so easy to quickly look at the shelves when shopping to see which cleaning products you should stay away from for the sake of the environment. "You can't always tell the complete composition of the product from the packaging," says Gast. "But even if that were the case, you would have to be a semi-trained chemist to know whether or not all of the ingredients are broken down in the treatment plant."
And now? The experts advise:
Tip 1: Pay attention to labels
Labels are good indications that less questionable substances are contained in the cleaning agents marked with them. For example, products with the "Blue Angel" or the EU eco-label "Euro flower" have been checked by an independent body.
But you have to know: Cleaning agents with the seals can tend to be more environmentally friendly than others. However, they do not have to be completely free of potentially questionable substances, since preservatives can also be included, for example. Margret Harlinghausen, a member of the DHB household network in Hesse, says: "The blue angel is a good purchase criterion, but it does not say that the cleaning agent is completely free of toxins."
Tip 2: Critically question designations
Don't be fooled by generic terms like "organic cleaner". That sounds good at first. But what does "organic" actually mean? Is the cleaning product biodegradable or does "bio" only refer to the packaging?
"There is no official definition for organic cleaners," says Bernd Glassl from the Industry Association for Personal Care and Detergents. "You always have to see what the respective manufacturer means by that." This information is often found in the small print, sometimes you have to read the manufacturer's product pages online.
Tip 3: Renewable raw materials from sustainable cultivation
Anyone who wants to pay attention to sustainability when buying cleaning products should not only pay attention to renewable raw materials. They should also be grown sustainably. This applies to palm oil, for example. Rainforests are being destroyed for the increasing number of oil palm plantations.
Tip 4: Cleaning tabs to dissolve at home
Cleaning tabs or pills that you only fill into bottles at home and dissolve in water are still quite new on the market. "That's a good thing," says Luise Körner from the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND). Because you buy smaller packaging, resources are saved for transport. In addition, the packaging is reused and, according to the product description, the products do not contain any preservatives that are harmful to the environment.
Tip 5: Buy less funds
More sustainable cleaning can also be approached in another way: by cleaning with fewer agents. Luise Körner recommends "working with as few cleaning agents as possible and concentrating on an all-purpose cleaner". It should also be plant-based as far as possible - and of course dosed sparingly.
Housekeeping manager Margret Harlinghausen also advises thrift. You should only have a maximum of these five remedies at home:
