Homemaker Ginette Begg is on a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser "vendetta."
Watching Wendy Mesley's documentary Chasing the Cancer Answer last year, she was shocked to hear that the product contained formaldehyde, a possible carcinogen.
"Prior to the show, I was telling everyone to use it because it's an amazing cleaning product," Begg, 36, says from her Mississauga home. "Now I tell people to throw it in the garbage."
In fact, the product contains formaldehyde-melamine-sodium bisulfite copolymer, which poses no risk, according to Procter & Gamble's website. But Begg's reaction to the toxic potential of her cleaning cupboard highlights a growing consumer concern.
Inspired by Mesley, Begg purchased the CancerSmart Consumer Guide, published by the Labour Environmental Alliance Society. Now, Ecover is her dishwasher soap and Nature Clean is her laundry detergent. Begg even uses Natura Static Free Reusable Dryer Sheets -- much to her husband's chagrin as his sweatshirt remains clingy.
Add water, rinse and repeat enough times and you've got a new definition of greenwashing. While its original meaning refers to companies promulgating misinformation to appear environmentally conscious, greenwashing version 2.0 is practised by people who use non-toxic, mostly natural alternatives, whether store-bought or homemade, to do the housework.
"People are starting to question whether something has to be superbrightly white, or if they need to have bleaching ability in 10 seconds versus leaving something on for a period of time," says Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist with Greenerchoices.org (from the publisher of Consumer Reports).
Green thinkers belong to an increasingly important market segment called LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability), a concept originated about seven years ago from the work of sociologist Paul Ray, co-author of The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World.
"You're LOHAS if you connect what you buy and what you do with what you believe, and the belief is that what happens to people happens to the earth and what happens to the earth happens to people," says Ellen Karp, president of Miami-based consumer insight company Anerca. LOHAS now represents more than $220-billion (U.S.) of goods and services, from bamboo clothes to organic food, according to http://www.lohas.com.
And eco-cleaners, of course. In just a short while, natural home-care companies have gone from grassroots to gangbusters. Method, a seven-year-old San Francisco company, was ranked the seventh-fastest-growing firm by Inc. magazine last September with a three-year growth rate of nearly 3,400 per cent. The product line, which includes biodegradable wipes and non-toxic tile cleaner, has the added appeal of sleek packaging, care of uberdesigner Karim Rashid.
"Home is a place where you think a lot about the design decisions you make and you cherish the experiences there," says Adam Lowry, one of Method's co-founders. "Yet the products you use are ugly and toxic and you hide them under the sink."
Tellingly, Method first launched in the United States at the capital of retail cool: Target. In Canada, the line is available at Shoppers Drug Mart and Home Depot. It's all part of eco-cleaners' move out of the health-food store and into the mainstream.
"We have a responsibility as a retailer to bring these things to people so they have the choice," says Dan Brown, a seasonal expert at the Gerrard Square Home Depot in Toronto. "These are eco-options. If you have two products and they'll do the same job, people will choose one that has better record."
According to Scott Robitaille, an in-store educator at Whole Foods in downtown Toronto, an extra four feet of shelf space has recently been added to accommodate the growing category. "We've seen significant demand for these products since we opened," he says.
Of course, shoppers could just as easily purchase some vinegar, lemon and baking soda and whip up their own cleaning solutions.
