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Soil, Compost & Mulch

compost & clorox green works products

15 years ago

i'm sure everyone has seen the clorox green works products on shelves across america. given that these products are generally the same price as their equivalent competitors, i see no reason not to buy them. plus i they smell pretty good!

I recently bought the dish soap, i like it, it works just as well as dawn, palmolive, etc.

it's plant based so it's supposed to be biodegradable, my question is, could you add the dishwater to your compost pile without worries, or add the paper towels used with the cleANING products to compost? how would this compare to adding dishwater from a more chemical based cleaning product?

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Comments (5)

west9491
Original Author
15 years ago
i did find this, citing the ingredients in the products and states that the ingredients biodegrade in 21 days.

Here is a link that might be useful: a Clorox green works page
Kimmsr
15 years ago
"Naturally Derived" means nothing. Arsenic is a natural product, but is not something that one should throw around the garden willy nilly. Wife bought one of those products and we found immediately that the use of it adversly affected my asthma so we don't anymore.
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val_s
15 years ago
Going green is a nice concept - one I'd like to try. Right now we use whatever is on sale and we have a coupon for. I'm going to try and use up what we have and then try some of the Clorox products...not so much because of what's inside them but because you can refill them (I think).

The problem I have with this kind of stuff is that they make you feel so guilty for not using their products, yet they are usually so expensive that you don't want to pay that much for it. However, I haven't priced the Clorox products yet because I haven't needed anything.

Val
joepyeweed
15 years ago
You don't really have to BUY anything to go green. In fact, NOT BUYING STUFF is really good for the environment, but probably not so good for our economy.

I have allergies issues. My cleaning supplies consist of baking soda, vinegar, tea tree oil and organic dish soap (whatever is on sale).

Anything with artificial color, artificial fragrance aggravates my allergies.

I did try some of the chlorox green works toilet cleaner. I wasn't happy with the smell, too odoriferous.
toxcrusadr
15 years ago
It all depends on exactly what they used for starting materials and what they did to them. There are a plethora of surfactants - soaps made from fatty acids (i.e. lye soap from animal fat or vegetable oil), nonionic ones traditionally made from a petroleum base, etc. It is nearly impossible to tell from the front label whether it's biodegradable - some "synthetic" or petroleum based ones would be, very quickly, and probably some 'natural' fatty acid based ones do not break down real fast. If they did tests and they say it breaks down quickly, it probably does.

Besides, when you think about the amount of detergent in a dispan of water (a teaspoon or two), unless you're putting it all on one square yard of soil day after day it's not going to amount to a hill of beans.

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