New Cleaners: a Closer Look at Clorox

To start, Clorox readily gives a list of components for all Green Works products on their website, including the ever popular all-purpose spray. Boasting a 99% natural label, ingredients include lemon oil, glycerin, corn-based ethanol, filtered water, as well as some rather ubiquitous terms such as “blue and yellow colorant” and “biodegradable preservative.” 

Upon further investigation, on their FAQ page, Clorox does acknowledge that these last two ingredients do in fact make up the 1% of synthetic material present in the Green Works line, the colorant being in fact “Milliken Liquitint Blue HP dye and Bright Yellow dye X” and the preservative a compound called “Kathon.” While Clorox does say Kathon will biodegrade in 28 days, it just proves that not all the kinks have been worked out yet.

 The one main tenant of the Green Works brand is an ingredient called “nonionic surfactant: alkyl polyglucoside,” a coconut-based cleaning agent popular also in Method and Seventh Generation products. As a nonionic surfactant, or “Surface Acting Agent,” this compound takes the place of commonly used ionic surfactants such as ammonia, phosphorous and bleach, none of which are present in Green Works products. 

Despite this lapse in “natural,” Green Works is still endorsed by both the Sierra Club, the largest grassroots environmental organization in the U.S., and the EPA’s Design for the Environment Program (DfE). The Sierra Club’s endorsement proves especially exciting, it being the first time the non-profit has given its seal of approval to a cleaning product stating, “These products are clean, they’re green, they’re not going to hurt you, and they’re not going to hurt the environment.” 

Perhaps that kind of testimony is all Clorox needs. While the company does acknowledge that to say their products are “natural” is to adhere to their own standard (considering there is currently no industry standard for “natural products,”) they also show significant concern by creating regulations regarding petrochemicals. Perhaps products like this indicate a turn in the tide for the household chemical industry.