Clothesing the Gap

Curiously Green is an exclusive weekly Earth 911 series showcasing the adventures of a couple going green. This week Sheila and Gary, a couple from Phoenix, Arizona discuss going green with laundry detergent.

SHE SAYS:
I like our eco friendly laundry detergent. I like even more that I rarely have to do laundry! Thank you Gary!

I don’t have too much to say about this product. I didn’t notice a difference in my clothes. They smelled the same, they looked the same, the same few dresses wrinkled the same.

I’m not a laundry connoisseur; it’s never a task I really mastered. When I lived in NYC I dropped my laundry off before I went to work and picked it up on my way home. Everything was always neatly folded and my socks always matched. Before that I think I used to call my mom on laundry day and say, “OK mom, now what do I do?”

At least I always wash everything on cold, which uses less energy. I was green, before green was in. I’ve been doing that since I went away to college, but honestly, only because I was scared of ruining my clothes. Who knows when a wayward red sock would sneak into my whites and turn everything pink? Eek!

HE SAYS:
Our condo in Central Phoenix does not include a washer and dryer. We have a laundry room that is downstairs and across the courtyard. This means that I end up doing almost all the laundry, because it really can be a chore, especially if you let it go for a couple extra days and there is more than four loads. There are only four machines in the laundry room, and at certain times there seems to be a competition for their services.

Switching detergents was a big deal, as I am allergic to certain kinds of detergent and have been using Cheer for as long as I can remember. Turned out it wasn’t a big deal at all. We got a brand called Biokleen Laundry Liquid – phosphate and chlorine free. Grapefruit Seed & Orange Peel Extract Cleaning Power. Sixty four loads, 64 ounces, half the size of the Cheer. A consideration when you have to haul it down to the laundry room every time.

I like the smaller package, but am not so crazy about the packaging. The measuring cup just sits on top of the cap and there is always some dripping down the bottle. This bottle at the end of its usefulness is sticky and covered with dog hair, thank you Shadow. Cheer bottles have the built it drainage system so the detergent that is stuck to the sides of the measuring cup drips back into the container, and not down the sides.

It was hard to see any difference in the laundry. Maybe the only thing I noticed was a lack of a scent in the clothes. Cheer had its own smell that could be picked up by your clothes especially if I put too much in, which sometimes happened. Switching laundry detergents has been our easiest move to a greener product. Biokleen Laundry Liquid’s bottle just has a generic recycling label.

Sheila Bocchine and Gary Millard are both Phoenix photographers.