Buyer Beware: Chemical-Diluted Cleaning Products Should Not be in the Air!

This past month or so was dedicated more or less to the Buyer Beware project, which required my Ad class to break into groups and come up with a product to warn, or provide more information to the consumer about. My group comprised of Jasmine Tara, Jeffery Ward, Jérémie Wookey, and Zachary Samborski. We decided to test out how "green" cleaning products measured up against more traditional, chemical-based cleaning products.

First off, we had to decide what exactly we were testing in environmental products. To do so, we conducted a survey on the streets of Winnipeg, asking what people found most important in a product, if they would switch to more "green" products if they worked as well, not as well, and if they costed 23 percent more. To narrow down who we asked these questions of, they had to of answered yes to one of these questions: Are you responsible for buying cleaning products for your home? Are you responsible for cleaning your home? After brewing all of this information in our heads, we landed on the idea to test if environmentally friendly products measured up to the traditional, and trusted products.

After much debate, we decided on the Clorox Green Works line of natural cleaning products. They were perfect for what we were looking for. Because we had no access to a lab, or chemist to test how environmentally friendly, and chemical-free the products were, we needed something that had third-party authentication. Green Works had that. It is verified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) as containing only low-risk chemicals, used just as preservatives and colouring. Another reason Green Works had the products for us was their accessibility. They could be found at pretty well any large retailer such as Wal-Mart, Sobeys, Safeway, and Superstore. The last thing that made Green Works the perfect product to test was that they claimed to work as well as the traditional cleaners.

We eventually decided on Green Works Natural Dish washing Liquid, its competition Palmolive Original, Green Works Natural Bathroom Cleaner, its competition Tilex Bathroom Cleaner, Green Works Natural Glass & Surface Cleaner, and its competition Windex Original.

Now that we had our products chosen, it was time to get down to business. In order to keep the results un-biased, we each took turns taking the products home, and using them as we would for general cleaning to see if they work in normal conditions. In addition to that, we kept the results of those tests secret from each other until the final group testing was complete.

After we all had a turn, we got together to test the products in a more controlled atmosphere. To test the dish soaps, we smeared two plates with chocolate sauce, and ketchup, letting it dry on for about an hour. We then filled up two sinks with water, and added an equal amount of soap in each sink. Letting the plates soak for 15 minutes, we examined each, concluding that there was no difference in how well each soap performed. To test the glass cleaners, we separated a window with tape and cleaned each side with the cleaners. We did the same with a mirror, and also smeared olive oil on a mirror to see how the products would do with an extremely filthy piece of glass. Both products worked equally well, cleaning the window and mirror satisfactorily. Our final test was the bathroom cleaners. to test them, we separated a bathtub, again with tape, and cleaned each side with a different cleaner. we did the same with the bathroom sink. Again, both products performed similarly, the only difference we found being the "power of the spray" in the Green Works product. It was much more powerful than the Tilex product.

In addition to our primary testing, we conducted secondary research. Zach found information on US EPA, discussed above, Jasmine found professional reviews of the products, and I found what the average consumer had to say in consumer reviews on the Green Works website.

What I learned about these products was that they are, in fact, just as good as the traditional cleaning products. From the testing we did, all products performed identically. Very small differences were present, such as a little more chocolate sauce had dissolved off one plate at the one-minute mark, and then at the three-minute mark the other plate was doing a little better. I think those sort of differences are irrelevant, as after the full 15 minutes, the plates were identically clean.

Should everyone switch to green products? Yes. There is really no reason why anyone should not. With Green Works, far less chemicals run down the drain and into the lakes and oceans, causig damage to the environment. Also, the cost is pretty insignificant. While most environmental products cost 50-100 percent more than traditional products, and can only be found online or in specialty stores, Green Works cost just 23 percent more per millilitre, and is available at most grocery stores.

In summary, Green Works products perform as well as traditional cleaners. They have all the muscle needed to remove stuck-on-food, and any soap scum on the bottom of your tub. They also leave your windows invisibly clean. So next time you're at the grocery store, instead of reaching for that Windex, or other chemical-based cleaner, grab the bottle next to it, the one that reads Green Works. You owe it to the Earth.