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Green 101

If it performs well and costs the same,
why wouldn't you switch to a SAFER cleaning product?

Why Go Green?

Which sounds better to you?

Safe, until proven toxic
(most companies)
or
Not safe, until proven otherwise
(green companies)

Girl at Lake

  1. Building occupants suffer from poor indoor air quality - a driver of headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, eye dryness, asthma - created by cleaning chemicals.
  2. Janitorial workers - due to their contact with chemicals - have high rates of headaches, asthma, burns, eye damage, major organ damage, cancer.
  3. Building visitors can absorb chemical residues when they contact items that have been cleaned with dangerous chemicals.

Why does going green matter?

Despite the stereotypes, going green isn't all about saving exotic flowers species located halfway around the world. Using environmentally friendly products is safer for people and has a direct positive impact on human populations (including the one you live in) - and that, on top of the added benefits for plant and animal species - is why it's crucial to switch to non-toxic, biodegradable, recycled products.

  • Improper use of toxic chemicals can harm or even kill you, with children especially at risk.
  • Pollutants toxify the water you eventually drink - increasing risk of health problems.
  • Pollutants posion the airyou breathe - increasing risk of health problems.
  • Pollutants can change your local weather patterns - for the worse.
  • Lack of recycling means larger landfills - and less space for you.
  • Non-biodegradable means unsightly, dangerous litter (which your taxes pay to clean up).
  • Wastefulness leads to resource shortages, meaning higher prices for you.

 

Myth: going green is too hard.
Fact: we make going green quite easy.

You don't have to move into the wilderness and live off the land like a hunter-gatherer to go green - far from it! Just by making a few simple changes to your lifestyle (you won't even notice the difference), you can greatly reduce your carbon footprint - and make your building or household much more health-friendly. Swapping out your cleaning supplies for green alternatives is possibly the most effortless step you can take. 

Deep Reflection carries a comprehensive line of green cleaning products, making us your one-stop shop for green cleaning. That means it's easier than ever to pick up green replacements for all of your cleaning chemicals.

Myth: traditional chemicals are safe.
Fact: green is safer for people.

Most - over 63% of - traditional cleaning chemicals cause cancer, severely damage the environment, or require extreme care due to serious health effects.  Only 1% of cleaning chemicals have been properly tested on human health. The traditional paradigm is that a chemical is safe until it harms somebody. That kind of thinking leads to problems like this: 2-butoxethanol, a common cleaning ingredient, has caused learning disabilities and liver and kidney damage; fetuses exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals like dibutyl phthalate can have suffered from birth defects, infertility, and learning disabilities.

Myth: green products are too expensive.
Fact: our green products are cost competitive.

When you compare cost at dilution (when the concentrated product has been diluted with water so that it is ready to use), green products are often considerably cheaper than traditional counterparts. Many consumer-grade (ready to use, non-concentrate) products are likewise price competitive.

Myth: green products don't work as good.
Fact: our green products work as good or better.

At Deep Reflection, our earth-friendly products are guaranteed to work as good or better than your original cleaners. But don't take our word for it. EcoLogo and GreenSeal (see more below) both test products for performance. If the product fails the test, it doesn't get the seal.

For example, with glass cleaners, a predetermined premeasured soil mixture is placed on a glass square and than baked for a certain amount of time, then compressed by machine. The cleaning chemical is sprayed onto craft paper, and then a mechanical arm wipes with a specified amount of pressure. The remaining soil is measured. If the chemical didn't remove a certain percentage, it doesn't pass the test.

Furthermore, perhaps the best way to verify a product's effectiveness is to look at the customers currently using it. If Enviro-Solutions products - which have 20 years of research and customer service behind them - didn't work, would these huge organizations continue to use them?

  • Reader's Digest Headquarters (USA)
  • Pepsico World Headquarters (USA)
  • Quaker Oats Headquarters (USA)
  • State of Vermont (USA)
  • State of New York (USA)
  • McGill University (Canada)
  • University of Manitoba (Canada)
  • St. Francis Xavier University (Canda)
  • Ontario Power Generation (Canada)
  • Acadia University (Canada)
  • Vancouver Parks (Canada)
  • Notre Dame de la Merci Hospital (Canada)

How green is your green?

EcoLogo    EPA DFEGreen Seal Certified

Now that you've decided to go green, you'll need to know which products really are green. Many companies make claims of having earth-friendly products or slap fancy "certified" seals on their labels, but all certifications are not created equal: in the United States, claims of "natural" and "earth-friendly" are not regulated, so anybody can say their products are green. Even worse, some seals can simply be bought for a fee, regardless of the product's actual effects and ingredients. In fact, one study discovered that 98% of products with green claims are not green. Don't be misled.

The claims:

  • "All natural ingredients." Nicotine, cocaine, and arsenic are all naturally-occuring compounds. Natural doesn't always mean safe.
  • "100% biodegradable." How much time before the product breaks down? Even uranium biodegrades after a quarter million years.
  • "Does not contain..." With over 100,000 chemicals in the marketplace, pointing out that a product doesn't have a few dangerous chemicals still leaves room for thousands of other dangerous toxins.
  • "No MSDS Section 2 concerns." If the product contains >1% of hazardous or >0.1% of cancerous chemicals, the company doesn't have to report the chemicals. Look for manufactures that give full ingredient disclosures.
  • "Safe." No product is completely safe. Even clean water can kill.

These seals are worth the paper they're printed on:

  • Environmental Choice Program: Canadian federal program since 1988. Stringent life cycle and performance assessment.  
  • Green Seal: Non-profit, third-party certifier since 1989. EPA recognized. Rigorous life cycle assessment.
  • Design for the Environment: EPA certification since 1992. Life cycle assessment.

Life cycle assessment: a product is evaluated based on its environmental impact during extraction of raw materials, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal. Factors tested include the following criteria, and if the product fails just one criterion's standard, it doesn't get the seal. The standards are reviewed every 2-3 years with guidelines that 80% of products on the market should fail.

  • Product performance
  • Toxic compounds
  • Carcinogens & reproductive toxins
  • Skin & eye irritation
  • Combustibility
  • Ozone & indoor air quality
  • Toxicity to aquatic life
  • Aquatic biodegradability
  • Prohibited ingredients
  • Proper training
  • Proper labeling

Additional resources:

You can find thousands of online resources dedicated to going green. We've selected a few of the best and shared thembelow.

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