Ecover - not very eco/green

gibby

Lots of talk of ecover on here.
We don't use it as it racks up lots of air & road miles = CO2.
The stuff is made in Belgium & need to be transported to the UK.
Also Ecover are still testing on animals - not very ethical & worrying as waht is in it that needs to be tested on rabbits?

There are several options & they are made in the UK & work far better.
Bio D performs much better - so you need less & they are an nice ethical company.
Eco Leaf also works better & just as easy to find in most health food stores
Both don't need to be tested on animals too.

there are several others out there.

G

avantra

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=georgia,palatino]Use soapnuts!
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Mojisola

gibby wrote: »

Lots of talk of ecover on here.
We don't use it as it racks up lots of air & road miles = CO2.
The stuff is made in Belgium & need to be transported to the UK.
Also Ecover are still testing on animals - not very ethical & worrying as waht is in it that needs to be tested on rabbits?

They don't use rabbits. They do test on water fleas to make sure their products don't damage the environment.

gibby

Sorry but Ecover do state themselves that they do & according to thier statement to the Vegan Society they do.
Thats why the Vegan Soceity removed their trademark from the bottles.

Many of us were really annoyed & very upset as we boutght the stuff for years to find they were testing when they said they didnt. We also put up with the stuff not beeing great too at doing the job.

They DO have rabbits bred for them and use the blood for testing whilst the rabbits are then used for other animal testing.
They DO test water flees to as you said, these are classed as animals too.
Info from Ecovers own website
" Ecover also uses a red blood cell test (Invittox RBC) on a non-systematic basis that uses blood from rabbit farming to test the effect of detergents on mucus membranes (to test skin compatability)."
website link

Quite often firms test on animals for such products to bring down the cost of public liabilty insurance. Its also often done if they use products that they think may be harmful.
Why they had to tell fibs in saying that they didn't test on animals, to get ethcial approval is confusing.

G

Mojisola

From your link - "A mere 0.5 milliliters of rabbit blood is used as the source of red blood cells to conduct one complete test of a new product. In 2006 and 2007, Ecover performed 0 tests."

gwyne

That's really interesting to know, I have always bought ecover based on their supposed green and ethical stance, but then again, I am a cynic when it comes to these things and I'm sure even the most ethical companies have some skeletons that will turn some people against their brand. What is worst though is if they were not transparent

zarazara

are soapnuts eco friendly? dont they have to travel hundreds of miles from their country of origin to get to the UK?

avantra

zarazara wrote: »

are soapnuts eco friendly? dont they have to travel hundreds of miles from their country of origin to get to the UK?

yes , like anything else it got to get here, however you can compost them they last longer than any other detergent I ever used and being a plant they do bring the whole CO2 footprint question to a much lower level compare to a factory filling plastic bottles with goo.

yes! they are the bees knees and I am convinced !

Tia_24

Avantra, do they REALLY work? I dont understand how they can!! I'd love to use something like that rather than usual powders but dont want to pay out for a product that doesnt work!!!

avantra

Tia_24 wrote: »

Avantra, do they REALLY work? I dont understand how they can!! I'd love to use something like that rather than usual powders but dont want to pay out for a product that doesnt work!!!

Work for us, stick 5 fruits (nuts) in a small muslin bag, wash at at say 40-50 C and everything comes out clean. Change the fruits every 5-6 loads and put in the composter.
I was sceptical to start with but we use it now for over a year and we didn't buy any powders since.

I must say that we use it because I am a tight b*trd not necessary an eco warrior.:rotfl:

1 kg cost me I think £5 on fleabay last year.

skelly01

We use simply washing products.