Ecover - not very eco/green

Ben84

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?

The test used was on small samples of rabbit blood cells, not actual rabbits. Using animal products is something of a grey area for ethics, but I wouldn't class it as animal testing. Human blood is often used in medical tests, and for similar reasons avoids the majority of ethical testing problems. Subjects can provide blood samples with no discomfort, no lasting ill effects and the test itself has no effect on the subject. Animals can't choose, which could be an argument against using their blood samples for many people, but it still seems reasonable to say that taking blood samples is minimally invasive and well detached from the types of animal testing performed by other companies.

As for what's in it that requires the test, it's detergent molecules. The test is to see how it affects the lipid membrane of cells, which are made from the same type of molecules that detergents are designed to attach to. All the companies I know of that do no animal testing are making their products from well established materials and detergents, of which the potential to damage cell membranes is established. These established ingredients however are not likely to be the best ingredients we could use. Many are made from palm oil and their longer term environmental effects, for example biodegradability and toxicity to the environment could be better.

The problem with developing new ingredients to improve these things is that the reduced aquatic toxicity must be proven somehow, and that it's not going to cause everyone who uses it to develop a rash from dry skin is important too.

Ben84

skelly01 wrote: »

We use simply washing products.

I was very impressed with the cleaning performance of the simply washing tablets. I wasn't so sure about the environmental aspects though. They contain phosphates, which are well known to cause eutrophication, and the plastic pots they come in are as far as I can tell very hard to recycle. I'm not aware of any councils who accept plastics that are not bottles in the recycling.

LittleMissAspie

Ecover have a five year rolling cut off date. This means they use ingredients that haven't been tested on animals since five years ago. Rolling cut off date is pointless, it just means there's a delay in using the animal tested ingredients.

Soap nuts didn't work for me unfortunately, everything came out smelling like BO and I had to wash it all again properly. Tried several times. I would buy a sample pack if you want to try them.

Horace

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?

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

Unfortunately, everything that you buy that says not tested on animals contains ingredients that have been tested on animals in the past although the product itself may not have been tested on animals. So all your bodyshop stuff etc will contain ingredients that have been tested on animals at some point. Medicines all have to go through some form of animal testing before clinical trials start to test them on humans and before they are then accepted into the marketplace.

luce181

Horace wrote: »

Unfortunately, everything that you buy that says not tested on animals contains ingredients that have been tested on animals in the past although the product itself may not have been tested on animals. So all your bodyshop stuff etc will contain ingredients that have been tested on animals at some point. Medicines all have to go through some form of animal testing before clinical trials start to test them on humans and before they are then accepted into the marketplace.

Really? Everything?

Bio-D say on their website:
'We operate a strict policy whereby none of our raw materials or finished products are tested on animals. We have a fixed cut-off date of 1988. All raw materials are free from genetically modified ingredients; animal by-products and we are subject to scrutiny and approval by The Vegan Society, Naturewatch Trust, BUAV and The World Wildlife Foundation.'

I guess what you're saying is that at some point in the past ingredients may have been tested on animals, but that is kind of out of the company's control isn't it?

Lucy

luce181

avantra wrote: »

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 !

I agree with you here, there is obviously going to be a debate about them having to travel to get here, but I do think their benefits would far outweigh those.

It would be interesting to compare the carbon footprint of a bag of soap nuts which would last months to the numerous bottles of laundry liquid used in that time.
I think I know which would be less

And if you're not convinced by soapnuts, then as OP said BioD is made in Uk unlike ecover which has to travel from Belgium!

If anyone wants any more info go to my homepage or pm me and I'll be happy to help

Lucy

paulwf

We switched to Faith In Nature (who also use the brand name Clearspring) from Ecover and IMHO the FiN products are better quality. They are also a family owned British firm and every so often they do free samples or delivery or a loyalty points promotion so it is worth signing up to their newsletter.

If you buy in bulk their prices are very close to the big multinational brands in supermarkets, switching to them is a no brainer.