Soap Nuts - Green Cleaning - Easy - Affordable

[Lori]

Soap nuts are the answer to “How can I be greener this year?”

Many of us have been trying to make our lives greener in the past
months. But for many it poses a challenge, because terms like natural
and green are so commonly thrown about by companies who are first and
foremost manufacturers of chemicals.

While is it not impossible for a company that produces chemical
cleaning products to be greener than their competition. The truth is
that most if not all so-called natural detergents, natural cleaning
products, and natural personal care products simply are NOT natural,
and they are rarely green.

So what is green cleaning exactly? Well, again opinions vary about
that, hours spent on the internet searching may not provide an answer
that makes that clear.

I’ll share my own version of green cleaning here:

Derived from a naturally occuring substance with little or no
alteration
Sustainable
Limited use of fossil fuels to get product to market
Environmentally friendly packaging (at least recyclable or reusable
packaging)
Limited negative environmental and human impact when used
Reduced packaging
Biodegradable
Multiple uses from a single product
Soap nuts are all of those things and here are the finer points on
each aspect from the list above.

Derived from a naturally occuring substance with little or no
alteration - Soap nuts are ready for use exactly as nature produced
them and require NO alteration (except drying) to be useable.

Sustainable - Soap nuts trees grow naturally in areas of the world
where few things will grow because they are drought resistant trees.
Each soap nut tree will produce soap berries for up to 90 years. At
one time the trees were cut down for lumber, but as the demand for the
soap berries has increased the trees are now a source of a product for
many decades instead of for lumber. In fact in some areas soap nuts
are being plantation grown, again in soil that would grow almost
nothing else.

Limited use of fossil fuels to get product to market- Soap nuts are
hand harvested by the indigenous peoples in the impoverished areas of
the world. The deseeding is also done by hand and they are then left
to dry naturally. So basically zero fossil fuel consumption to get
them ready to market. Now of course fossil fuels are used in getting
them from source to end-consumer, but a major segment of the
production chain is zero fossil fuel consumptive.

Environmentally friendly packaging (at least recyclable or reusable
packaging) - While this is not true of ALL companies that sell soap
nuts, NaturOli hand packs the plain muslin soap nuts bags.
Additionally there is no ink or printing on NaturOli’s packaging
because in truth they see it as a waste of materials and resources.
The tags with the use instructions are printed on recycled paper using
soy inks. Only true of NaturOli’s soap nuts. Oh and the bags can be
reused for all kinds of things which makes the packaging reusable.

Limited negative environmental and human impact when used - Soap nuts
are sold as nature grew them, they are not treated in any way, and
because the soap berries are naturally antimicrobial they are even
being used to remediate toxic soil in some parts of the world. The
trees themselves are resistant to pests and fungus which means that
there is no need to treat the trees to protect them from parasitic
invaders. Soap nuts actually are used in various forms in Aryuvedic
medicine which would lead us to believe they have positive impact on
humans.

Reduced packaging- I actually cover this earlier in this post, but
soap nuts (as sold by NaturOli) have the most minimal packaging
possible. The muslin bag and the tag. NaturOli doesn’t even take the
extra resources to attach the tag to the bag, because most of us will
just pull it off to read it anyway so why waste the materials to
attach it in the first place. Some soap nuts suppliers put a plastic
liner inside their muslin bags. They tell us it’s to keep the soap
nuts fresh. On the contrary it holds moisture inside and can often
cause the soap nuts to begin to pre-release saponins making them VERY
sticky. This is not what you want, but it’s off topic and I’ll cover
that in another post soon.

Biodegradable - Soap nuts can be tossed on the compost heap once
you’ve used them and will biodegrade. If used properly there’s
virtually nothing left of them because they’ve almostly completely
dissolved before you dispose of them.

Multiple uses from a single product - Many people seek multiple
purpose cleaners these days. Hey it’s easier to buy one product and do
many clenaing jobs with it. That’s also a green approach becausse the
fewer products you buy the less production (in theory) and the less
packaging to dispose of or reycle. But in the case of soap nuts the
uses are pretty limitless.

Take some time to visit previous entries at http://soap-nuts.info to
see all homemade chemical free cleaning products this one single
completely natural product can be used for to clean everything from
your toilets to your toenails, your carpets to your cars, your laundry
to your linoleum, your pots to your pets, and everything in between.

So, are soap nuts green? I’ll leave the final decision to you, but in
my house soap nuts have made green cleaning easy.