4 cleaning brands that make it easy for Aussies to be eco-friendly

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It’s painful to think of how much single use plastic waste we accumulate just from the bags of dishwasher tablets and bottles of laundry liquid we buy from the supermarket each year.

Fortunately however, there are a few eco-friendly Aussie cleaning brands that offer easy and price competitive solutions that are much gentler on the environment.

Not only do they reduce packaging waste by keeping it to a minimum and choosing recycled materials, but the cleaning products themselves, whether they be all-purpose cleaners, hand soap or dishwashing liquid, are naturally derived and don’t include harmful ingredients.

Plus, shopping local reduces transportation miles and supports small Aussie businesses so it’s good news all round! Here, we take a look at a few green alternatives that’ll have you rethink the way you clean.

Green Potions

Cleaner and small business owner Amanda McGrath has been creating environmentally friendly cleaning products since 2008.

Her Green Potions are all natural and non toxic and she’s recently started growing many of the plants she uses to create the products on a property near her home in Queensland.

“If I grow all these plants and flowers, then in addition to reducing our carbon footprint - which people laughed at me about back in 2008 - I can now assure the quality of our products right from the ground up,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

Green Potions sells laundry powder, kitchen degreaser, stain remover and a cream cleanser among other products, and being a cleaner herself, Amanda swears by the efficacy of her creations.

“Our products are tried and tested on every cleaning job you can think of, so we know our stuff works,” she says.

Recently, Amanda’s rethought the way she packages the brand’s liquid products and started selling them as concentrated veggie-based capsules that customers can pop into an existing spray bottle and mix with water to make them up.

This significantly reduces the amount of packaging needed to ship the product as the volume is much smaller, plus it allows the customer to customise the fragrance as Amanda offers a selection of natural fragrances that can be added to the concoction so your home smells like your favourite scent.

The scents are extracted from botanicals, flowers, leaves, bark and resins grown on the property using a centuries-old French technique that requires up to 12 months to truly capture the fragrance of a flower.

Zero Co

Zero Co is another small Aussie business rethinking the way eco-friendly cleaning products are packaged.

With your first order from the Sydney-based brand, you get a reusable dispenser bottle made from recycled plastic, a refill pouch filled with product, and a reply-paid postage package. Once you empty the pouch into the dispenser, you ship it back to Zero Co who wash it and refill it for the next order.

Its cleaning products are plant-based, cruelty-free and made in Australia, with the range including an all-purpose cleaner, shower cleaner, dishwashing liquid and bodywash.

All the plastic used to create the dispensers and pouches has been fished from oceans, beaches or landfill, and founder Mike Smith, who launched the brand on Kickstarter in 2019, is passionate about continuing to clear our oceans of plastic waste.

By the end of 2021, he hopes to have saved 21 tonnes of ocean-bound plastic and turn it into reusable products.

Lil’ Bit

Founded by Victorian woman Liz Harper, Lil’ Bit sells organic and all-natural cleaning products that she makes herself by hand.

All the ingredients are vegan, palm oil and cruelty-free, and special care has been taken to minimise the impact of every bit of packaging used.

The brand uses vegetable-based inks, recycled cardboard, compostable labels, bags, tags and tape, and the plastic bottles used are made from recycled PET to support the recycling industry.

The range of products is quite expansive for such a small business and includes household cleaning products like a cream cleaner, toilet cleaning tablets and dishwashing liquid, as well as an organic insect spray and bee seed bombs you can throw into your garden to grow plants to attract beneficial bugs and pollinators.

Blueland

Another innovative green brand is US-based Blueland which, like Green Potions, has distilled its cleaning products into concentrated tablets to minimise packaging while shipping.

You get a ‘forever’ container or dispenser with your first order, and then order refills thereafter.

Each product is slightly different, but the brand’s cleaning sprays and hand soaps come as tablets that you place into your dispenser and mix with warm water to make up, while its laundry products come in packaging-free, single dose tablets that you just chuck straight into the washing machine.

Its ‘forever bottles’ are made of glass, tin or silicone and designed to last a lifetime, and every element of the products’ shipping packaging has also been made as eco-friendly as possible, using water-based ink, compostable packaging, and paper-based tape.

The cleaning products themselves are made from vegan and cruelty-free ingredients and do not include any harmful substances. The brand ships to Australia but is unfortunately based in the US which adds a fair few miles to the journey.

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