Environmentally Safe Soaps

[jyoung]

just doing last minute preps before my trip from ct to galveston. want to say thank you all for the excellent advice everyone has given me the last few months. i do have one last question though; what is an ocean friendly soap for bathing and dishwashing that i might find at a walmart or a wagreens. something i could maybe pitch overboard without hurting the environment.

[Bill Burgette]

Gotta go with Ivory soap. Pretty much all natural and no perfumes or scented whale oil or blubber for our Eskimo friends. My grandmother used to wash clothes with Ivory soap flakes so you could take a potato peeler and shave off some flakes and melt them in some water and have an environmentally friendly laundry producy.

For scrubbing the decks, heads, sinks or the stainless use Bon-Ami. It won't scratch glass, fiberglass or anything else and it's also all natural. One of the neat things about Bon-Ami is that you can scrub your car's windshield with it and stop that annoying wiper chatter.

[atoll]

salt,is ,antiseptic,cheap and great for washing dishes,add vinegar or lemon juice for grease.

[Bill Burgette]

But won't the salt harm the water in the ocean??

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Bill Burgette

But won't the salt harm the water in the ocean??

not that type of salt

[skipmac]

Good question. You can find a lot of cleaners that are labeled green, biodegradable, environmentally safe, etc. All the big name companies are making them now and you can find them in most any grocery or discount store. But I do wonder how environmentally friendly they really are.

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Good question. You can find a lot of cleaners that are labeled green, biodegradable, environmentally safe, etc. All the big name companies are making them now and you can find them in most any grocery or discount store. But I do wonder how environmentally friendly they really are.

Yeah, there are no standards for "green" labeling.

We've always used "Dawn". Figured if it worked for oil-soaked sea birds, it should work for most everything else.

Also note, some of the "green" products work so poorly, that you have to use a whole bunch more. Might actually be more "green" using something else.

Perfect example is automatic dishwashing soap. They removed the phosphates, but added a whole bunch of other chemicals to make it work 1/2 as well!