Eco friendly ways to do laundry plus a new product to try!

Here at Shoestring Cottage, we have long been looking for eco friendly ways to do laundry. We have tried many ways to reduce chemicals and cut out plastic whilst washing our clothing. Some have been successful, others not so great! Now we have finally found something that allows us to cut both plastic and chemicals AND takes up literally no space. 

I want to tell you about Earthbreeze* and why I like it so much. But first, here are our experiences of some other eco friendly ways to do laundry.

Eco friendly ways to do laundry: do they really work?

Gloop

It is perfectly possible to make your own’ laundry gloop’.  The internet abounds with instructions, which generally involve grating lots of soap and mixing with washing soda and sometimes a borax substitute. This worked OK and was cheap to make, but white items went grey quite quickly. You also need space to store it once made. This recipe is similar to the one I used.

Ecoegg

I have been using my Ecoegg for a number of years and it has saved a lot of plastic bottles of laundry liquid, for sure. I wrote a review of it here. It works well for coloured items, but isn’t so great at cleaning lighter colours and whites, which need a stronger solution.

Box powder

If I am going to buy a commercial product, I always go for powder in recyclable boxes. These are effective at cleaning laundry, but heavy to lug home from the supermarket and take up a lot of space in my kitchen cupboard. They are, however, relatively cheap to buy, but do contain quite a lot of chemical ingredients. I have been using my current box to wash whites alongside my Ecoegg.

Eco friendly laundry liquid

Commercial preparations such as Ecover work well in my experience, but nearly always come in plastic bottles. You can refill them, but this is only convenient and environmentally sound if you have a refill station near enough to you that it doesn’t require a separate journey.

Products such as this tend also to be rather expensive compared to their traditional counterparts, and much dearer than the supermarket own box powder.

Soap nuts

I really wanted these to work. Soap nuts are actually a type of dried berry containing a small amount of a soap like substance but no nasty chemicals. Something as simple as a plant, tossed into your machine in a fabric bag, sounds like the perfect solution. However, for me, they only work well on very lightly soiled laundry.

Using nothing at all!

I have actually tried running the laundry through the washing machine using no products at all. My theory was that it is mainly the action of the machine that cleans fabrics. To an extent I still think this is the case. However, heavily soiled or stained items do need some sort of pre-treatment, so it wasn’t the solution I hoped it might be.

A word about fabric softener

I have also stopped using fabric softener, initially using white vinegar purchased in recyclable glass containers. But after some experimentation, I have decided that I prefer a citric acid and water solution. I buy small cardboard boxes of citric acid from Dripak. However, since using Earthbreeze I have found I can stop using softener altogether, which is another cost saving.

Why Earthbreeze is proving the best of eco friendly ways to do laundry

Having had my issues with pretty much everything I have tried in my quest to make doing the laundry greener, I recently came across Earthbreeze*. I have been using it for about a month and I am super impressed by how well it works and its green credentials.

Earthbreeze comes in strip form in completely recyclable/compostable paper envelopes. The strips are light, take up hardly any space in the cleaning cupboard and, best of all, they work brilliantly!

I think I have finally found the solution to my quest to find a truly effective and sustainable way to do the laundry that won’t break the budget.

Most of the time you can use just half a sheet, making them more cost effective. I have only had to use a whole sheet once, to clean a batch of Mr Shoestring’s filthy work jeans.

Reasons to try Earthbreeze