You see it everywhere, even in LEED certified buildings and countless bike shops, but is Simple Green really green? Well, I guess it depends on your definition of ‘green.’
At Q19, we like to use 4 major criteria developed by the city of Canmore, Canada as a guide:
- Does it systematically increase concentrations of substances from the earth’s crust?
- Does it systematically increase concentrations of substances produced by society?
- Does it systematically degrade nature by physical means?
- Does it systematically undermine people’s ability to meet their basic human needs?
The Material Safety Data Sheet, or MSDS, for Simple Green lists 2-butoxyethanol as an ingredient. What is 2-butoxyethanol? It is an organic solvent, or carbon containing solvent, that is largely produced by oil companies and large chemical firms such as Shell, BP, ICI, and Dow Chemical to name a few.
In recent years 2-butoxyethanol has come under increased scrutiny in Canada, and Environment and Health Canada has recommended that it be added to Schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). And for good reason…the chemical is a suspected:
Cardiovascular or Blood Toxicant
Developmental Toxicant
Endocrine Toxicant
Gastrointestinal or Liver Toxicant
Kidney Toxicant
Neurotoxicant
Reproductive Toxicant
Respiratory Toxicant
Skin or Sense Organ Toxicant
You may have heard about Endocrine Toxicants of late. Frontline recent Earth Day special, Poisoned Waters, sited Endocrine disrupters to have adverse biological effects in animals. This finding giving rise to concerns that low-level exposure might cause similar effects in human beings. Scary stuff. Watch the full film here
So back to the criteria…
- Does it systematically increase concentrations of substances from the earth’s crust? YES. Simple green uses a petrochemical based solvent. This requires extracting fossil fuels from the earth’s crust.
- Does it systematically increase concentrations of substances produced by society? Not Sure. This criteria primarily addresses persistent compounds, chemicals that multiply, or persist, in nature, such as PCBs. Nothing I have come across has defined 2-butoxyethanol as such.
- Does it systematically degrade nature by physical means? YES. The process of extracting, transporting and processing fossil fuels to produce petrochemicals and minerals physically disturbs large areas of land.
- Does it systematically undermine people’s ability to meet their basic human needs? YES. In addition to the long list of suspected side-effects on both humans and the environment, people exposed to high levels of 2-butoxyethanol for several hours have reported nose and eye irritation, headaches, vomiting and a metallic taste in their mouths. Research has shown that skin can also absorb 2-butoxyethanol vapor from the air, making skin a major pathway of exposure to this chemical. Does this systematically undermine people’s ability to meet their basic human needs? In our opinion, yes.
Simple Green simply fails our test and has failed several others as well. Our advise? Avoid it.
For more information and alternatives to Simple Green, please see the links below.
Report on the Safety of Common Cleaning Products from Women Voices for Earth.
An analysis on all things green cleaning from Discovery.
More on Simple Green from CommonDreams.org
Tags: simple green, simple green greenwashing, simple green msds, simple green toxic