9 Eco-Friendly Laundry Detergents Taking an Eco-Load Off the Earth
Clean laundry; clean planet—it’s win-win when you wash with eco-friendly laundry detergent.
Laundry day is already a load of nasty, so who wants all the conventional laundry detergent nasties that compromise the health of our planet (or ourselves) all for a fresh t-shirt?
To gather these reviews—based on both performance and satisfaction of our green cleaning guidelines—we personally loaded our soiled sock mountains into our eco-friendly washer and tested every environmentally friendly laundry detergent listed here to ensure we’re recommending only the most superior suds.
Everything we recommend to you on Sustainable Jungle is independently researched and we ask all brands to confirm their claims. To avoid waste, we test products on an as needed basis. This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a small commission. Learn more about why we do this here.
The Best Eco-Friendly Laundry Detergent Brands to Suds Sans Nasties
Say “good riddance” to harmful chemicals and “good morning” to Common Good’s green laundry detergent that just makes common sense: it’s refillable, it’s healthy, it’s powerful, and it’s biodegradable.
Meliora ameliorates your laundry loads thanks to the Certified B Corp’s simple, powerful, environmentally-engineered, and plant-based laundry powder.
With Canadian eco cleaners etee, makes a plastic-free powder that’s as earth-friendly as it is affordable and effective.
The Full List Of Our Eco-Friendly Laundry Detergent Reviews
1. SuperBee
*Note: Some SuperBee products contain beeswax.
SuperBee’s Eco Laundry Detergent
Price: $50
Tried, tested, and true SuperBee offers an un-bee-lievable way to wash your wearables with their one-of-a-kind Hexawash. This stuff truly hexes your washing’s dirt and grime thanks to its magnesium pellets, which form an alkaline solution when mixed with water.
It comes as a reusable laundry pouch, which you easily toss in the drum with your dirty clothes and set to your normal wash cycle. Voilà—clean clothes with literally zero chemicals or nasties! When done, just line dry it alongside your clothes before using it again until it wears out after about 300 loads, at which point you can compost at home.
We suggest using Hexawash for lighter loads, since it’s not the absolute toughest on heavy soiling and stains; plus, it’s scent-free so toss in some essential oils if you prefer scented laundry.
Most of all, we love how cost-effective this detergent is, providing an astounding 300 washes per purchase, working out to only $0.16 per load.
SuperBee’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
SuperBee started off in the beeswax reusable food wrap game, but they feature zero animal products or plastic in their personal and home cleaning products.
As a Certified B Corp, this Northern Thailand-based brand doubles as a conscious and caring social enterprise. The female-owned business supports its all-Thai female workers by paying 20% higher wages than the Fair Trade Association’s suggested local living wage.
Additionally, they support local volunteer fire crews in Thailand (especially during burning season) and provide any needed essentials.
2. Meliora
Meliora’s Eco Laundry Detergent
Price: $20
Meliora means “better” and they do just that with their Laundry Powder Detergent, which has only four ingredients to clean your clothes: baking soda, washing soda, and vegetable soap made with organic coconut oil.
Their scented varieties include the fourth ingredient, organic essential oils—so no mysterious “fragrance” blends that contain undisclosed ingredients like conventional laundry detergents. Take our advice and PLEASE try the Lemon-Lavender-Clove. We are obsessed because of its unique spicy and floral blend that just works.
It’s MADE SAFE certified, plastic-free, vegan, dye, palm oil, phthalate, and SLS-free, made with organic ingredients, and amazingly affordable, with one tub good for 128 loads in an HE sustainable washer, equalling less than $20 for more than a year of laundry detergent. Plus, we love how so much cleaning power takes up virtually no space on our shelves.
The reusable canister packaging is mostly cardboard (with some steel components) so much of it is compostable if no longer needed, but we recommend refilling via their brown paper bags.
For hardcore dirt and grime, they also offer a stain removing soap stick to lighten up your whites; that said, their formula stand-alone is truly tremendous at dirt and odor removal.
Meliora’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Ameliorate the planet and your laundry loads thanks to Meliora, a Certified B Corp launched by Kate, a female environmental engineer who grew frustrated during her Master’s degree with the lack of disclosure when it comes to household cleaning ingredients.
Not only does Meliora create amazing green products for personal care and the home, but they also do loads of advocacy work, resulting in new California legislation that mandates companies to finally ‘fess up about their complete formulas.
They’re also MADE SAFE and Leaping Bunny certified, woman-owned, provide living wages, use low-impact products and packaging, and charitably give a percentage of profits through partnerships with Women’s Voices for the Earth and 1% For the Planet.
If that’s not enough, Meliora makes everything themselves at their eco factory in West Chicago, doing everything from creating the soap to packaging the finished product. Sustainability reports are also made available annually to ensure transparency about their practices and continued eco progress.
3. Blueland
*Note: Blueland uses RSPO-certified products in some of their liquid products. They are vegan except for their wool dryer balls.
Blueland’s Eco-Friendly Laundry Products
Price: $11–$47
Blueland helps keep our blue planet blue-tiful thanks to their PVA-free laundry detergent, which are the only laundry pods on the market to have zero PVA.
They’re also guaranteed from any nasties like chlorine bleach, ammonia, parabens, phosphates, phthalates, fake fragrances, or VOCs, plus they’re hypo-allergenic, scent-free, vegan, gluten-free, soy, and nut-free.
Instead, these EPA Safer Choice, Cradle to Cradle Certified™, and Leaping Bunny cruelty-free tablets feature entirely natural ingredients, which they list and explain online.
Whether you’re washing on cold or hot (we’re hoping cold!), these tablets dissolve and clean just as well, without irritating fragrances and or residue left behind. But for extra stain lifting power, we suggest occasionally supplementing their equally-powerful Oxi Laundry Booster.
All this goodness comes packaged in stylish ‘forever’ tins and refills are eco-packaged in home compostable envelopes (for us, they decomposed within three hot summer months).
Blueland’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Say “so long” to the home cleaning blues with Blueland, who truly make it better to be eco thanks to their huge offering of premium, stylish, environmentally friendly cleaning products.
The Certified B Corp is also certified by a wealth of other reputed certifications, including Climate Neutral, Cradle2Cradle, EWG Verified, USDA BioPreferred, EPA Safer Choice, and Leaping Bunny cruelty free.
All packaging is compostable and/or recyclable, all shipped orders are fully carbon offset, and while they still offer products with palm oil, they’re entirely RSPO certified.
Their refill model has helped eliminate over 1 BILLION single-use plastic bottles, plus their manufacturing prioritizes efficient energy and water use to protect our wild blue yonder.
4. Greatfill
Greatfill’s Green Laundry Detergent
Price: $11–$52
Achieve laundry day greatness with Greatfill’s truly closed loop circular product.
It comes with a chic refillable 28 oz stainless steel container and returnable liquid refill pouch, available in two sizes—one bottle full or four. When you have five empty pouches, send them back for cleaning and reuse via a prepaid envelope that comes with your first order.
Thanks to the potency of this plant-based and biodegradable blend, you’ll only need one small cap full on the forever bottle. Not only does it really work to get clothes clean and smelling fresh, we love the mess-free pour cap and the delicious Rosemary & Lavender scent, whose subtle piney rosemary and lavender fragrance is nicely balanced with crisp camphor and bergamot.
Greatfill leaves our laundry feeling soft and non-starchy without chemical fabric softeners—not to mention no synthetic fragrances, sulfates, parabens, phosphates, phthalates, SLS, triclosan, alcohol, optical brighteners, animal byproducts, artificial scents, or colors.
Greatfill’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Greatfill has what they call the “Great Fill-osophy,” their belief that to untrash our planet and build a better future for the next generation, the key to success is reusing and refilling.
The family-run business is Leaping Bunny-certified and entirely batch-made by hand in California, with the stainless steel bottles (which have a life-time warranty) and refill pouches ethically sourced in China.
Products come in recyclable boxes printed with soy-based inks, plus they’re expanding to a range of physical refill stores across the US.
To give back, they give to charities protecting our oceans, rivers, and lakes via 1% For The Planet.
5. etee
*Note: Some products contain RSPO palm oil and they use compostable beeswax pods for some items.
etee’s Best Environmentally Friendly Laundry Detergent
Price: $30
Small but mighty, eco-friendly, AND plastic free, etee makes some of the best green laundry detergent that’s also biodegradable, septic safe, free of fragrances, sulfates, and phosphates.
One tiny pouch of their Super Concentrated Laundry Detergent packs enough cleaning power for 180 sparkling loads, with just one teaspoon needed for medium loads. At $30 a sachet, it’s incredibly affordable—especially if you have kids and pets that fill the hamper before the wash cycle is even finished.
For super stubborn stains, apply etee’s Laundry Stain Bars directly on clothes before washing. That said, we found this detergent whitens and brightens clothes and stains plenty well on its own.
The powdered laundry detergent’s paper bag packaging features a biodegradable lining— including the ‘zip’ closure—made by Tekpak. Since this compostable pouch isn’t super durable, we suggest transferring it into a reusable glass jar for long-term storage.
etee’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Canadian eco company etee caters to all your personal care and home cleaning needs, making them a favorite ethical alternative to Amazon.
They hand craft all products using almost entirely organic ingredients (in a Toronto-based HQ lab-meets-factory fueled by renewables), never use plastic or test on animals, and sustainably source everything. Other than some beeswax in certain items, they’re also vegan.
They’ve prevented over 100 million pieces of single-use plastic from being produced and donate profits to local organizations like the Mississauga Food Project and Michael Garron Hospital.
6. Common Good
Common Good’s Best Plant-Based Laundry Detergent
Price: $18–$76
It’s common sense to make laundry day non-toxic with Common Good’s biodegradable, septic and greywater system-safe, cruelty-free, and vegan liquid detergent. It features a subtle, natural bergamot scent, with no sulfates, harsh chlorine, phosphates, phthalates, dyes, optical brighteners, or undisclosed nasties present in the formula.
Just toss 20 mL in for front loaders and 40 mL for top loaders, while dabbing some detergent to any tough stains 5 minutes before washing. We found it’s planty powerful, even with super soiled clothes.
We suggest purchasing their chic Laundry Glass Bottle Set, and hope they offer a recycling solution for the plastic refill pouch soon. While it’s now made with #7 plastic recyclable with plastic bags, we’re all pretty well aware of the shortcomings of soft plastics recycling.
The set also includes pure NZ wool dryer balls— the perfect natural dryer sheet alternatives—but you can also get sets without if you own some already.
Common Good’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Common Good’s line of refillable cleaning products is entirely vegan, uses 100% biodegradable and plant-based ingredients, and is Leaping Bunny-certified cruelty-free.
For now, they ship exclusively within the U.S., using plastic-free recycled materials with natural, non-toxic ink. And while the refill pouches are unfortunately currently not returnable, you can cut off the pour spout and recycle them with plastic bags (so long as your local system isn’t bunk).
7. The Good Fill
The Good Fill’s Eco-Friendly Detergent
Price: $13–$20
Some of the most effective eco-friendly laundry detergent hails from The Good Fill via Nellie’s Detergent Powder, which TGF sells in a 32oz refillable mason jar or a compostable paper refill bag.
Featuring no scent and just four highly effective ingredients—sodium carbonate, linear alcohol ethoxylate, sodium chloride, and sodium metasilicate—it’s highly concentrated and powerful while remaining hypoallergenic, so it’s ideal for delicates and lingerie.
You’ll need just one tbsp per full load, which we can say dissolves completely in cold and hot water and rinses completely clear. If you’re hand washing clothes, we most recommend this detergent, thanks to needing only a tiny pinch.
Plus, it’s septic-safe, cruelty-free, vegan, and free from SLES, SLS, gluten, phosphates, chlorine, fragrance, optical brighteners, and all other nasties.
The Good Fill’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
The Good Fill’s shop—both IRL in Nashville and online—sells much more than just non-toxic laundry detergent. They offer all kinds of items we all use or dispose of regularly—plus founder Megan Gill’s favorite low-waste essentials.
For their USPS-only shipping (reducing unnecessary trips by specialty carriers), they make sure the “fill” is truly “good” by using 100% plastic-free up-cycled, recycled, recyclable, and compostable materials, plus plant starch water-soluble packing peanuts that we found dissolve completely in just minutes under hot water.
8. Cleancult
Cleancult’s Green Laundry Detergent
Price: $10
The only cult we’re willing to join is Cleancult, whose Liquid Laundry Detergent features a gentle and ultra concentrated formula, with just a half-ounce completely eliminating stains and odors. It also means we get to carve out way less storage space, which is especially useful to tiny house and occasional #vanlife dwellers.
Sold as Wild Lavender or Juniper Sandalwood (our personal favorite) that are both scented with naturally derived, biodegradable ingredients, along with Unscented. Plus, you can be sure there’s no toxic ingredients like phthalates, phosphates, SLES, SLS, parabens, or dyes here, folks.
The formula deep cleans clothes with any water temperature or machine type, and the scents are quite strong, so your laundry will definitely come out smelling good.
Cleancult’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
“The Path to Enlightenment Isn’t Paved With Plastic,” says Cleancult, whose “cult” was inspired by owner Ryan’s determination to break the vicious cycle of the world’s plastic addiction.
Choosing “refilling over landfilling”, they’ve developed a whole line of refillable cleaning products—laundry detergent, hand soap, dish soap, bar soap, tablets, and all-purpose cleaners—sold in groovy frosted glass bottles with a silicone grip, recyclable aluminum bottles, and cardboard refill cartons.
To prove they really drink the plastic-free Kool Aid, they’ve also partnered with rePurpose Global, plus they have a Plastic Neutral Certification, Leaping Bunny certification, and a membership to the Sustainable Packaging Coalition.
9. Zero Co
Zero Co’s Biodegradable Laundry Detergent
Price: $35–$40
With a mission to “untrash the planet,” Zero Co’s refillable home cleaning subscriptions are meant to work just like the milkman of bygone days. With your first purchase, you opt for a “forever bottle,” and purchase refillable and returnable pouches after that. Currently pouches are plastic, but they’re soon switching to paper.
They call their Liquid Laundry “ridonkulously effective,” and we sure can confirm! Not to mention it’s completely plant-based and planet-friendly, biodegradable, vegan, cruelty-free, plant-based, palm oil-free, and gray water and septic tank safe.
It has a powerful Lemon Myrtle and Australian Grey Gum scent, which is quite unique compared to supermarket detergents. We’re a tad obsessed—especially since we can find refills of these in numerous refill locations across Australia.
Note to moms and dads: this stuff WORKS on reusable diapers or cloth nappies. In fact, it works so well that if you or your child has sensitive skin, spot test first to ensure no reaction.
Zero Co’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Full disclosure: we’ve interviewed founder Mike Smith on our podcast, and we’re big fans of Zero Co and Mike’s infectious optimism: “Winning the war on waste has never been easier!”
With a mission to collect a whopping billion plastic bottles by the year 2050, the brand is really making strides to untrash the planet, with nearly 25 million plastic bottles worth of rubbish already retrieved from our rivers, lakes, and oceans.
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