9 Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products That Won’t Dirty Our Planet
A clean home is a happy home, but a sustainably clean home is an even happier home.
We’ve all swept dust under the (organic) rug, but we’re also (figuratively) doing it when we use non-eco-friendly cleaning products that make our planet a little dirtier.
Conventional household cleaners may bring about instant shine, but their use ironically contributes to the build-up of toxic waste and plastic pollution. This is why it’s crucial to use legit biodegradable cleaning products.
While even the best natural cleaning products won’t do the work for us, they will ensure a healthier home and planet, and that surely provides some motivation for those chores.
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The Best Eco-Friendly Cleaners For A Sustainable Streak-Free Shine
Transparency, recycled packaging, sustainable ingredients—Meliora’s catalog of laundry detergent and home cleaning solutions hit all of our marks.
Blueland’s eco-friendly cleaners come courtesy of non-toxic ingredients and totally zero waste packaging—even for all your favorite cleaning liquids!
Don’t forget the tools with which to use these eco cleaning products. Ecologie by Danica’s ultra-absorbent, compostable Swedish towels eliminate the need for paper towels, stretching your sustainable dollar as far as it can go.
To polish up our criteria for picking environmentally friendly house cleaning products, buff to the bottom.
The Full List Of Biodegradable Cleaning Product Brands
- Blueland | Visit Store
- Meliora | Visit Store
- Miniml Refills | Visit Store
- Ecologie by Danica | Visit Store
- Earth Breeze | Visit Store
- Bestowed Essentials | Visit Store
- Jungle Culture | Visit Store
- Common Good | Visit Store
- Zero Co. | Visit Store
1. Blueland
*Note: Blueland only uses RSPO-certified sustianable palm oil in some of their eco cleaners.
Blueland’s Eco-Friendly Home Cleaning Products
Price Range: $18–$61
Blueland offers some of the best eco-friendly cleaners, and we should know—we’ve tried them.
The Clean Essentials is the perfect start kit, and it’s what started our love of Blueland, too.
We’re now regular Blueland users and this kit started it all. Its three household cleaning sprays pretty much cover all our cleaning needs, in an all-natural and lightly-scented way (read as: our home smells like a field of flowers, not a chemical factory on cleaning day!)
The Essentials kit includes their Glass + Mirror, Bathroom, and Multi -Surface cleaning sprays as well as their foaming zero waste hand soap.
While each of these products end up as liquids, they don’t start that way. Instead, they come in the form of tablets in composable packets. Just drop in water and let the cleaning magic begin.
When you need a refill, order the tablets alone and keep using each colorful spray bottle received in the initial kit for years to come.
About Blueland
As a Certified B Corp, Blueland ensures its supply chain and labor practices are ethical. The Climate Neutral company also has certifications from Cradle to Cradle, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Safer Choice, MADE SAFE, USDA BioPreferred, and EWG.
Blueland only uses gluten-free, vegan, cruelty-free, and plant-based ingredients in their products—all of which contain the Leaping Bunny stamp of approval.
This zero waste cleaning brand’s efforts have eliminated over one billion single-use plastic bottles from the ocean and landfills.
The company continues to support social causes like DigDeep to bring clean water to homes in America and Lonely Whale to help reduce plastic waste even further.
2. Meliora
Meliora’s Earth-Friendly Cleaning Products
Price Range: $5–$29
Meliora is most well-known for its Eco Laundry Powder, which uses the power of organic plant-based ingredients to clean without compromising the health of our planet.
Zero waste laundry detergent aside, Meliora also allows you to buy eco-friendly cleaning products for anywhere else in the home.
Some of their most popular offerings include all-purpose home cleaning spray, a home cleaning scrub, Castile dish soap, and even a refillable glass cleaning spray bottle that can be used with cleaning spray refills.
Everything is made with non-toxic and high-quality ingredients, like organic coconut oil.
About Meliora
Meliora started with a question: can you name five of the ingredients present in your cleaning cabinet?
Most of us can’t, and neither could Kate, the co-founder of Meliora.
Once she started doing a little digging, she found most weren’t even listed. Even worse, there weren’t laws in place that required a company to disclose what their products contained.
Years later, Meliora proudly discloses all plant-based ingredients and only uses those that are effective, people-friendly, and planet-friendly. All products feature Leaping Bunny and MADE SAFE certification, and are vegan, phthalate-free, and sulfate-free.
Aside from packaging products in compostable and or reusable containers, they ship in plastic-free and recyclable containers.
Everything is produced in their environmentally-responsible Chicago factory by workers who receive living wages.
Giving back is essential to this Certified B Corp, which is why they partner with 1% for the Planet to support the organization Women’s Voices for the Earth.
3. Miniml Refills
*Note: Miniml uses some RSPO-certified palm oil. We are confirming policies directly with this brand.
Miniml Refills’ Eco-Friendly House Cleaning Products UK
Price Range: £2.50–£25
Miniml Refills is among the most unique eco-friendly cleaning brands we’ve come across with a closed-loop product design.
It works like this: You purchase an initial reusable glass bottle, purchase a refill of your choice, refill your bottle, and send back the empty packaging for cleaning and reuse.
We loved testing out their Clean Kitchen Starter Bundle. Super effective, tough on grime, fairly concentrated too, so a little goes a long way. But the Ultimate Household Bundle is the easiest way to get in on the whole system, as it includes dish soap, hand soap, a multipurpose cleaner, and a white vinegar solution—eached shipped in reusable spray bottles.
They do contain “perfumes” to get scents like Sorrento lemon, blood orange, wild rhubarb, and cucumber, which likely means they’re synthetic.
All their eco-friendly cleaning supplies are free of VOCs, chlorine bleaches, solvents, lanoline, sulfates, parabens, and phosphates.
About Miniml Refills
Miniml’s closed-loop system of environmentally friendly cleaners is its claim to fame.
The returned, empty containers are cleaned and sanitized in a large industrial washer at the Miniml Headquarters in Yorkshire Dales. They also have in-person refill stations across the UK, including in numerous zero waste shops in London.
Miniml Refills plant-based cleaning products are vegan and cruelty-free, they provide a full list of the ingredients they include and don’t include.
Items are shipped in recyclable cardboard boxes with paper tape.
4. Ecologie by Danica
Ecologie by Danica’s Eco-Friendly Cleaning Supplies
Price Range: $6–-$42
What good are environmentally safe cleaning products without equally sustainable tools to use them?
Ecologie by Danica’s Swedish sponge towels will help you say goodbye to the paper towel.
The reusable paper towel replacements are made from 70% sustainably-sourced cellulose and 30% cotton, and can be used for everything from absorbing spills (holding up to 15 times their weight in water), to removing tough stains on the dishes or cleaning bathroom surfaces.
We’ve personally tested them and can confirm they absorb an impressive amount of water. Did we mention they last a very long time with proper care and cleaning, even with daily use?
They come in a small 8-inch size and a more significant 12-inch option.
They’re also odor-free, dishwasher safe, and because they’re 100% biodegradable kitchen cleaning products, can be composted after around nine months.
About Ecologie by Danica
Ecologie by Danica’s eco cleaning supplies are made using traditional techniques from the 1950s and screen-printed with fun designs using non-toxic inks. In our opinion, probably the best designs we’ve seen on reusable paper towels.
The cotton in each cloth is “waste cotton,” or cotton fibers that are too short for traditional textile usage.
They’re shipped in recyclable packaging and made in Sweden.
Ecologie also donates a portion of its sales to Education Without Borders, a non-profit organization that provides educational opportunities for children in South Africa and North America.
5. Earth Breeze
Earth Breeze’s Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products Subscription
Price Range: $12–$20
What cleaning products are biodegradable?
Earth Breeze’s, for one.
They produce some of the best biodegradable cleaning products for the laundry room.
In fact, they keep it super simple with just one product—liquidless laundry detergent sheets—available in Fragrance-free or Fresh Scent.
They work in almost all washing machines, including HE units and modern combo washer/dryers, which is what we’ve specifically tested them in to great success.
We love how clean and soft (sans any form of traditional or eco-friendly fabric softener), our clothes come out feeling, all with a wonderfully subtle scent. Unlike the overpowering fragrance of conventional laundry detergent, the Fresh Scent leaves a gentle and oh-so-pleasant smell.
Because they’re vegan, cruelty-free, and don’t contain parabens, bleach, dye, phthalate, or phosphates, we feel confident breathing them in.
About Earth Breeze
This maker of laundry detergent sheets is carbon-neutral and a member of 1% of the Planet.
Through the Buy One, Give Ten Program, customers may select where they want to donate 10 loads of laundry detergent for each purchase.
Customers can purchase singles or subscribe, but either way, they’re shipped in minimal, plastic-free packaging.
6. Bestowed Essentials
Bestowed Essentials Cheap & Natural Cleaners
Price Range: $6–$16
We’ve highlighted Bestowed Essentials catalog of eco-friendly household cleaners in the past, like their dish soap and laundry detergent.
But what about a stain remover?
The stain remover has a simple list of ingredients, coconut oil, water, sodium hydroxide, and baking soda. It doesn’t contain any parabens, sulfates, preservatives, artificial colors, harsh chemicals, or bleach.
It’s also fragrance-free and comes completely unpackaged.
About Bestowed Essentials
The all-female team is based in Rapid City, South Dakota, but their cleaning solutions are available across the US, Canada, and online zero waste stores.
All Bestowed Essentials products are PETA-certified cruelty-free.
They use plastic-free packaging and biodegradable shipping tape.
BE also goes above and beyond, working with organizations like Ocean Blue Project, Pledgeling Foundation, and Black Hills Works.
Via EarthHero’s sales platform, they come with carbon-neutral shipping.
7. Jungle Culture
Jungle Culture’s Environmentally Friendly Cleaning Products UK
Price Range: £4–£13
Jungle Culture develops a wide variety of zero waste bathroom and home goods.
But their Natural Dish Brush set is the perfect biodegradable plant-derived cleaning product for a sustainably chic kitchen.
The brushes are made from plant-based materials like bamboo and fibers from coconut husks and sisal plants. The plant-derived brushes are completely organic, vegan-friendly, and biodegradable.
The natural coarseness of the sisal and coconut fibers gets rid of stubborn stains and soap scum and doubles as a kitchen tile cleaner if you’re in a pinch.
If you have fragile glassware, the organic hemp and cotton cleaning cloths will be a go-to.
We’re regular users of this brush set, and we especially appreciate the fact that the dish brush has the option to easily replace the heads via a bit of wire when the wood or bristles start to look a bit worse for wear.
Having a permanent handle means just a little waste—even if that waste is 100% natural materials!
About Jungle Culture
The UK-based company ships everything in plastic-free packaging made from recycled kraft paper.
Jungle Culture works with small farms and craft workshops across Asia in places like Vietnam. They regularly visit their partners in person to ensure they meet their ethical manufacturing practices.
A member of 1% for the Planet, they donate a portion of sales to various environmental organizations.
8. Common Good
*Note: Common Good uses RSPO-certified palm oil.
Common Good’s Sustainable Cleaning Solutions
Price Range: $9–$135
How does cleaning for the common good sound?
That’s what you get with Common Good’s range of “safe, green, and hardworking” products—in either standard or money-saving bulk sized boxes.
For eco-friendly kitchen cleaning products, they have the minimalist essentials you need: an all-purpose cleaner and dish soap, both with the option to buy an empty bottle and refill pouch, too.
Their Everyday Dish Set includes a dish soap container and refill (available in lavender, bergamot, and unscented varieties) along with the wooden brush to clean with it.
This zero waste dish soap features a biodegradable formula without any synthetic fragrances, phthalates, optical brighteners, dye, chlorine bleach, or ammonia.
What about biodegradable toilet cleaning products?
They have those, too, in a spray bathroom cleaner and glass cleaner.
About Common Good
All Common Good’s earth-friendly cleaners (for home and body) have been designed with refills in mind. You can either get refill pouches by mail, or top off your containers through an ever-expanding list of refill stations all over the US.
Pre-refill sustainability is just as important, which is why they use sustainably-sourced ingredients like non-GMO corn-derived plant oils, coconut surfactants, and pure essential oils.
Everything is animal-byproduct-free and Leaping Bunny certified cruelty-free.
9. Zero Co.
*Note: Zero Co’s eco-friendly house cleaners use RSPO-certified palm oil.
Zero Co.’s Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products Australia
Price Range: $7–$170
Zero Co. products are more than just a pretty face. They’re committed to tackling the plastic problem with recycled plastic bottles and refillable cleaning supplies.
The Australian eco-friendly cleaning products brand’s method is straightforward: order a starter kit with reusable bottles and refill pouches, send the refillable pouches back for cleaning, and repeat.
The Essentials Starter Pack gives you everything for your cleaning routine—nine home and body cleaners that are vegan, cruelty-free, septic and gray water safe, phthalate free, and palm oil free (except for the dishwasher tabs).
Whether you need toilet bowl cleaners, handwash, or shampoo, Zero Co. has you covered with high-quality eco-friendly products with fewer carbon emissions.
About Zero Co.
Besides listing all ingredients online, the Australian-based company does a lot in the fight against climate change.
Zero Co. started the 100 YR Cleanup initiative to remove plastic waste and trash from the planet over the next one hundred years.
They also provide eco-friendly cleaning products for businesses via the Work Waste Challenge to help businesses switch to zero-waste solutions.
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Why Use Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products?
We clean something up every day (week? month?).
Ironically, most of the products we use to clean are those that end up making our planet and homes much dirtier.
Not only do they come packaged in single-use plastic bottles (that mostly end up in landfills, despite being thrown in the recycle bin), but they contain dangerous ingredients we can’t pronounce.
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), cleaning supplies often produce fumes that may trigger health problems, are known carcinogens that cause chemical burns and poisoning, among other health concerns.
Chlorine bleach is an eye, skin, and respiratory irritant (and can be fatal if mixed with ammonia, another common cleaning agent).
Speaking of ammonia, it can blind you and burn your skin. Triclosan and Triclocarban (used in dish soaps) are linked to hormone imbalance and breast cancer. The list goes on.
These ingredients are just as toxic for our environment, releasing volatile organic compounds that cause smog and contributing to eutrophication—AKA nutrient overloading in water bodies that can be toxic for aquatic species and lead to algal blooms.
Somehow a bright and shiny toilet bowl doesn’t seem worth the damage to our biodiversity.
So why use natural eco-friendly cleaning products?
Because chemo-kills are doing the opposite of cleaning, where it counts, chasing dust bunnies or removing stains with products that have less of an impact is far better for you, your home, and our shared home.
How We Found The Best Non-Toxic Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products
What are green cleaning products? How do you know if a cleaning product is eco-friendly?
Well, simple DIY eco-friendly cleaning products (like vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda, which is a favorited eco-friendly carpet cleaning solution by the way) are a pretty safe bet, but for those who don’t have to make their own cleaning products, how can we judge the best green cleaning products to buy.
Just like we use our ethical and sustainable beauty criteria to find clean beauty products, we also use them to find clean cleaners.
Here’s how we get through the dirt and grime to find exactly that.
- Non-toxic: Natural and organic ingredients form the basis of non-toxic cleaning products like these non-toxic dish soaps. Instead of harsh chemicals, we were happy to see ingredients like organic castile soap, organic coconut oil, baking soda, and essential oils being used instead of synthetic fragrances and surfactants.
- Cruelty-free and Vegan: Did you know glycerin, a common ingredient in household products, can be sourced from either animal fat or plant oil? That’s why we’re looking for brands that don’t use animal-by products in their biodegradable plant-derived cleaning products. Not testing on animals is an obvious must, but we also ideally look for brands that don’t sell into China because of their animal testing policies.
- Palm oil free: Palm oil is commonly found in detergents and soap. While it’s difficult to avoid it entirely, we try to stick to brands that only use palm oil that’s certified sustainable from RSPO.
- Ethical ingredient sourcing
- Thoughtful packaging: We want compostable zero waste packaging or options for refills in glass or recycled plastic bottles.
Final Thoughts On The Best Environmentally Friendly Cleaning Products
We can’t be your parents and tell you to clean your room, but we can help you do so in a way that keeps our planet clean.
And let’s be honest: it makes no sense to clean our bathroom, kitchen, or toilet when doing so leaves behind toxic chemicals and plastic waste in the landfill.
To borrow the namesake of one of these brands, choosing eco-friendly and biodegradable cleaners may feel like a drop in the ocean, but over a lifetime, it will have an enormous impact.
After all, sustainable living (much like cleaning the house) is all about striving for better, not perfect.
Do you know any sustainable spring cleaning (or any season) fanatics out there?
Feel free to share this list to help them create a lasting, sustainable shine.
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