Thursday, March 19, 2009

Green Clean: How Clean are Your Products?

When it comes to the most common brands of household cleaners, you may ask yourself how safe are these products for your home, your family, and your environment?

The answer is "not very." Even "simple" cleaners like bleach contain harmful chemicals that are dangerous for you and your family to inhale, even while you're just cleaning. Bleach is the #1 most common chemical involved in household poisoning. Keeping a clean home is an act of love for your family, but in the same way, you should use cleaning products that won't harm you or your loved ones. With Shaklee's all natural cleaning products, you can clean with confidence, keeping you and your family away from breathing in the noxious fumes that have been linked to the rising rate of asthma in children.

Did you know that over 90 percent of exposures to poison happen at home? Just as you monitor the foods your family eats, taking all the necessary precautions to make sure you're cleaning with safe cleaning products is just as important, if not more so. In fact, children are even more vulnerable than adults when it comes to the toxins in the water they drink, the foods they drink, and the air they breathe.

Shaklee offers products you can feel good about- they contain no hazardous chemicals or harmful cleaning compounds, and they're even hypoallergenic. Whether you're using Shaklee Dish Wash Concentrate to wash the dishes from your dinner party, using Fresh Laundry Concentrate to wash your bed sheets, or using any other Shaklee cleaning product, you can clean knowing that the safe, conscientious products you are using are brightening and cleaning without undoing all the good you've done. Guaranteed!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

5 Simple Ways to Go Green

Going green doesn’t need to be difficult or complicated. Even small steps count, and what you do every day can help keep your family and the planet healthy.Thanks to the thousands who have chosen Get Clean, look at the difference made over the past 12 months!

Kept 10,230,732 pounds of packaging waste out of landfills.
Eliminated 23,492,792 pounds of greenhouse gas.

1. Clean Up Your Cleaning Products

Some conventional cleaning products can contain questionable chemicals like phthalates, butyl cellosolve, sodium hydroxide, ammonia, or formaldehyde. Why would you endanger your health or the health of the planet with harsh chemicals and toxic substances when you can choose natural and healthier alternatives?

Switch to Get Clean®. Get Clean offers choices that are safe, nontoxic, and natural, and they work wonderfully. Many Get Clean products are formulated using sustainably sourced ingredients from natural sources, like activated enzymes or biodegradable cleaning agents derived from corn and coconuts. When you welcome Get Clean products into your home, you’re not exposing your family to many of the dangerous chemicals found in conventional cleaners.

A great way to start is with the Get Clean Starter Kit—everything you need to clean your home. To order yours, contact Cindy McAsey visit us at barefootmom.com, or call 1.888.272.6701.

2. Start Using your Dishwasher!

Using the dishwasher is actually better for the planet than washing dishes by hand. The average energy-efficient dishwasher uses just 4 gallons of water per cycle, saving nearly 5,000 gallons of water per year compared with hand washing—as well as $40 in energy costs and 230 hours of washing time, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Make sure to use a phosphate-free detergent. Phosphates spur algae blooms and are a major source of water pollution.

Get Clean Dish Wash Automatic Concentrate is one of the first phosphate-free automatic dish wash detergents. Learn more

3. Ditch the Anti-bacterial Hand Soap

Triclosan, a common ingredient in antibacterial soap that kills microbes, ends up in our water sources and, at specific levels, is acutely and chronically toxic to aquatic life. Moreover, overuse of antibacterial and antimicrobial soap can help create antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which may weaken the effectiveness of currently useful antibiotics. Antibacterial soap doesn’t offer any better protection against illness than vigorous hand washing with plain soap and warm water.
Get Clean Hand Wash Concentrate is a great antibacterial-free alternative. It’s soap free, pH balanced, hypoallergenic, and has biodegradable surfactants. Learn More

4. Bring your own Bag

Okay, we’ve all heard this one, but it’s true. Neither paper nor plastic is the ideal choice. Paper is accepted in more recycling programs, but only approximately 20% is recycled, and most bags can end up in landfills. Plastic bags not only can take a thousand years to decompose and but use up nonrenewable resources. The best choice? Bring your own reusable bag. A sturdy, reusable one can take the place of hundreds or maybe even thousands of single-use bags over its lifetime.

5. Buy from Socially Responsible Companies

Buy from Socially Responsible Companies

Use your consumer power to support companies that are environmentally responsible and offer products that are safe for you and the environment. Shaklee has a long history of environmental responsibility, including introducing one of the first biodegradable cleaners in 1960.

Shaklee is the first company in the world to obtain Climate Neutral™ certification and totally offset its greenhouse gas emissions.