Cleaning Green?

[ruff]

Green Ballance: "First, ingredients are approved or on an approved list of at least one third party green certification organization. Second, they are in formulas directly approved by at least one third party green certification organization."

Which brings up the question (a good technique is to just follow the money): Who pays the third party for it's certificate and consideration of an ingredient "green"-ness?

Is it similar to the "Free-range", "Cage-free" etc designations to satisfy our wish for cruelty free raising of meat animals?
And we definitely know how little these actually mean.

Many years ago, in the hype days of "Teflon" I personally knew one of the "independent" "third party" organizations that reached positively glowing "research" conclusions on the product's excellent qualities. To my knowledge it was one man and personally I had my doubts about its independence.

• Who pays the bill for the research conclusions (inclusion of ingredient in given list) ?
• Would the bill be paid if the conclusions did not suit the needs?
• Is there an incentive to reach the "right" conclusion?

 

[Tom Forsythe]

We rely on information from organizations not one person. EPA DfE provides the safer chemical ingredient list. Some ingredients are blends which can be listed on Cleangredients web site which only lists if it meets their criteria. EPA DfE accepts their decision. Other ingredient blends are submitted to an independent lab sponsored by EPA DfE for their approval in regards to EPA DfE standards. This is a pretty good check and balance if you choose to rely on EPA DfE. I have more confidence in EPA DfE than any other third party. One reason is that they have made a lot of information (Green Seal does not disclose their lists or information to anybody that I am aware of) available to the public and have a reasonably priced procedure to evaluate ingredients outside their generic lists. I have never disputed their decision on raw materials but do have concerns over their disclosure policy. Trust but verify. I stated in an earlier post that I am not confident that declaring a product green is an asset or a liability. We do always seek to make new products "green" if it performs. Every now and then we find a new "green" material that we can replace an old raw material and upgrade a formula. 20% of our formulas have the Green Balance designation, most formulas have alot of green ingredients. Six of the seven ingredients in Flex Powder are on the lists. We make no claims that it is Green Balance. At a RTU dilution of 1 to 32 it is 99.43% green. I think we have struck the right balance.

 

[The Great Oz]

Which brings up the question (a good technique is to just follow the money): Who pays the third party for it's certificate and consideration of an ingredient "green"-ness?

Who pays the bill for the research conclusions (inclusion of ingredient in given list) ?
Would the bill be paid if the conclusions did not suit the needs?
Is there an incentive to reach the "right" conclusion?

Well Naive, you like GS, one of those third party groups you mention here. As a modern, tolerant person I respect your right to believe what you want.

To explain my perspective, I have to say I'm not anti green-and-safe, quite the opposite, but I do want to stay firmly rooted in reality when looking at various claims, both from the manufacturers and those that seek to profit from controlling them.

I've told the story before of working with the State of Washington to create their Sustainable Cleaning Standard. The short version of that story is that GS was kicked out of the writing process for good reason.

I don't like GS because their requirements are based on dreams rather than science and reality. I have a personal beef with their underhanded tactics in New York and here in Washington State. I really, really dislike them for trying to force people to pay for their certifications.

I choose not to believe in them.

 

[ruff]

Well Naive, you like GS, one of those third party groups you mention here. As a modern, tolerant person I respect your right to believe what you want.

To explain my perspective, I have to say I'm not anti green-and-safe, quite the opposite, but I do want to stay firmly rooted in reality when looking at various claims, both from the manufacturers and those that seek to profit from controlling them.

I've told the story before of working with the State of Washington to create their Sustainable Cleaning Standard. The short version of that story is that GS was kicked out of the writing process for good reason.

I don't like GS because their requirements are based on dreams rather than science and reality. I have a personal beef with their underhanded tactics in New York and here in Washington State. I really, really dislike them for trying to force people to pay for their certifications.

I choose not to believe in them.

Bryan, you may shorten a quote, if it does not change the content or take it out of context. However, though I understand the joke, please do not change my name on a quote, as that crosses a line. Please correct.

And in the not so far past you were quite opposed to anything "green", but that is not the issue. I am not invested in Green Seal and many of your points may be valid, as well as your wealth of knowledge. However, I am invested in not using industry financed organization to provide the very industry they are supposed to supervise or set standards for, with a seal of ....

If you can't see the flaw in that model, you may be more interested in winning an argument than being right or realistic. That will definitely take you away from the realm of naivete to a completely different one.

 

[The Great Oz]

Sorry Ofer, just picking at you for fun.

Still BFFs?

 

[ruff]

Sorry for the hyper sensitivity. Trump got me on edge

WtF is BFFs?

 

[hogjowl]

Ofer has friends?

 

[ruff]

You're one.
And now its official

 

[hogjowl]

Call me out in public, why don't you.

 

[Cleanworks]

Sorry for the hyper sensitivity. Trump got me on edge

WtF is BFFs?

Big fooking fookers