Today marks our final in a series of posts dedicated to saving cash while keeping the environment in mind.  (Check here, here, and here for some great frugal blog resources to support your money saving efforts.)  Over the past two years we’ve written dozens of posts on budget friendly, earth friendly practices, but we’ve picked our favorites to help you save money in 2010.

• Did you know that there’s one brand of high quality, name brand green laundry soap that’s far cheaper than even generics? Check this post to see how you can save money and the planet while tossing those yam-encrusted baby bibs into the wash.
• You can save hundreds of dollars by making homemade organic baby food, cloth diapering and breastfeeding.  All of these options are better for baby,  the environment and your budget.
• Should you register for brand new baby duds or hit yard sales for gently used garments?  You can probably guess which one we recommend!
• Why take the time and energy to cut back on family spending anyway?  Is it worth it?  Absolutely!  We explore the long term rewards of under indulgence for your family (and your child!) here.
• If you’d like to save over a thousand dollars to tuck into the college fund, you might want to start before your baby ever arrives.  Opt for secondhand duds for your maternity months and postpartum transition wardrobe.
• Does shopping organic mean that you’ll need to shell out hundreds of dollars on a weekly basis?  Not necessarily.  In fact, Rebecca feeds her entire family eat wholesome organic foods on a shoestring budget without too much effort.  Learn how she does it here.
• Those of us living without dishwashers use far more water and soap than our Maytag-owning peers.  What are some simple ways to save water and conserve suds?  Rebecca takes a careful look at the problem here.

Does all that penny pinching add up?  You’ll be happy to know that because of all that careful thrift, Rebecca just graduated into the dishwasher-owner category after an arduous kitchen remodel.  I am still dreaming of slipping my peanut butter covered spoons into the silverware slot of my newfangled Maytag someday, but for now I shall make good use of Rebecca’s dishwashing research!

Our miracle baby requires no diaper changes, doesn’t cry, and doesn’t throw tantrums.  Instead of keeping us up all night with shrieking, our newest family member gets to work. That’s right—after going my entire adult life hand-washing dishes, we’re proud to introduce . . . our dishwasher! My life has officially changed forever.

My adorable stainless steel dishwasher (or one pretty much like it)

All right, so it isn’t as cute and cuddly as those other “new additions” some of you are bragging about. But I’m still excited to own an appliance that is supposed to save water and energy—not to mention time. (Side note: I don’t actually consider buying a dishwasher an entirely “green” decision. Sure, it conserves water, but the energy used to create a new appliance is considerable!)

Some of our readers may remember my obsessive dishwashing posts of the past.  Now that I have a new method for washing up, I have a whole new set of concerns. What’s the best eco-friendly detergent for dishwashers? What, exactly, is in Jet Dry—and what are some natural alternatives? Or can I go without a rinse agent altogether?

If you have any product recommendations or special dishwasher tricks, please let me know!

We chose a winner for our Shaklee dish soap giveaway and review: Congratulations, Katie! You’ll have to report back with your thoughts on this wonder product. I still can’t believe a sixteen-ounce bottle lasted over a half a year, especially considering how ineffective some of the other green dish soaps I tried were. Thanks to Green and Clean Mom for hosting this giveaway.

Also, I finally added a “Washing Dishes” category so that it is easy to find all of my dish washing posts. I plan to get a dish washer for the first time in my adult life, so I will probably have a few more posts to add to this exciting category very soon!

You may recall my dish soap saga of last fall: First I wondered if eco-friendly dish soaps were any better than conventional ones, then I tested several greener dishwashing liquids, then I perfected my hand-washing method to use as little dish soap as possible. Finally, I offered a few alternatives to liquid dish soap.

During this quest, Green and Clean Mom contacted me, telling me I had to try the Shaklee dish soap she sells at her online store. She insisted that this dishwashing liquid would last a very long time. I was skeptical, considering some 32-ounce bottles of other brands lasted just six weeks. The Shaklee soap was in a 16-ounce bottle, which is smaller than average.

Last November, I started using the Shaklee soap. Over half a year later, I squeezed out the last drop. It lasted a whopping THIRTY-ONE weeks–almost three times longer than Planet , which I had deemed the top performer. It costs $8.10 (or $6.90 for members). This may seem like a lot, but if you look at the chart in this post, you’ll see it wouldn’t cost much more per year than Planet or Trader Joe’s dish soaps, considering how long it lasts. The best part is, you’d have to recycle just two small bottles of Shaklee soap each year–you’d go through nine bigger bottles of some other eco-brands in the same amount of time!

In addition, here are the “clean credentials” of this product:

• Nontoxic
• Natural
• Hypoallergenic
• Biodegradable
• No phosphates

In short, I would recommend the Shaklee Get Clean Dish Wash. It’s eco-friendly and super-concentrated. It also smells good and leaves dishes squeaky clean.

Do you want to try this wonder-product for free? Green and Clean Mom is giving away a bottle of the Shaklee Get Clean Dish Wash Concentrate along with a microfiber sponge. Just post a comment by Monday the 22nd and you’ll be entered to win!

This post is a part of Works for Me Wednesday. For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head on over to We Are THAT Family.

After writing these last three posts about eco-friendly dish soaps without coming to any great conclusions, I started examining my dishwashing method.  Whether you use an “eco-friendly” soap or some generic brand, the best thing for the environment is to use it sparingly and conserve as much water as possible.  So I started looking around for the most efficient method that claimed to leave dishes sparkling clean.

For years I’ve used the soapy sponge method.  I squirt some soap in the sponge and scrub each and every dish.  Then I rinse off the dishes under a stream of hot water.  I thought this method was pretty efficient, but I was potentially wasting water, depending on how long I left the faucet running.

Many people wash dishes using the camping technique.  This involves one bin filled with sudsy water and another bin of clear water for rinsing the suds off.  I have never had much success washing dishes this way.  After a while I feel like I’m dipping dishes in a vat full of dirty water and rinsing them in another vat of dirty water.

The no-rinse method.  A bit of Internet searching led me to a fascinating little discovery: Apparently, it’s common for people in England, Australia, and New Zealand to wash dishes in sudsy water and then not rinse them.  If you Google “British rinse dishes” you’ll find some interesting conversations in which half the people express shock and disgust over the method and the other half wonder how anyone could possibly waste so much water with unnecessary rinsing.  “If you need to rinse your dishes, you’re using too much fairy liquid!” was the resounding defense.

While the no-rinse method sounded even worse than the camping technique, I decided to give it a try.  From what I’d read, you avoid the “dirty vat of water” by doing a pre-rinse/scrub of the dirtier dishes.  I tried this and it used no soap and very little water.  Then I filled a tub with water and a ½ teaspoon of Planet.  (According to Planet’s website, if you use the soapy sponge method, you’re probably using too much dish soap.  They recommend just ½ teaspoon to start and say you can add more when the suds die down.)

I washed all these dishes with just a 1/2 teaspoon of Planet!

I was actually surprised at how sudsy the water got.  I washed glassware and cups first, shook the suds off, and placed them directly on the rack.  I proceeded to wash all the dishes pictured here in the same sink of water.  The water never got too dirty looking, thanks to the pre-rinse.

So did it work?  Well, sort of.  I was surprised to see that some of the dishes turned out crystal clear and clean.  I did have to wash five bowls over again, as they had a visible film on them.  I am still skeptical at the idea that rinsing is unnecessary.

The Works for Me method.  Based on my experience with all the methods above, I came up with a way that leaves the dishes clean and conserves dish soap.

1. Pre-clean dishes using just a sponge/rag and a tiny amount of water.
2. Scrub dishes in basin of hot water with ½ teaspoon dish soap.  If your water isn’t very hot, you’ll have fewer suds.  Start with the cleanest dishes first (glasses) and finish with pots and pans.  To avoid greasy dishes, make sure to add a little more soap once the suds seem deflated.
3. Rinse.  I know this “wastes water,” but it does leave dishes cleaner.  I find I use less water by rinsing under a stream of water rather than waiting for the entire sink to fill.  Now that I use much less dish soap, I find I need less rinsing water.

I think that Planet is right: my soapy sponge method was wasting too much dishwashing liquid.  I figure that if I used just ½ teaspoon a day, it would take almost a year to use up a bottle of Planet!  Of course, I do a lot of cooking and we often eat all three meals at home, so I need to wash dishes at least twice a day.  So let’s say I’ll use a teaspoon a day.  A bottle of Planet would last me twenty-one weeks using this method.  It lasted just eleven weeks using the soapy sponge method.

Finally I found a dishwashing method that works for me!  For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, head on over to Rocks in My Dryer.  Also, let me know how you wash dishes and why!

I just spent a year of trying various eco-friendly dish soaps to wondering if eco-friendly soaps were any better for the environment than conventional soaps.  After all this research and number crunching, I still haven’t figured out a way to please my pocketbook and the planet.  With even the SDA claiming that there is no environmental advantage to using “eco-friendly” soaps, perhaps the best solution is to stick with a concentrated conventional liquid that will keep some plastic bottles out of the recycling bin.

But what if you want to use something more natural, less toxic, unscented, or just . . . less mainstream?  Here are a few more alternatives to liquid dish soap:

Use bar soap.  Life Less Plastic has a post about using Dr. Bronner’s bar soap instead of dish soap, thus avoiding plastic packaging.

What about Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap?  I didn’t try it because it seemed to cost more than any other “eco-friendly” soap out there, even in large quantities.  A gallon of it costs $39.99 on Amazon.com.  That’s $.31 an ounce!  So 25 ounces of it would cost $7.81-almost twice as much as other eco-friendly soaps.  If it’s truly super-concentrated, perhaps it ends up being cheaper than other soaps on the market, but I have my doubts.  After all, every brand I tried claimed to be super-concentrated.

Use baking soda and vinegar.  My husband was aghast at my admission that I washed an entire sink full of dishes with baking soda.  He said it just can’t be done.  (Note: my husband is not a scientist, but he did take organic chemistry once.)  Based on my reading, when baking soda mingles with grease, it has a saponifying effect–that is, it turns to soap and dissolves the grease.   

It seemed to work.  I put some baking soda in a bowl, added a bit of water to form a paste, and scrubbed my dishes with the paste.  Then I rinsed all the dishes and put them in the rack to dry.  They dried with a powdery glaze on them, so I then tossed them all in another basin of water with a little bit of soap. 

• Pros: The dishes came out cleaner and shinier than ever, so the baking soda/tiny bit of dish soap combo worked even better than plain dish soap. 
• Cons: I used about twice as much water and spent about twice as much time washing my dishes.  I may continue experimenting with this method.  Supposedly if I combine the baking soda scrub with a vinegar rinse, my dishes will come out nice and clean.

Make your own dish soap.  In the comments section of our Eileen’s Pet Peeves post, Eileen posted a recipe for dish soap she found from the book Homemade, published by Reader’s Digest.

Homemade Dish Soap Recipe           

1/4 cup soap flakes
1 1/2 cups hot water
1/4 cup glycerin
1/2 teaspoon lemon oil

Make the soap flakes by grating a bar of ivory with a cheese grater. Pour soap flakes into hot water. Stir until dissolved. let sit for 5 minutes. Stir in glycerin and lemon oil. A loose gel will form as it cools. Use a fork to break up any congealed parts and put it in a squirt bottle.

Eileen goes on to explain that you used to be able to find soap flakes in the store, but now they’re hard to find, so you have to make your own with a natural bar of soap.

And here’s a whole slew of green cleaner recipes, including dish soap, on Oregonmetro.gov.

Have you found a way to avoid dish soap entirely, allowing you to stop contributing to the production and disposal of all those plastic bottles?  Let us know!

Also, don’t forget to enter our wooden toy giveaway.  Just a few days left!

Last year I bought a 32-ounce bottle of Biokleen dish soap for $4.79.  It lured me in with its seductive lemon-thyme scent but disappointed me with its lackluster performance in the kitchen.  Dishes came out greasy unless I used a LOT of the stuff, and I am not obsessive about dirt and grime.  I squeezed the last drop out of that bottle in less than six weeks. 

Six weeks for a bigger-than-average bottle?  This is what prompted me to pick up the $1.50 25-ounce bottle of generic, conventional dishwashing liquid.  It lasted from October to February–over 19 weeks!  In that time period, I would have had to buy at least two more bottles of Biokleen–and toss them in the recycling bin when they were empty.

I soon became obsessed with finding an affordable eco-friendly dish soap that worked as well as conventional soap.  Unfortunately, I never found any eco-friendly brand that could last nearly as long as the cheap generic stuff.  I hesitate recommending spending more (sometimes up to ten times more) on eco-friendly soaps when they don’t work as well and require more plastic bottles to be produced and then recycled or thrown away.  Plus, as I discussed last Friday, I’m now not even sure that eco-friendly dish soap is any better than conventional soap.

Here is a list of the soaps I tried.  I’ve included the bottle size, the price at my stores, and how long they lasted for me.  I cook a lot and don’t have a dishwasher, so I rely on dish soap for all of my dish-cleaning needs.  Your results will vary depending on how many dishes you wash, how often you wash them, and how liberally you use the soap (obviously).    I then calculated how much I’d have to spend a year with each particular brand.  Lastly, I figured out how many bottles I’d toss out in a year’s time.

After all this experimenting, I never came up with the perfect solution to my dish soap dilemma.  But here are three possible conclusions to my year-long dishwashing odyssey: 

1.  Use bulk dish soap.  One of my neighborhood stores, New Seasons, sells “eco-friendly” dish soap in bulk, so I can go in and refill the same bottle again and again.  The upside is, I would never have to recycle another plastic bottle.  The downside is, I went through 25 ounces in seven weeks, so I’d be using much more “eco-friendly” soap than conventional soap.  If there’s no clear environmental advantage to “eco-friendly” soap, as I discussed on Friday, then this is not a great solution for the planet.  It would also cost me five times as much as generic soap and take more effort.

2. Use Planet.  If you don’t have bulk dish soap available to you, the second best green bargain is Planet dishwashing liquid, which lasted over ten weeks–the most concentrated of all the eco-friendly soaps I tried.  It still doesn’t last as long as conventional dishwashing liquid, so you’ll spend more and go through more plastic bottles than you would with the generic kind.

1. 3. Just use regular old conventional dish soap.  A 25-ounce bottle lasted almost twice as long as my eco-pick, Planet.  With environmental disadvantages to both plant-based and petroleum-based soaps, it wouldn’t be terrible to choose the soap that’s the most concentrated and creates the least amount of waste.  Many mainstream dish soaps are phosphate-free–check the labels.  Plus, it’s the cheapest option by far.  Generic soap would cost me just over $4.00 a year.  Compare that to Biokleen, which would cost ten times as much and waste almost three times as many plastic bottles.

A few months ago I found sustainable laundry detergent that worked well and even cost less than regular brands.  Why is it so hard to find dishwashing liquid that does the same?  What are your experiences with eco-friendly soaps?  Did I miss a great one in my review?

I never found the perfect dish soap that works for me, but I did come up with three options that might be better for the Earth without putting a huge dent in my budget.  For more tips, head on over to Rocks in My Dryer.

This Friday I’ll discuss some alternatives to liquid dish soap that will keep your dishes sparkling and the environment somewhat content.

For almost a year now, I’ve been personally testing eco-friendly dish soaps in search of one that is just as concentrated as conventional brands.  Then a conversation in the comments section of Eileen’s Eco-Pet Peeves post made me wonder if eco-friendly soap was any better than conventional soap.  Was my whole mission in vain?

During this conversation, Gina made the intriguing point that all dish soaps are bad for the environment, whether they’re advertised as “eco-friendly” or not.  Soap biodegrades in rivers and streams, algae feasts on it, and algae bloom results.  This lowers the oxygen levels in the water, which is detrimental to fish and wildlife.  Gina concludes, “The only way that soap can be slightly less bad for the environment is to come in more recyclable packaging and to be more highly concentrated so the bottles are smaller.”

Gina linked to this article, which claims that there’s no environmental advantage to either plant-based or petroleum-based soaps.  The article is written by the Soap and Detergent Association, “Home of the U.S. Cleaning Product and Oleochemical Industries^SM.”  As oleochemicals are derived from biological oils or fats (as opposed to petrochemicals, derived from petroleum), this appears to be a reputable source.

So what, exactly, is so “eco-friendly” about eco-friendly dish soap?  They usually advertise that they are plant-based rather than petroleum based, and they also claim to be phosphate free.  In addition, eco-friendly soaps contain natural fragrances.  Here are the issues we need to look at when seeking out soap:

Phosphates.  Here’s an article talking about the “phosphate problem.”  Phosphates are mainly to blame for the algae bloom mentioned above.  The article also contains a handy chart for figuring out which dish soap ingredients are desirable and undesirable.  I noticed that most brands of dish soap on store shelves advertised that they used no phosphates.

Plant-based vs. petroleum-based soaps.  I thought plant-based soaps must be better for the environment than oil-based ones–and I figured they’d be safer on aquatic life once they went down the drain.  However, my sister pointed out that coconut-based soaps come from . . . well, coconuts.  They do not grow those locally in Portland, Oregon, so where are they coming from?  Who knows how many coconuts have to be harvested and if they’re harvested in a sustainable manner.  Then they have to travel thousands of miles to be turned into soap.  Is this really eco-friendlier than using oil?

Biodegradability. Here’s another article that made me question the eco-friendliness of “biodegradable” soap: Even Biodegradable Soap Can Pollute Water Sources.

Plastic Bottles! The one thing that’s indisputably greener about conventional dish soap is the packaging.  If I used the generic $1.50 bottle of dish soap from Safeway, I’d go through just 2.7 bottles of the stuff in a year.  Plus, they often make refill bottles of the cheap conventional soap, so even fewer plastic bottles would head off to the recycling bin.  Compare that to eco-friendly soaps.  The most concentrated one I found did not last nearly as long as the conventional kind–so I’d go through at least five bottles of “eco-friendly” soap a year.

On Tuesday evening, I will finally post my much-awaited review of the eco-friendly soaps I tried.  I figured out how long they last, how much they cost, and how many plastic bottles they’d waste.  I’ll also reveal my solutions to the dish soap dilemma, so stay tuned!  In the meantime, please add to our conversation about soap and the environment by posting a comment.

For our final Green Spotlight post this month, Eileen Spillman, single mother of two, full time teacher, and eco-mom extraordinaire, shares her eco-annoyances and what it means to pass green values onto your children. 

Do you have any environmental pet peeves?  

Oh yes, many. 

1. Teeny tiny bottles of “green” cleaners but no re-fill size.  I think any environmental benefit of the cleaner was swallowed up by the packaging.
2. Over-packaging. 
3. When you bring your own mug to a coffee shop and they make it in a paper cup anyway, pour it into your cup and throw away the paper cup.  Kind of missed the point there.
4. Planned obsolescence.
5. The marketing ploy of making people feel like they have to spend a lot of money to help the environment and the whole designer, Hollywood version of being green.  Which is ridiculous because as soon as you have a second house, a boat, and find yourself taking plane trips every other week for pleasure, you need to stop kidding yourself about what a great environmentalist you are.
6. People who drive fifteen miles out of their way to shop at upscale, organic grocery stores.
7. Products like the Swiffer, which are designed specifically to force you into buying more consumables.  A mop and bucket does a better job anyway!  And what exactly is convenient about another product you have to keep track of, find a space to store and remember to refill when you run out? My mop and bucket are always there for me.
8. The entire baby industry, which preys on new-parent anxiety with products you don’t need.

Do you get any indication that your children might be picking up on some of your Earth-friendly choices?  

Definitely.  They are old enough now to understand some of it.  Our apartment has a view of the back parking lot where the dumpsters and recycling bins are kept.  It is great excitement to watch the two trucks come and do their thing.  We talk about where each is going and what it means to recycle. 

The kids are totally with me on trying to use the car less too.  If I ask them to walk somewhere instead of driving, they will tell me that it’s a good thing we aren’t using the car, when just a couple of years ago there would be whining. 

Right now I am working to get them to understand the concept of not wasting food.   We’ll see how that goes.  My daughter is very aware and worried about people in the world who don’t have enough to eat, but hasn’t connected that her throwing out half a plate of food has anything to do with that. 

What’s your favorite part of being a mother?

Reading bedtime stories, random outbursts of “mom, I wike you”, remembering how to play hopscotch and cat’s cradle, the first note that was printed and spelled all by herself saying “I love you mom.  I really, really love you.”, living room dance parties, little arms around my neck and little kisses on my cheeks and being the arms they run to when life is full of spiders, monsters, rough sidewalks, loud flushing toilets and darkness.

Thanks Eileen for being our featured Green Spotlight mom this month!  We especially love Eileen’s can-do attitude—which obviously makes her so effective as a mother and a eco-role model. 

The Green Baby Guide welcomes all eco-pet peeves!  We also want to hear about the ways that your children are learning from your environmental choices.