Eco Brooklyn’s clients usually get a gray water system. And our clients tend to be natural minded anyway, with a healthy dose of liking to save money. Thus comes the interest in making your own laundry detergent.
Store bought laundry detergents are full of chemicals. In fact they are packed with fertilizer! Plants love laundry water that has store bought detergent. And so do plants in the sea. All our super strong laundry detergent is helping the algal blooms that increasingly are cause for concern since they kill off all other marine life through suffocation.
Stopping the water from getting to the sea in the first place. Thus doing gray water systems is a great start to stop unwanted toxic runoff to the waterways. The second is to make sure that what does get into the water is as natural as possible. Thus the interest in natural soaps.
Check out this great one minute video on how to make natural detergent. It is SO easy to make! You only need a couple easy to get ingredients. And they are cheap. Forget about the ecology, the money you save is huge!
These are the ingredients for laundry detergent:
Borax
Baking powder
Soap flakes
Other ingredients you may want to try:
Hydrogen peroxide (great for blood/wine stains)
Few drops organic essential oil (Lavender, mandarin, pine, peppermint, whatever you like)
Organic flower powder (Lavender or rose or whatever)
Scented castile soap
Eucalyptus essential oil or soap flakes (in winter/for colds)
Tea tree oil (antibacterial)
By the way, with simple modifications you can use these basic ingredients to make most of your cleaning products including shampoo, scouring powder, mopping solution, deodorant, and more!