How Do I Wash my Clothes: Part 1 Ecover and Method

When it comes to washing clothes, there’s a lot of things that can go wrong for the environment. We’ve got detergents full of weird sounding ingredients (some bad, but which ones?), which are produced in who knows what way, and these end up going down our drains along with potentially a load of plastic fibres from our clothes (ever heard of microbeads), which end up in septic tanks or drainage facilities, and then somehow end up in the environment. That’s a lot of process. And on top of that, we’re also supposed to be doing things like washing our clothes in bags (what!), and only washing them at low temperatures or, better yet, not washing them at all! There is a lot of information out there, and to be honest it’s hard to know where to begin. If we’re wanting to make our clothes washing more eco-friendly, one of the simplest and easiest changes to make is what we wash our clothes in. So lets start there.

In this review, I’m looking at two of the simplest looking options for an ‘eco-friendly’ clothes washing alternative – Ecover and Method washing liquid. Welcome to my first ever review, the box just below has more detail about how the review scoring works, and if you’re pushed for time there’s a 30 second summary at the bottom of the page. Now, onward!

Ecover and Method

Ecover and Method. Two powerhouse brands that have been on our supermarket shelves for a while now with all sorts of promising sounding selling points. They’re the obvious no fuss go to if we’re looking to make a ‘green’ change for no effort.

But do they work, and are they worth it?

Using it – does it work

They both get 8/10 for this. Yep, in terms of cleaning, they work just as well as a non-eco washing liquid, and they are exactly the same to use as any concentrated washing liquid. I used them in a washing machine at 30 degrees and the only issue I had was they couldn’t get out a long term coffee stain on a bright white top I had – but then I wouldn’t expect anything other than hardcore stain remover to get coffee out of white. Realistically, compared with non-eco alternatives, you wouldn’t know the difference with either ecover or method – they even leave your clothes smelling nice (and by nice I mean, very gentle and unoffensive scent – really good).  

The only thing I would say is if you want to take advantage of the refillable option with ecover, you have to go out of your way to find somewhere that offers refill which is a bit of a phaff – I didn’t mark it down for this though because it’s still possible to buy a new bottle in the same way you would with normal washing liquid.

What damage does it do getting to my house?

Now ecover easily comes out on top here for the following reasons. It’s manufactured in a zero-waste certified factory, it’s made in Belgium, so doesn’t travel as far to get here, it’s made using fewer damaging ingredients (specifically ecover avoids optical brighteners and colorant, whereas method uses both), and the refillable option means you can massively reduce the cost of packaging. Method on the other hand is manufactured in California (more air miles), it has no refillable option, and as far as I know their factory is not zero-waste certified. So ecover are perhaps better than method, and non-eco alternatives here. For this reason I’m giving ecover a 6/10, and method a 5/10.

Before we go further, it’s worth bearing in mind that ecover and method are actually owned by the same company, ‘S C Johnson and sons’. ‘S C Johnson and sons’ are a multinational company based in America that own a huge number of household cleaning brands, most of which are not ‘eco’ oriented (inc. duck and glade). This makes me a little uncertain as to where the profits from ecover and method go and makes me a little uneasy as to how dedicated to being ‘environmentally friendly’ they really can be. To a certain extent this is me speculating so I’m not letting it influence my ratings. You make your own mind up about it. For me, it just makes me nervous.

What damage does it do leaving my house?

Both ecover and method use ingredients that are damaging to aquatic life (opeates, sodium lauryl sulfate and I think others), from what I can tell they’ve used options where possible that minimise this damage – so they are better than non-eco alternatives – but they do still damage the environment. Method more so than ecover; because of the optical brighteners and colorant. It’s not quite as terrible as it sounds, the ingredients they use do biodegrade, it’s just not as hunky-dory as we’d like it to be. Or as they make it sound either – I definitely got the impression from the back of the ecover bottle that it avoided damaging ingredients entirely, but then perhaps I was just a fool actually believing the packaging (so naïve). Aside from what the actual liquid does when it leaves the house, both of them use recyclable packaging. Ecover as mentioned have a refillable option. So, in terms of the damage they do when they leave the house, again I’d say ecover come out best with about a 6/10, and method with a 5/10.

There are other ways to minimise the damage washing clothes does to the environment. Washing clothes at a lower temperature and less frequently reduces the amount of electricity (and therefore fossil fuels) used up which is a definite plus. I’m not advocating wearing dirty clothes, that’s grim, but if a piece of clothing isn’t visibly dirty and doesn’t smell bad, then no-ones going to notice if you just air it and put it back in the cupboard.

Is it worth it?

Given that both liquids work just as well as non-eco options, last just as long, and are so easy to fit into the normal routine it seems pretty worth it. They’re priced pretty high though, they are still damaging to the environment, and I have heard of other eco-friendly clothes washing options that are much cheaper and possibly more ‘eco'( soap nuts and Greenscents: review for these in the works), so I’m going to give them 7/10 for value.

So there we go, that’s my take on ecover and method washing liquids. I hope you found it helpful. Let me know what you think in the comments – have you tried either of them, what did you think? What would you like to see reviewed here next?