I probably won’t make any friends with this post, but here goes…

I first came across a swanky little bottle of Method hand soap in the guest bathroom of an obsessively stylish and clean metrosexual friend. As far as I know, this friend doesn’t usually give a hoot about the environment, so it never crossed my mind that Method was being marketed as eco-friendly. Method Cleaning products have made the Big Time in the Green World. Singing their own virtues with a green marketing campaign and their “humanifesto”, Method is probably the only cleaning product line with an active fan base that raves about their products on blog after blog after blog. And yet, “naturally-derived” Method products are the ultimate example of green washing.

Wandering down the aisle at Target a few weeks after my son was born last summer I came across Method again. I needed some cleaning products for my increasingly grimy home and wasn’t sure that driving across town to our favorite health food store was a good idea in my sleep deprived haze. After reading the packaging, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Method was non-toxic. And, they even had biodegradable cleaning wipes. I felt a little funny buying wipes when I had a stash of reusable microfiber cloths at home, but as I mentioned earlier, as a sleep deprived nursing momma, I was more concerned about getting home than the environment.

Fast forward 6 months or so and as I finish off the last container of wipes (I’d bought three) I think about the totally eco-unfriendly nature of disposable wipes. Sure the 30 wipes might be biodegradable, but they only take up 1/3 of a big hunky plastic container. (Where are the other 60 wipes that could easily fit inside?) And, unless the folks at Method know something that I don’t know, the plastic container comprising the bulk of the product is certainly not biodegradable! The container may be eligible for recycling, and yet, if you read my post yesterday, you’ll know that there is a 90% chance that the container’s final resting place will be a landfill. To add insult to injury, as you can see in the picture below, the plastic container is wrapped in a plastic rather than having a label printed directly on the container.More plastic that perhaps could be recycled, except no one (around here at least) takes sheets of plastic wrap.

So, besides plastic packaging, which is a vice of nearly every cleaning product on the market, what do I have against Method? First off, Method’s supposedly non-toxic magical cleaning ingredient is not published – a trade secret. Their packaging is clever, but just like any other mainstream cleaning brand, Method makes prodigious use of plastic and packaging. They also market and sell unnecessary products such as OMOPS, Aroma Pills (think Glade Plug-in), aroma sprays, and Biodegradable wipes – products that are simply marketing tricks and very far from being eco-friendly. Method does offer refills for their hand soap, but the plastic refill containers, while cutting down on total plastic use, also happen to not be recyclable.

I contacted greenerchoices.org (Consumer Reports Green Washing watch dog) back in January to find out their thoughts on Method. The response that I received said that although they would like to review Method, with an unpublished “trade secret” ingredient list they don’t have any way to honestly rate the products as environmentally friendly.

If you love Method and are looking for non-toxic cleaning products, using their dish soap, hand soap and laundry detergent should be more eco-friendly than using some other toxic name-brand products. Just be sure to recycle your containers and don’t buy unnecessary products such as the plug-in aromatherapy gadget! If you really want to make a difference, do look into making your own cleaning products or using vinegar and baking soda. And, if you need something stylish and new to liven up your cleaning, check out Twist Sponges, which should give your cleaning routine a green eco-kick.