From the Boston Globe via the Duluth News Tribune, by Beth Daley
Deep green in color and with an aroma of fresh sassafras, Simple Green is a popular household cleaner marketed to environmentally concerned consumers. It bills itself as nontoxic, the "safer alternative" to other cleaners.
But one of Simple Green's key ingredients is the toxic solvent that can be found in traditional all-purpose cleaners such as Formula 409 and Windex, a fact that consumers cannot discern from the products' labels.
Demand for environmentally friendly products is increasing, but consumers cannot be sure that what's inside the bottle matches the promises on the label. While Canada and the European Union have government-sponsored criteria for "green" products, the United States lags far behind, especially for products used in homes every day.
Officials from California-based Sunshine Makers, which makes Simple Green, stand by their claims, which they say are backed by more than $3 million of testing.
"We are proud of our data," said Milt Krause, the company's vice president of research and development as well as environmental technology. "Simple Green is safe."
But when asked what makes Simple Green a safer alternative to toxic cleaners, solvents and bleaches, as its label states, Krause wouldn't be specific.
"This is tough," he said, "because it's proprietary."
Sales of organic and natural household cleaners, which include laundry and dishwashing detergents, rose from $140 million in 2000 to $290 million in 2004, according to the Nutrition Business Journal.
Several questionable claims have arisen in response to demand for eco-friendly products. Researchers at Scientific Certification Systems, a California-based company that verifies product claims in stores such as Home Depot and Whole Foods Market, found a plastic-and-steel carpenter's level marketed with claims that no old growth or rain forest wood was used in its manufacture.
The secret formula for Simple Green's cleaner was created in the 1970s by former Chicago Bears football player Bruce FaBrizio and his father. One of the first environmentally friendly household cleaners on the market, it was sold to industrial customers for cleaning equipment and floors but soon targeted consumers. Simple Green's many products are used today, its Web site says, in millions of homes and by the U.S. government. Last year, Simple Green sold at least $5.7 million of its all-purpose cleaners.
A key ingredient of Simple Green is butyl cellosolve, a substance considered toxic by the federal government that can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled, possibly destroying red blood cells, among other potential dangers. Concentrations of the solvent in household cleaners are not thought to pose an immediate danger to people. But some environmentalists insist the cleaners should not be labeled "green" because the federal government considers butyl cellosolve toxic.
FaBrizio used to drink a glass of the cleaner at trade shows to prove its safety.
Krause said Simple Green is not considered toxic by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which oversees consumer products. The commission's job is to require product warning labels, largely about specific, immediate and acute health harm. Simple Green is required to have a caution label under the guidelines because it is an eye irritant. The commission has not established standards for what "nontoxic" should mean, a spokesman said.
