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Greener Choices Home >
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Green product watch: Water filters, detergents 4/10
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Green product watch: Best water filters, detergents, and more
Here’s the latest news and advice on greener products, covered in the May 2010 issue of Consumer Reports.
Safer toilet-bowl cleaners. The health warnings on some toilet bowl cleaners are enough to raise red flags. But our tests show there are good choices for cleaning that pose relatively fewer health risks. Get the list at Flush with success.
Best & worst paper towels. You should avoid Earth Friendly Products’ paper towels, which lasted only 15 scrubs over our test tiles and cost almost twice as much as the best choice, Walgreens Ultra Quilted. The Walgreens towels lasted more than 100 scrubs and costs $2.50 per 100 square feet. See details about paper towels and other household products.
Phosphate-free, effective dishwasher detergents. The best phosphate-free product in our tests was Method Smarty Dish tablets at 25 cents per load. It was find for cleaning dishes, but not so good at pots. Avoid Wave 2X Ultra High Performance, which is also phosphate-free but which left the dishes pretty dirty and costs more. Learn more about these detergents and other household products.
Organic sheets? The FTC recently told 78 retailers to stop labeling and advertising rayon textiles as eco-friendly bamboo. Once the plant fiber is processed, it’s rayon, not bamboo. Plus the processing uses toxic chemicals that emit hazardous air pollutants during manufacturing. Find out which sheets to avoid and which were better choices in our tests.
Water filters that work well. More expensive filters don’t necessarily work better, according to our tests of 38 carafe, faucet-mounted, countertop, undersink and reverse-osmosis models. To find out which brands and models will catch lead and other harmful contaminants, check out our water filter ratings and buying advice.
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