Natural is commonly used to mean that a product is made primarily of renewable resources, as opposed to manmade ingredients derived from non-renewable resources. The basic substance or material used to make the product is found in nature instead of being manufactured from petroleum and is therefore thought to be more compatible with the human body and the entire ecological system.

Consumers should, however, be wary of the term “natural” when used to describe cleaning products. Very few chemicals extracted from plants or the earth are used without further processing. A plant derived or naturally derived ingredient first is extracted from the ground up and then is chemically converted, or synthesized, before they can become useful ingredients in cleaning products. These processes often involve harmful chemicals, produce toxic side products and/or petrochemicals are used.

The misuse of the word natural as a marketing term gives the illusion that a product is of nature, and therefore absolutely acceptable and harmless to our health.

The natural industry is rapidly growing and due to the lack of government regulation, green businesses still use harmful and toxic ingredients in the products. The government, however, does determine what level an ingredient is potentially harmful, and allows trace amounts to be present. Our definition of natural for any ingredient with the potential to harm is not used at any concentration.

“Natural” Guidelines for REAL GREEN
Our natural cleaning solutions contain ingredients that follow these criteria:

• All ingredients are made from plant or mineral sources and have a positive effect on our bodies, and the air that we breathe.
• We strive to find ingredients that are renewable and sustainable. This means that no petroleum products or unsustainable plants are used.
• For environmental and sustainability reasons, we will consider using ingredients that are found in nature but are only available when produced to be nature-identical.
• We only use ingredients which are produced by processes which do not require harmful chemicals or produce carcinogenic or toxic side products (such as ethoxylation which produces 1,4-dioxane as a side product).
• Ingredients must be biodegradable and break down in to safe particles which are not harmful for the environment and our water
• By “derived by nature” we mean ingredients that can be harvested and used in their original form or ingredients that can be extracted from plants or minerals e.g. vegetable oil, plant oils