My Generation has been Scammed

So as any yuppy living in Park Slope Brooklyn, I have done my best to bringing down the size of my carbon-footprint. I drive a hybrid car (at a premium of about $5000), I take short-showers, I have converted my household energy purchases to wind power, I literally bring back every soda-can or bottle I buy throughout the day and recycle them at home, I send my used batteries to some store that charges me $1 per pound for the recycling, I use mass transportation and avoid passing too much gas.


As part of the greening the planet initiatives all across the country, I’ve even been convinced to move from the normal cleaning supplies to the Seventh Generation brand which markets itself as the chemical free, environmentally friendly alternative to the standard household supplies. The premium you pay is like buying a MAC over a PC, you may get something better you may not but for sure you are paying a ‘yuppy tax’ for even wanting it. I estimate that the Seventh Generation cleaning supplies are easily 25% more expensive, which I guess is a price to pay to save Mother Earth.

My problem is the following: Seventh Generation Laundry detergent doesn’t work. You throw in a load of dirty clothes and it comes back just as stained as when you put it in. There is something about the effectiveness of soaps which apparently can’t be recreated using organic soy beans. Seventh Generation does a great job as marketing itself as environmentally sound but has not paid much attention to being effectively sound at actually removing stains and grease from clothes, bathrooms or stove-tops.

So can somebody tell me if my carbon-footprint is actually decreased if I wind up having to do my laundry twice to try to get out the stains out? There is the extra water, the extra energy needed to run the machine, the extra soap into the drains plus there are that many additional plastic bottles. Not only do I pay more, I don’t get my clothes cleaned and I have to do the task twice.

When you buy a car, make sure it’s a plug in electric one but when you need to get a Chinese Food MSG stain out of your work shirt you need some serious chemicals.

MLIA