New Cleaning Products

I read a blog post about Reducing plastic packaging I'd been thinking about finding alternatives to the liquid cleaning supplies I've been using that come in plastic bottles. I had heard of Blueland which makes such products, so I looked at their website and decided to try 3 products: laundry detergent, toilet cleaner, and dish soap. I've used the first two twice and the dish soap every day for a couple weeks. The first two come in tablets. The dish soap is a powder.

I throw 1 tablet of the laundry detergent in the water for a medium load (2 for a large load). Let it dissolve for awhile and then add the clothes. There appears to be no suds as it washes, but the water gets dirty and the clothes get clean.

To clean the toilet I drop one toilet cleaning tablet in the toilet and it foams for awhile. Then swish and it cleans great.

The dish soap takes a technique new to me, but my mom tells me that she has seen the technique used by many over the years. I used to put water in a dishpan with liquid soap and then immerse the dishes in the water to wash them. Then rinse. With the powder I wet a sponge and sprinkle the soap on it (or on a wet dish). Then I wash each dish with the wet sponge, adding a little water now and then. One sprinkle of the powder washes several dishes. It foams up and cleans that way. Then rinse. It rinses well and leaves it squeaky clean. I noticed right away that the stain on my coffee cup was gone as well as the stain that had been on a spoon for a long time. Meanwhile I've also been using up the liquid soap I have to wash in the same manner. I use a lot less soap and water with this method. I definitely like the job the Blueland soap does better than my liquid soap.