UBC Undergraduate Research

An investigation of green laundry products for UBC residence Szarapka, Cam; Huang, Jerry; Gongsriwatanapon, Piyanut

Abstract

The problem of sustainability on USC's Vancouver campus will be tack led through student's laundry habits . The report investigates the value of 3 laundry detergents as green alternatives to a laundry detergent popularly used by USC residence students. Of the 3 green alternatives, the best will be proposed to the SHHS to be used in stocking vending machines and mini marts on campus and residence. The most popular laundry detergent used by USC residence students is Tide. Tide Coldwater was chosen for a benchmark because of this. The 3 green alternatives chosen to compare against are those products made by Method, Seventh Generation and Nature Clean. Following the choices a triple bottom line analysis comparison was made of all the detergents. Tide Coldwater had the best cleaning capabilities and best availability, but fails when it comes to toxicity or any sustainable features . Method's products are new and have not reached a point where they could be made readily available for mass consumption, nor were there cleaning abilities up to par with Tide , but they do wonders for increasing awareness of sustainability. Nature Clean and Seventh Generation have similar cleaning capabilities and ingredients, Seventh Generation's being somewhat less toxic and also having a better availability. In terms of price, all green products were relatively similar while Tide was far more expensive. Our recommendation for the SHHS of a green alternative to USC residence students preferred laundry detergent would be products made by Seventh Generation Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada