Wipes used to be relegated to glove compartments and diaper bags. No more. They’ve taken over every single bodily and household function.
Seriously. There are deodorant wipes, feminine wipes, kitchen wipes, dental cleansing wipes, wipes for exfoliating, facial cleansing, disinfecting, wipes for pacifiers, shoe shining, computer screens, makeup removal, cleaning toys/bikes/wood/granite/litter boxes/cat butts/baby butts/adult butts – you name it.
I’m telling you right now, we are experiencing wipe overload. There is no need for a different disposable landfill-bound box of wipes for every living and inert surface in our lives. I don’t care how biodegradable they say the wipes themselves are.
Most of the conventional kinds are made of some sort of petroleum-derived fibre like polyester. Many are blended with viscose, aka rayon, or are straight viscose/rayon. And viscose/rayon is made by dissolving wood pulp in polluting carbon disulfide, which is making quite of mess of waterways near factories in Asia.
Is rayon biodegradable? Well, perhaps under the ideal conditions, yes. However, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission cracked the whip in 2009 on a couple of bamboo rayon clothing makers. The FTC says rayon products are not biodegradable because they will not break down in a reasonably short time after being landfilled.
While some wipes may decompose in certain industrial composters, that doesn’t mean the city accepts them in its green bins.
City reps say our hydro-pulper will float non-organic waste like wipes to the top, where they’ll be skimmed off and sent to landfill regardless of what they’re made of. All the GTA green bin rules I checked insist you trash your wipes, too.
That said, some disposable wipes are worse than others. Most antibacterial body and household cleaning wipes, including Wet Ones Antibacterial, Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, BabyGanics The Germinator Hand Sanitizing Wipes and ShowerPill Athletic Body Wipes, are made with benzethonium chloride or benzalkonium chloride (aka alkyl di-methyl benzyl ammonium chloride, or ADBAC), a quaternary ammonium compound, aka quat. Several studies have linked both to an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and ADBAC is toxic to fish.
Over-sanitizing our homes and hands isn’t helping our immune systems, but if you are stuck in situations that need disinfecting, there are more natural wipes on the market. CleanWell (rayon) makes a versions that kills 99.99 per cent of bacteria with thyme oil. But I still say skip the landfill-bound wipes and, when necessary, reach for bottles of disinfecting thyme-oil-based sprays (Clean Well, Nature Clean and Benefect make some) and a reusable cloth instead.
Keep in mind that even thyme disinfectants aren’t worry-free for aquatic life, so don’t go crazy with those either. Also note: Quebec’s Attitude disinfectant spray with thyme oil, despite being Ecologo-approved, contains some quats.
If you want to sanitize your hands when you don’t have access to a sink, stick to a squirt of alcohol-based hand sanitizer from the health store. Dr. Bronner’s, All Terrain and EO make some. EO wipes are cleaner but more wasteful. FYI, petrochem-laced Purell Cottony Soft Sanitizing Wipes contain estrogen-mimicking parabens and iffy retinyl palmitate.
Parents, watch out for mainstream drugstore baby wipes masquerading as natural, like BabyGanics’ Germinator. Yes, Huggies Natural Care Baby Wipes got rid of formaldehyde-releasing DMDM hydantoin, but they still contain methyl paraben. And Pampers Natural Clean Baby Wipes – unscented, with “a touch of vitamin E” – may be a little better, but their polyethylene glycol (aka PEG) may contain traces of 1,4-dioxane.
Health store brands offer up the cleanest baby wipes ingredient-wise: Seventh Generation (now on non-rayon certified wood pulp with polyolefin), Bum Boosa (on bamboo rayon), Jackson Reece (rayon) and greenest and most premium priced NatraCare Organic Cotton.
Wipes designed to “freshen” private parts, just like baby wipes, should be made with the most delicate of nontoxic ingredients. Instead, many are loaded with sensitizers that can trigger itching and worse, like synthetic fragrance. Last checked, Always wisely ousted three parabens, but it has contact-allergen iodopropynyl butylcarbamate.
SweetSpot thankfully dropped its methyl paraben and propylene glycol (PG isn’t great for women with existing yeast infections) but still contains fake scents. If you insist on using feminine wipes, my pick would be Natracare Organic Cotton Intimate Wipes. Guys, you could try these, too.
One more thing: ditch Aveeno makeup remover wipes with endocrine-disrupting eco bad boy cyclotetrasiloxane. Kaia’s bamboo rayon cleansing cloths are a better pick.
Bottom line: anything disposable can’t be fully green. So as much as you can, do it old-school with the reusable wipe otherwise known as a washcloth or a cut up an old T-shirt for a super-duper guilt-free eco wipe called a rag.
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