Going Green & Saving Some: Laundry Detergent

Welcome to my new series of blog posts which will feature ways that we are saving money and the environment at the same time. I am tired of spending money on products that are easy to make and consumption (especially packaging) makes me a little nuts, so here's some of my efforts to operate efficiently to meet my goals. First up: Laundry Detergent. 

Pinterest has a lot of really good ideas. It also has a lot of really goofy ideas and one day I'll do a whole post of my Pinterest projects that have gone terribly wrong. But one that has gone rather well is making my own liquid laundry detergent. At first I thought the idea sounded like it wouldn't be very successful but my friend Christen told me about how she was making her own and was having great results. 

So I found a recipe on Pinterest that was pretty simple so I decided to give it a whirl. You can find it here. There are only 3 ingredients and I found them all in the laundry aisle at Wal-Mart even though I hate shopping at Wal-Mart. I left out the option to use essential oils to make it smell different ways. I thought it smelled pretty good on its own (sort of a lemon scent) but maybe next time I'll experiment. The cost was about $9 because my mom gave me an old icing bucket from work that had a lid on it. (The author of the recipe includes the cost of the bucket in her total cost). 

$9. For 10 gallons of laundry soap. $9. 

Oh and $8 of those $9 were on borax and washing soda that I only used about 1/8 of the box. Therefore, I only need to buy the $1 Fels-Naptha bar for future batches. So that's more like $17 for 80 gallons of laundry detergent. 

As you can see below, I took an old laundry soap dispenser I had bought. I got tired of buying laundry soap all the time so I finally bought a big one. I want to say it was $12 and it was on sale. 

So let's do some math. If that container of laundry detergent is 1.17 gallons for $12 then 80 gallons would cost $820.52 (before tax). So including future batches that I make I have a savings of $803.52!!!!!!!!  Do you know how many things I could do with $803.52??

How does it work? It works just fine. I haven't noticed any problems at all. 

I made my own little labels that include the ingredients and how much to use per load (about 5/8 c. for a regular sized load in a normal top loading washer). 

I also realized after looking at the labels that I don't think this can be counted as "organic". I didn't want to change the label because wasting the paper and tape didn't seem very "green" to me. 

I have also been recycling other old containers to hold the detergent and giving it to family and friends. This is the one that I gave to Anna. 

You might be saying, okay Shanna, I get how you're saving green, but how exactly are you going green?
I am glad that you asked.

First, I am reusing all of the milk jugs and essentially all containers that have a lid that I can get my hands on. So there goes several new containers that I am not buying. Remember, in terms of protecting the environment, the order is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Also, I am reducing the shipping of products that I buy both for the product to the store, and for myself to the store to home. Even more, if I weren't reusing the bottles I would be recycling them. Now I'm reducing the shipping of the items to be recycled. Although I imagine at the end of their life if the bottles start breaking down I will eventually recycle them.

I am also using this as an opportunity to raise awareness about how easy this is to encourage others. Obviously through my blog, and also by giving batches to my friends. It is free to them because I did all the work and gave it away, so they can determine if it is something that they like and might want to start taking on themselves.

The whole thing at the end of the day was a fun project. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

Posted in: Being Green,saving money