I’ve done my laundry with soap nuts instead of regular detergent in three or four rounds of laundry now and I think they are working fine. Just as fine as ordinary anyway, which is great – since they are a better environmental option in a lot of ways. (Though just as important is to not wash in warmer water than absolutely neccessary – often a garments biggest environmental impact is the energy needed to wash it throughout it’s lifetime)

IEverything I tried to wash out got clean, though I haven’t tried to get out any real bad staining yet so I can’t say how that’s working. Since they won’t give you allergies like chemical detergents, are better for the environment both in that they can be composted and that they are imported by boat by many of the people who sell them; while they do get things clean and good I’d recommend them warmly! Also they’re cheaper than regular detergent and really easy to use, you just put them in a little cotton bag or an old sock, in to the washing machine along with the laundry.

This is what they look like.
My mom had bought some from a different place and hers were harder and less soapy feeling. Hers also had instructions on how you could make your own shampoo with them.

I read up on the internet and some people seem to have a bit of trouble getting them to work and that it might be an issue when you’ve got hard water. They said that they had better experiences with something called EcoBalls.

This morning Sweden’s prime minister Reinfelet was in town to hold a lecture on climate & finances at my university. Took this picture from Greenpeaces campaign against the expansion of the coal industry that is run by state owned swedish company Vattenfall who are building new coal power plants outside of Sweden even though 97% of Sweden’s people do not want more coal fuel.. Today Vattenfall is producing twice what all of Sweden is realeasing of in carbon dioxide in a year! I participated in Greenpeace’s action with some 20 other people in the audience holding paper signs telling him to take his climate responsibility as our leader & stop the coal industry of Sweden. He seemed a bit annoyed with the banners that were held up during the entire hour, and we were told he’d gotten pretty angry with the Greenpeace people outside the building holding up a textile banner with the same messages.
Also his idea on how to solve the enormous carbon dioxide  emissions that meat is responsible for was to “just wait, and science will figure out a way to change the way the animals digest their food.” Insanity.

In other news, Frej and I ordered soap nuts to do our laundry more eco friendly! I’ll write a longer post when I’ve tried them out properly.. Also we ordered those French Letter (faitrade & vegan)  condoms I was talking about here a while ago and while I usually try to not get affected by wrapping and such, they look so much nicer than ordinary condom packages. And the ones with smells have really nice ones such as rose, passion fruit and vanilla, the ones without smells are completely odourless instead of smelling like rubber = great!
We ordered both products from  Jordklok which is a swedish store, but if you’re from abroad Sweden I am sure you’ll find plenty of retailers for both the soap nuts and French Letter with just a quick google search.

Information worth remembering.

By I am Green, found through Ekoshoppa.