Green Daily

Have you ever tried to find an ingredients list for a bottle of dish soap? It's nearly impossible. Sometimes mainstream corporations will publish ingredients on their website but more often than not, their formula is so secret that they won't tell you what you putting on your dishes. This very issue is what drove a lawsuit against the likes of Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive by environmentalists.

Six different organizations including the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association have banded together to file suit against several detergent making companies. Representing the claimants is Earthjustice, a non-profit public interest law firm in New York.

The crux of the suit falls on the New York's Environmental Conservation Law passed in 1976 that requires companies to file ingredients lists semiannually with the State of New York. Not surprisingly, the only two companies who have been in compliance are Method and Seventh Generation. The rest were put on notice last September.

I would like to see more ingredients listed on detergents that line the shelves. Then again, I spend most of my time cleaning with vinegar.